MACKEY'S

FREEMASONRY ENCYCLOPEDIA

T-2

THRONE

The seat occupied by the Grand Master in the Grand Lodge of England is called the throne, in allusion, probably, to the throne of Solomon. In American Grand Lodges it is styled the Oriental Chair of King Solomon, a title which is also given to the seat of the Master of a subordinate Lodge. In ecclesiology, the seat in a Cathedral occupied by a Bishop is called a throne; and in the Middle Ages, according to Du Cange, the same title was not only applied to the seats of Bishops, but often also to those of Abbots, or even Priests who were in possession of titles or churches.

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THUGS

A Hindu Association that offered human sacrifices to their divinity Kali. It was dreaded for its violence and the fierceness of its members, who were termed either Stranglers or Aspirants.

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THUMMIM

See Urim and Thummim

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THURIBLE

From Thur, or Thus meaning frankincentse, and ible which has here the same significance as the English suffix able, as in serviceable, the word Thurible, is in Latin Thuribulum. A metallic censer for burning incense. It is of various forms, but generally in that of an ornamental cup suspended bv chains, whereby the Thurlfer or center bearer keeps the incense burning and diffuses the perfume.

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THURIFER

The bearer of the thurible, or center, prepared with frankincense, and used by the Roman Catholic Church at Mass and other ceremonials; ats also in the Philosophic Degrees of Freemasonry.

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THURSDAY

The fifth day of the week. So called from its being originally consecrated to Thor, or the Icelandic Thorr, the god of thunder, answering to the Jove of the Romans.

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TIE

The first clause in the Covenant of Freemasonry which refers to the preservation of the secrets is technically called the tie. It is substantially the same in the Covenant of each Degree, from the lowest to the highest.

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TIE, MYSTIC
See Mystic Tie

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TIERCE, DE LA

He was the first translator of Anderson's Constitutions into French, the manuscript of which he says that he prepared during his residence in London. He afterward published it at Frankfort, in 1743, with the title of Histoire, Obligations et Statuts de la tres venerable Confraternite des Francs-Maçons, tires de leurs archives et conformis auz traditions les pluts anciennes, etc., History, Obligations and Statutes of the very venerable Confraternity of the Freemasons, taken from their archives and agreeable to the most ancient traditions, etc. His work contains a translation into French of the Old Charges —the General Regulations—and manner of constituting a new Lodge, as given by Anderson in 1723. De la Tierce is said to have been, while in London, an intimate friend of Anderson, the first edition of whose Constitutions he used when he compiled his manuscript in 1725. But he improved on Anderson's work by dividing the history in epochs. This course Anderson pursued in his second edition; which circumstance has led Schneider, in the Neuen Journale zur Freimaurerei, to suppose that in writing that second edition, Anderson was aided by the previous labors of De la Tierce, of whose work he was most probably in possession.

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TILE

A Lodge is said to be tiled when the necessary precautions have been taken to prevent the approach of unauthorized persons; and it is said to be the first duty of every Freemason to see that this is done before the Lodge is opened. The words to tile are sometimes used in the same sense as to examine, as when it is said that a visitor has been tiled, that is, has been examined. But the expression is not in general use, and does not seem to be a correct employment of the term. The English expression close tyled means that a Lodge is formally secluded against all persons not fully qualified and authorized to enter.

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TILER

An officer of a Symbolic Lodge, whose duty is to guard the door of the Lodge, and to permit no one to pass in who is not duly qualified, and who has not the permission of the Master. A necessary qualification of a Tiler is, therefore, that he should be a Master Mason. Although the Lodge may be opened in an inferior Degree, no one who has not advanced to the Third Degree can legally discharge the functions of Tiler.

As the Tiler is always compensated for his services, he is considered, in some sense, as the servant of the Lodge. It is, therefore, his duty to prepare the Lodge for its meetings, to arrange the furniture in its proper place, and to make all other arrangements for the convenience of the Lodge. The Tiler need not be a member of the Lodge which he tiles; and in fact, in large cities, one Brother very often performs the duties of Tiler of several Lodges.

This is a very important office, and, like that of the Master and Wardens, owes its existence, not to any conventional regulations, but to the very landmarks of the order; for, from the peculiar nature of our Institution, it is evident that there never could have been a meeting of Freemasons for Masonic purposes, unless a Tiler had been present to guard the Lodge from intrusion. The title is derived from the Operative Art; for as in Operative MasGnry the Tiler, when the edifice is erected, finishes and covers it with the roof of tiles, so in Speculative Masonry, when the Lodge is duly organized, the Tiler closes the door and covers the sacred precincts from all intrusion.

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TlLER'S OATH
See Oath, Tiler's

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TILER'S SWORD, BREAKING
See Sword, Tiler's

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TILLY DE GRASSE
See Grasse, Tilly de

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TILUK

The sacred impress made upon the forehead of the Brahman, like unto the Tau to the Hebrew, or the Cross to the Christian.

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TIMBRE

The French Freemasons so call a stamp, consisting of the initials or monogram of the Lodge, which is impressed in black or red ink upon every official document emanating from the Lodge. When such a document has the seal also attached, it is said to be timbrée et scene that is, stamped tend sealed. The timbre, which differs from the seal, is not used in English or American Lodges.

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TIME

The image of Tizee, under the conventional figure of a winged old man with the customary scythe and hour-glass, has been adopted as one of the modern symbols in the Third Degree. He is represented as attempting to disentangle the ringlets of a weeping virgin who stands before him. This, which is apparently a never-ending task, but one which Time undertakes to perform, is intended to teach the Freemasons that time, patience and perseverance will enable him to accomplish the great object of a Freemason's labor, and at last to obtain the true Word which is the symbol of Divine Truth. Time, therefore, is in this connection the symbol of well-directed perseverance in the performance of duty.

This symbol with the broken column, so familiar to all Freemasons in the United States is probably an American innovation (see Aroken Column, also Monument, and Weeping Virgin).

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TIME AND CIRCUMSTANCES

The answer to the question "Has he made suitable proficiency?" has been sometimes made, "Such as time and circumstances would permit." This is an error, and may be a mischievous one, as leading to a careless preparation of the candidate for qualification to advancement. The correct answer is "Ele has" (see Advancement, Hurried).

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TIMOR ISLAND
See Oceania

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TIRSHATHA

The title given to the Persian governors of Judea. It was borne by Zerubbabel and Nehemiah. It is supposed to be derived from the Persian borsch, meaning austere or severe, and is therefore, says Gesenius, equivalent to Your Seventy. It is in the modern ritual of the Supreme Council for the Southern Jurisdiction of the United States the title of the presiding officer of a Council of Princes of Jerusalem. It is also the title of the presiding officer of the Royal Order of Heredom of Kilwinning.

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TISRI

The Hebrew word . The first month of the Hebrew civil year, and corresponding to the month of September and October, beginning with the new moon of the former.

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TITAN OF THE CAUCASUS

The fifty-third Degree of the Memphis Rite

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TITLES

The titles conferred in the rituals of Freemasonry upon various officers are often apparently grandiloquent, lofty, and have given occasion to some, who have not fully understood their true meaning, to call them absurd and bombastic. On this subject Brother Albert Pike has, in the following remarks, given a just significance to Masonic titles:

Some of these titles we retain, but they have with us meanings entirely consistent with the spirit of equality, which is the foundation and peremptory law of its being, of all Freemasonry. The Knight, with us, is he who devotes his hand, his heart, his brain to the service of freemasonry, and professes himself the sworn soldier of truth: the Prince is he who aims to be chief, Princeps. first, leader among his equals, in virtue and good deeds: the Sovereign is he who, one of an Order whose members are all sovereigns, is supreme only because the law and Constitutions are so which he administers, and by which he like every other Brother, is governed. The titles Puissant, Potent, Wise, and Venerable indicate that power of virtue, intelligence, and wisdom which those ought to strive to attain who are placed in high offices by the suffrages of their Brethren, and all our other titles and designations have an esoteric meaning consistent with modesty and equality and which those who receive them should fully understand.

(See also Sermons, Masonic.)

A further welcome consideration of the subject is by Canon J. W. Horsley, who compares Masonic titles with those of the Episcopal Church, particularly the Church of England. Brother Horsley writes in Transactions, Quatuor Coronati Lodge, 1910 (part 2, volume X.Viii, page 98) that it may be obvious to the observing, but all people do not observe, that many of the names and titles used in Freemasonry and its organization have been borrowed directly and in their proper order from the Church of England. He invited an examination of the following illustrations.

1. The Church of England has at its head the two Primates of Canterbury and of York, and their official title is The Most Reverend. Masonry therefore has The Most Worshipful Grand Master, and Pro-Grand Master.

2. Under them in the hierarchy come the Right Reverend the Bishops. So Masonry puts next to its heads The Right Worshipful the Deputy Grand Master, The Right Worshipful Provincial Grand Masters, and The Right Worshipful Grand Wardens.

3. The next title of honor or office in the Church is that of Very Reverend applied to Deans or Heads of Cathedral Chapters. Hence Very Worshipful as designating Grand Chaplain, Grand Treasurers, Registrar, Secretary, Director of Ceremonies, and President of the Board of Benevolence.

4. The unit of the Parish brings us to the parallel of The Reverend Parish Priests and The Worshipful the Master of a Lodge. Each is assisted by two Wardens and the association for many legal and administrative purposes of Rector and Church Wardens is as real and close as that of Master and Wardens.

5. One might here note the resemblance between the ceremony of the induction of the Priest into the benefice or care of a Parish and that of the installation of a Mason as Master of a Lodge. In the case of the more formal appointing of a Canon the resemblance is more marked by the ecclesiastical use of the word "installation" and moreover by the character of the physical act whereby the Bishop puts the new Canon into his Stall with a ritual that comes with no novelty to one who has previously been installed as the Master of a Lodge.

6. Reverting to the fact that of the two Primates the Archbishop of Canterbury is termed Primate of All England and the Archbishop of York the Primate of England, we may recall the time when in the early part of the 18th century there was a Grand Lodge of All England and a Grand Lodge of England.

7. Why certain groupings of Lodges are called Provinces may have puzzled some. Not so, however, those who as Churchmen were familiar with the division of lingland into the Province of Canterbury and the Province of York.

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TITLES OF GRAND LODGES

The title of the Grand Lodge of England is "The United Grand Lodge of Ancient Free and Accepted Masons. " That of Ireland is "The Grand Masonic Lodge. " Of Scotland, "The Grand Lodge of the Ancient and Honorable Fraternity of Free and Accepted Masons." Those of France are "The Grand Lodge of France," "The National Independent and Regular Grand Lodge of France and the French Colonies," and "The Grand Orient." The same title is taken by the Grand Lodges or Supreme Masonic authorities of Portugal, Belgium, Italy, Spain, and Greece, and also by the Grand Lodges of all the South American States. Of the German Grand Lodged the only three that have distinctive titles are "The Grand National Mother Lodge of the Three Globes," "The Grand National Lodge of Germany," and "The Grand Lodge Royal York of Friendship." In Sweden and Denmark they are simply called "Grand Lodges." In the English possessions of North America they are also called "Grand Lodges."

In the United States the title of the Grand Lodge of Maine, of Massachusetts, of Rhode Island, of Alabama, of Illinois, of Iowa, of Wisconsin, of Minnesota, of Worth Carolina, and of Oregon, is the "Most Worshipful Grand Lodge of Ancient Free and Accepted Masons" of Pennsylvania, "The Right Worshipful Grand Lodge of the Most Ancient and Honorable Fraternity of Free and Accepted Masons of Pennsylvania, and Masonic Jurisdiction There unto Belonging" of Ohio, "The Most Worshipful Grand Lodge of the Most Ancient and Honorable Fraternity of Free and Accepted Masons" of New Hampshire, of Vermont, of New York, of New Jersey, of Arkansas, and of Indiana, it is "The Grand Lodge of the Ancient and Honorable Fraternity of Free and Accepted Masons" of Maryland, of the District of Columbia, of Florida, of Michigan, of Missouri, and of California, is "Grand Lodge of Free and Accepted Masons"; of South Carolina is "Most Worshipful Grand Lodge of Ancient Free Masons" of all the other States the title is simply the "Grand Lodge."

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TITO

A significant word in the advanced Degrees. The Ancient and Accepted Scottish Rite rituals give the name of Tito, Prince Harodim, to him who they say was the first who was appointed by Solomon a Provost and Judge. This person appears to be altogether mythical; the word is not found in the Hebrew language, nor has any meaning been given to it. He is represented as having been a favorite of the King of Israel.

He is said to have ruled over the Lodge of the Intendants of the Building, and to have been one of the twelve illustrious knights who were set over the Twelve Tribes, that of Naphtali being placed under his care. The whole of this legend is, of course, connected with the symbolic signification of those Degrees.

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TOASTS

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TOASTE

Anderson says (Constitutions, 1738, page 110) that in 1719 Doctor Desaguliers, having been installed Grand Master, "forthwith revived the old, regular, and peculiar toasts or healths of the Freemasons." If Anderson's statements could be implicitly trusted as historical facts, we should have to conclude that a system of regulated toasts prevailed in the Lodges before the revival. The custom of drinking healths at banquets is a very old one, and can be traced to the days of the ancient Greeks and Romans. From them it was handed down to the moderns, and especially in England we find the "waeshael" of the Saxons, a term used in drinking, and equivalent to the modern phrase, "Your health."

Steele, in the Tatler, intimates that the word toast began to be applied to the drinking of healths in the early part of the eighteenth century. And although his account of the origin of the word has been contested, it is very evident that the drinking of toasts was a universal custom in the clubs and festive associations which were common in London about the time of the revival of Freemasonry. It is therefore to be presumed that the Masonic Lodges did not escape the influences of the convivial spirit of that age, and drinking in the Lodge-room during the hours of refreshment was a usual custom, but, as Doctor Oliver observes, all excess was avoided, and the confidentialities of freemasonry were regulated by the Old Charges, which directed the Brethren to enjoy themselves with decent mirth, not forcing any Brother to eat or drink beyond his inclination, nor hindering him from going home when he pleased The drinking was conducted by rule, the Master giving the toast, but first inquiring of the Senior Wardens "Are sou charged in the West, Brother Senior?" and of the Junior Wardens "Are you charged in the South, brother Junior?" to which appropriate replies being made, the toast was drunk with honors peculiar to the Institution. In an old Masonic song, the following stanza occurs:

"Are you charged in the West? are you charged in the South?"
The Worshipful Master cries.
"We are charged in the West, we are charged in the South.'
Each Warden prompt replies.

One of the catechetical works of the eighteenth century thus described the drinking customs of the Freemasons of that period: "The table being plentifully supplied with seine and punch, every man has a glass set before him, and fills it with what he chooses. But he must drink his glass in turn, or at least keep the motion with the rest. When, therefore, a public health is given, the Master fills first, and desires the Brethren to charge their glasses; and when this is supposed to be done, the Master says, Brethren, are -you all charged? The Senior and Junior Wardens answer, we are all charged in the South and West. Then they all stand up, and observing the Master's motions, like the soldier his right-hand man, drink their glasses off."

Another Work of the same period says that the first toast given was, The Sting and the Craft." But a still older work gives what it calls "A Free-Mason's Health" in the following words: "Here's a health to our Society and to every faithful Brother that keeps his oath of secrecy. As we are sworn to love each other, the world no Order knows lice this our noble and ancient Fraternity. Let them wonder at the Mystery. Here, brother, I drink to thee."

In time the toasts improved in their style, and were deemed of so much importance that lists of them, for the benefit of those who were deficient of inventive genius, were published in all the pocketbooks, calendars, and song books of the Order. thus a large collection is to be found in the Masonic Miscellanies of Stephen Jones. A few of them will show their technical character: "To the secret and silent"; "To the memory of the distinguished Three." "To all that live within compass and square"; "To the memory of the Tyrian Artists." "To him that first the word began," etc. But there was a regular series of toasts which, besides these voluntary ones, were always given at the refreshments of the Brethren. Thus, whether or no the reigning sovereign happened to be a member of the Fraternity, the first toast given was always "The King and the Craft." And the final toast by the Tiler, common in most English speaking countries still never be forgotten. In the French Lodges the drinking of toasts was, with the word itself, borrowed from England. It was, however, Subjected to strict rules, from which there could be no departure. Seven toasts were called Santas d'obligation, the Obligatory Healths, because drinking them was made obligatory, and could not be omitted at the Lodge banquet. They were as follows:

1. The health of the Sovereign and his family.
2. That of the Grand Master and the chiefs of the Order.
3. That of the Master of the Lodge. 4. That of the Wardens.
5. That of the other officers..
6. That of the Visitors.
7. That of all Freemasons wheresoever spread over the two hemispheres.

In 1872, the Grand Orient, after long discussions reduced the number of Santés d'obligation from seven to four, and changed their character. They were revised thus.

1. To the Grand Orient of France, the Lodges of its correspondences and foreign Grand Orients.
2. To the Master of the Lodge.
3 To the Wardens, the officers, affiliated Lodges, and Visiting Brethren.
4. To all Freemasons existing on each hemisphere.

The systematized method of drinking toasts, which in an elaborate fashion once prevailed in the Lodges of the English-speaking countries, has been, to some extent, abandoned; yet a few toasts still remain, which, although not absolutely obligatory, are still never omitted. Thus no Masonic Lodge would neglect at its banquet to offer, as its first toast, a sentiment expressive of respect for the Grand Lodge. With the temperance movement there has been a grooving check upon the use of stimulants with these expressions of good will and affection, and in the United States old customs have been modified materially.

The venerable Doctor Oliver was a great admirer of the custom of drinking Masonic toasts, and panegyrizes it in his Book of the Lodge (page 147). He says that at the time of refreshment in a Masonic Lodge "the song appeared to have more zest than in a private company; the toast thrilled more vividly upon the recollection; and the Small modicum of punch with which it was honored retained a higher flavor than the same potation if produced at a private board." And he adds, as a specimen, the following "characteristic toast," which he says has always received with a "profound expression of pleasure."

To him that all things understood
To him that found the stone and wood,
To him that hapless lost his blood
In doing of his duty
To that blest age and that blest morn
Whereon those three great men were born
Our noble science to adorn
With Wisdom, Strength, and Beauty.

It is not surprising that he should afterward pathetically deplore the discontinuance of the custom. Brother Sir Walter Scott has in the Knight's Toast beautifully expressed a sentiment of sincere affection evoked by a demand in some jovial company that the speaker would voice his homage of some cherished loved one for the honor of their united applause, a versification by our Brother Craftsman deserving of record here as follows:

Saint Leon raised his kindling eve
And lifts the sparkling cup on high;
" I drink to one,' he said,
' Whose image never may depart,
Deep graven on this grateful heart
Till memory be dead."
Saint Leon paused, as if he would
Not breathe her name in careless mood
Thus lightly to another;
Then bent his noble heads as though
To give the word the reverence due,
And gently said, My mother!

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TOFFET
See Tabaor

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TOKEN

The word token is derived from the Anglo-Saxon tacen, which means a sign, presage, type, or representation, that which points out something; and this is traced to taecan, to teach, show, or instruct, because by a token we show or instruct others as to what we are. Bailey, whose Dictionary was published soon after the Revival, defines it as "a sign or mark"; but it is singular that the word is not found in either of the dictionaries of Phillips or Blount, which were the most popular glossaries in the beginning of the eighteenth century. The word was, however, well known to the Fraternity, and was in use at the time of the Revival with precisely the same meaning that is now given to it as a mode of recognition.

The Hebrew word oth, is frequently used in Scripture to signify a sign or memorial of something past, some covenant made or promise given. thus God says to Noah, of the rainbow, "it shall be for a token of a covenant between me and the earth"; and to Abraham he says of circumcision, " it shall be a token of the covenant betwixt me and you." In Freemasonry, the grip of recognition is called a token, because it is an outward sign of the covenant of friendship and fellowship entered into between the members of the Fraternity, and is to be considered as a memorial of that covenant which was made, when it was first received by the candidate, between him and the Order into which he was then initiated.

Neither the French nor the German Freemasons have a word precisely equivalent to token. Krause translates it by merkmale, a sign or representation, but which has no technical Masonic Signification.. The French have only attachment, which means the act of touching or clasping hands; and the Germans, griff, which is the same as the English grip. In the technical use of the word token, the English-speaking Freemasons have an advantage not possessed by those of any other country.

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TOLAND, JOHN

Born on November 30, 1670, near Londonderry, Ireland; died March 11, 1722/3, near London, England. An industrious and independent writer upon religious matters he frequently became involved in disputes. His last work, Pantheisticon (a title derived mainly from two Greek words and meaning God is all and all is God), gave much offense to those who deemed it a presumptuous imitation of the forms for church worship. Whether there were really Such Societies of pantheists was also questioned (see John Poland, un Pretcurseur de la Franc-Maçonnerie, Lantoine, Paris, 1927, which also contains copy of the Pantheisticon). Toland describes the meeting—actual or imaginary as it may have been--of a society where the mutual understanding of philosophy and morals is by question and answer.

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TOLERANCE LODGE

When the initiation of Jews was forbidden in the Prussian Lodges, two brethren of Berlin, Von Hirschfeld and Catter, induced by a spirit of toleration, organized a Lodge in Berlin for the express purpose of initiating Jews, to which they gave the appropriate name of Tolerance Lodge. This Lodge was not recognized by the Masonic authorities.

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TOLERATION

The grand characteristic of Freemasonry is its toleration in religion and polities. In respect to the latter, its toleration has no limit. The question of a man's political opinions is not permitted to be broached in the Lodge; in reference to the former, it requires only that, to use the language of the Old Charge, Freemasons shall be of "that Religion in which all men agree, leaving their particular Opinions to themselves" (Constitutions, 17:23, page 63).

The same Old Charges say (page 68), You may enjoy yourselves with innocent Mirth treating one another according to ability, but avoiding all Excess, or forcing any brother to eat or drink beyond his Inclination, or hindering him from going when his Occasions call him, or doing or saying any thing offensive or that may forbid an easy and free Conversation, for that would blast our Harmony, and defeat our laudable Purposes. Therefore no private Piques or Quarrels must be brought within the Door of the Lodge, far less any Quarrels about Religion, or Nations, or State Policy, being only, as Masons, of the Catholic Religion above-mentioned: we are also of all Nations, Tongues, Kindreds and Languages, and are resolved against all Politicks, as what never yet conduced to the Welfare of the Lodge, nor ever will. This Charge has been always strictly enjoined and observed; but especially ever since the Reformation in Britain, or the Dissent and Secession of these Nations from the Communion of Rome.

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TOMB OF ADONIRAM

Margoliouth, in his History of the Jews, tells the legend that at Saguntum in Spain, a sepulcher was found four hundred years ago, with the following Hebrew inscription:

This is the grave of Adoniram, the servant of King Solomon, who came to collect the tribute and died on the day—" Margoliouth, who believes the mythical story, says that the Jesuit Villepandus, being desirous of ascertaining if the statements concerning the tomb were true, directed the Jesuit students who resided at Murviedro a small village erected upon the ruins of Saguntum, to make diligent search for the tomb and inscription. After thorough investigation, the Jesuit Students were shown a stone on which appeared a Hebrew inscription, much defaced and nearly obliterated. which the natives stated was the stone of Solomon's collector. Still unsatisfied, they made further search , and discovered a manuscript written in antique Spanish and carefully preserved in the citadel in which the following entry was made:"At Saguntum in the citadel, in the year of our Lord 1480, a little more or less, was discovered a sepulchre of surprising antiquity. It contained an embalmed corpse, not of the usual stature, but taller than is common. It had and still retains on the front two lines in the Hebrew language and characters, the sense of which is: 'The sepulchre of Adoniram, the servant of King Solomon, who came hither to collect tribute ."'

The story has far more the appearance of a Talmudic or a Rosicrucian legend than that of a historical narrative.

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TOMB OF HIRAM ABIF

All that is said of it in Freemasonry is more properly referred to in the article on the Monument in the Third Degree (see Monument).

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TOMB OF HIRAM OF TYRE

Five miles to the East of the City of Tyre is an ancient monument, called by the natives Kabr Hairan, or the Comb of Hiram. The tradition that the King of Tyre was there interred rests only on the authority of the natives. It bears about it, however, the unmistakable marks of extreme antiquity, and, as Thompson says (The Land and The Boots, page 196), there is nothing in the monument itself inconsistent with the idea that it marks the final resting-place of that friend of Solomon. He thus describes it:

The base consists of two tiers of great stones, each three feet thick, thirteen feet long, and eight feet eight inches broad. Above this is one huge stone, a little more than fifteen feet long, ten broad, and three feet four inches thick. Over this is another, twelve feet three inches long eight broad, and six high. The top stone is a little smaller every way, and only five feet thick. The entire height is twenty-one feet. There is nothing like it in this country, and it may even have stood, as it now does, ever since the days of Solomon. These large broken sarcophagi scattered around it are assigned by tradition to Hiram's mother wife, and family.

Doctor Morris, who visited the spot in 1868, gives a different measurement, which is probably more accurate than that of Thompson. According to him, the first tier is 14 feet long, 8 feet 8 inches broad, 4 feet thick. Second tier, 14 feet long, 8 feet 8 inches broad, 2 feet 10 inches thick. Third tier, 15 feet 1 inch long, 9 feet 11 inches broad, 2 feet 11 inches thick. Fourth tier, 12 feet 11 inches long, 7 feet 8 inches broad, 6 feet 5 inches thick. Fifth tier, 12 feet 11 inches long, 7 feet 8 inches broad. and 3 feet 6 inches thick. He makes the height of the whole 19 feet 8 inches. Travelers have been disposed to give more credit to the tradition which makes this monument the tomb of the King of Tyre than to most of the other legends which refer to ancient sepulchers in the Hols Land.

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TONGUE

In the early rituals of the eighteenth century, the tongue is called the key to the secrets of a Freemason; and one of the toasts that was given in the Lodge was in these words: "To that excellent key of a Mason's tongues which ought always to speak as well in the absence of a Brother as in his presence; and when that cannot be done with honor, justice, or propriety, that adopts the virtue of a Mason, which is Silence."

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TONGUE OF GOOD REPORT

Being "under the tongue of good report" is equivalent, in Masonic technical language, to being of good character or reputation. It is required that the candidate for initiation should be one of whom no tongue speaks evil. The phrase is an old one, and is found in the earliest rituals of the eighteenth century.

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TOPAZ

In Hebrew, pitdah. It was the second stone in the first row of the high priest's breastplate, and was referred to Simeon. The ancient topaz, says King (Antique Gems, page 56), was the present chrysolite, which was furnished from an island in the Red Sea. It is of a bright greenish yellow and the softest of all precious stones.

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TOPES

Pillars, also signifying towers and tumuli. This is a corruption of the Sanskrit word Stoopa, meaning mounds, heaps, karns. The Topes of the Karli temple, a Buddhist shrine, which may be seen up the Western Ghats from Bombay to Poona, are presumed to be Phallic pillars placed in front, precisely as Solomon placed his Jachin and Boaz. Some travelers state that only one of these pillars stands at present. The pillars were shaft plain, with a capital carrying four lions, representing power of cat-like salaciousness. Between these pillars may be seen the great window which lights all the Temple, arched in the form of a horseshoe, which is the Isian headdress and Maiya's holy sign, and after which the Roman Catholic Church adopts one of Mary's favorite head-dresses. It is the Crown of Venus Urania.

These pillars are prominent features of Buddhist sacred buildings, and when composed of a single stone are called a Lat. They are frequently ornamented with honeysuckles. The oldest monument hitherto discovered in India is a group of these monoliths set up by Asoka in the middle of the third century before Christ. They were all alike in form, inscribed with four short Edits containing the creed and principle doctrines of Buddhism. These pillars stood originally in front of some sacred buildings which have perished; they are polished, 45 feet each in height, and surmounted by lions. The Thuparamya Tope, in Ceylon, has 184 handsome monoliths, 26 feet in height, round the center holy mound (see Mound Builders).

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TORCH BEARER

The fifteenth officer in the High Council of the Society of Rosicrucians; also known as an officer in the Appendant Order of the Holy Sepllleher. One who bears a torch.

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TORCHES

The ancients made use of torches both at marriages and funerals. They were also employed in the ceremonies of the Eleusinian Mysteries. They have been introduced into the advanced Degrees, especially on the Continent, principally as marks of honor in the reception of distinguished visitors, on which occasion they are technically called stars. Du Cange mentions their use during the Middle Ages on funeral occasions.

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TORGAU, CONSTITUTIONS OF

Torgau is a fortified town on the Elbe, in the Prussian Province of Saxony. It was there that Luther and his friends wrote the Book of Torgau, which was the foundation of the subsequent Augsburg Confession, and it was there that the Lutherans concluded a league with the Elector Frederick the Wise. The Stone-Masons, whose seat was there in the fifteenth century, had, with the other Masons of Saxony, accepted the Constitutions enacted in 1459 at Strasbourg. But finding it necessary to make some special regulations for their own internal government, they drew up, in 1462, Constitutions in one hundred and twelve articles, which are known as the Torgau Ordinances. A duplicate of these Constitutions was deposited, in 1486, in the StoneMason's hütte or Lodge at Rochlitz. An authenticated copy of this document was published by C. L. Stieglitz at Leipsic, in 1829, in a work entitled Ueber die Kirche der heiligen Kunigunde zu Rochlitz und die Steinmetzhütte daselbst, Concerning the Church of the Holy Kunigunde at Rochlilz and the Stone-Masons Lodge here An abstract of these Ordinances, with critical comparisons with other Constitutions, was published by Kloss in his Die Freimaurerei in ihrer wahren Bedeutung, Freemasons in their True Meaning. The Torgau Ordinances are important because with those of Strasbourg, they are the only authentic Constitutions of the German Stone-Masons extant except the Brother-Book of 1563.

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TORRUBIA, JOSEPH

A Franciscan monk, who in 1751 was the censor and reviser of the Inquisition in Spain. Torrubia, that he might be the better enabled to carry into effect a persecution of the Freemasons, obtained under an assumed name, and in the character of a secular priest, initiation into one of the Lodges, having first received from the Grand Penitentiary a dispensation for the act, and an absolution from the oath of secrecy. Having thus acquired an exact list of the Lodges in Spain, and the names of their members, he caused hundreds of Freemasons to be arrested and punished, and succeeded in having the Order prohibited by a decree of King Ferdinand VI. Torrubia combined in his character the bigotry of an intolerant priest and the villainy of the deceitful traitor.

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TOURNON, M

A Frenchman and Freemason, who had been invited into Spain by the government in order to establish a manufactory of brass buttons, and to instruct the Spanish workmen. In 1757, he was arrested by the Inquisition on the charge of being a Freemason, and of having invited his pupils to join the Institution. He was sentenced to imprisonment for one year, after which he was banished from Spain, being conducted under an escort to the frontiers of France. Tournon was indebted for this clemency to his want of firmness and fidelity to the Order —he having solemnly abjured it, and promised never again to attend its assemblies. Llorente, in his History of the Inquisition, gives an account of Tournon's trial.

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TOW, CABLE
See Cable Toto

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TOWER, DEGREE OF THE

The French expression is Grade de la Tour. A name sometimes given to the Second Degree of the Royal Order of Scotland.

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TOWER OF BABEL
SeeBabel

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TOWN, SALEM

The Rev. Salem Town, LL.D., was born at Belchertown, in the State of Massachusetts, March 5, 1779. He received a classical education, and obtained at college the degree of Master of Arts, and later in life that of Doctor of Laws. For some years he was the Principal of an Academy, and his writings give the evidence that he was endowed with more than ordinary abilities. He was ardently attached to Freemasonry, and was for many years Grand Chaplain of the Grand Lodge and Grand Chapter, and Grand Prelate of the Grand Commandery of New York. In 1818 he published a small work of two hundred and eighty-three pages entitled A System of Speculative Masonry. This work is of course tinged with all the legendary ideas of the origin of the Institution which prevailed at that period, and would not now be accepted as authoritative; but it contains, outside of its historical errors, many valuable and suggestive thoughts. Brother Town was highly respected for his many virtues, the consistency of his life, and his unwearied devotion to the Masonic Order. He died at Greencastle, Indiana, February 24, 1864.

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TOWNSHEND, SIMEON

The putative author of a book entitled Observations and Inquiries relating to the Brotherhood of the Free Masons, which is said to have been printed at London in 1712. Boileau, Levesque, Thory, Oliver, and Kloss mention it by name. None of them, however, appear to have seen it. Kloss calls it a doubtful book. If such a work is in existence, it will be a valuable and much needed contribution to the conditions of Freemasonry in the South of England just before the Revival, and may tend to settle some mooted questions. Levesque (Aperçu—meaning Fleeting Glance or Synopsis—page 47) says he has consulted - it; but his manner of referring to it throws suspicion on the statement, and it is doubtful if he ever saw it.

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TRACING-BOARD
The same as a FloorCloth, which see

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TRADE GILDS
SeeGilds

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TRADITION

There are two kinds of traditions in Freemasonry: First, those which detail events, either historically, authentic in part, or in whole, or consisting altogether of arbitrary fiction, and intended simply to convey an allegorical or symbolic meaning; and second of traditions which refer to customs and usages of the Fraternity, especially in matters of ritual observance.
The first class has already been discussed in this work in the article on Legend, to which the reader is referred. The second class is now to be considered.

The traditions which control and direct the usages of the Fraternity constitute its unwritten law, and are almost wholly applicable to its ritual, although they are sometimes of use in the interpretation of doubtful points in its written law. Between the written and the unwritten law, the latter is always paramount. This is evident from the definition of a tradition as it is given by the monk Vincent of Lerins: Quod semper, quod ubique, quod ab omnibus traditum est; that is, tradition is that which has been handled down at all times, and in ad places, and by all persons. The law which thus has antiquity, universality, and common consent for its support, must override all subsequent laws which are modern, local, and have only partial agreement.
It is then important that those traditions of Freemasonry which prescribe its ritual observances and its landmarks should be thoroughly understood, because it is only by attention to them that uniformity in the esoteric construction and work of the Order can be preserved.

Cicero has wisely said that a well-constituted Commonwealth must be governed not by the written law alone, but also by the unwritten law or tradition and usage; and this is especially the case, because the written law, however perspicuous it may be, can be diverted into various senses, unless the Republic is maintained and preserved by its usages and traditions, which, although mute and as it were, dead, yet speak with a living voice, and give the true interpretation of that which is written.

This axiom is not less true in Freemasonry than it is in a Commonwealth. No matter what changes may be made in its Statutes and Regulations of today and its recent customs, there is no danger of losing the identity of its modern with its ancient form and spirit while its traditions are recognized and maintained. Such of the traditions of our Institution that support our established rules and practices may be deemed the very common law of the Craft.

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THORY, CLAUDE ANTOINE

A distinguished French Masonic writer, who was born at Paris, May 26, 1759. He was by profession an advocate, and held the official position of Registrar of the Criminal Court of the Chatelet, and afterward of first adjunct of the Mayor of Paris. He was a member of several learned societies, and a naturalist of considerable reputation. He devoted his attention more particularly to botany, and published several valuable works on the genus Rosa, and also one on strawberries, which was published after his death.

Thory took an important part, both as an actor and a writer, in the Masonic history of France. He s as a member Or bhe Lotltge Saint Alexalldre d'Eeosse and of the Contrat Soeial, out of whose incorporation into one proceeded the Mother Lodge of the Philosophie Scottish Rite, of which Thory may be justly called the founder. He was at its constitution made the presiding officer, and afterward its Treasurer, and Keeper of its Archives. In his last capacity, he made a collection of rare and valuable manuscripts, books, medals, seals, jewels, bronze figures, and other objects connected with Freemasonry. Under his administration, the Library and Museum of the Mother Lodge became perhaps the most valuable collection of the kind in France or in any other country. After the Mother Lodge ceased its labors in 1826, this fine collection passed by a previous stipulation into the possession of the Lodge of Wont Thabor, which was the oldest of the Rite.

Thory, while making collections for the Lodge, had amassed for himself a fund of the most valuable materials toward the history of Freemasonry, which he used with great effect in his subsequent publications. In 1813 he published the Annales Originis Magni Galliarum Orientis, ou Histoire de la Fondation du Grand Orient de France, History of the Foundation of the Grand Orient of France, in one volume; and in 1815 his Acta Latomorum, ou Chronologie de l'Histoire de la Franche-Mafonnerie, Francaise et Etrangere, Masonic Proceedings, or Chronology of the History of French and Foreign Freemasonry, in two volumes. The value of these worlds, especially of the latter, if not as well-digested histories, certainly as important contributions to Masonic history cannot be denied. Yet they have been variously appreciated by his contemporaries.

Rebold (History of the Three Grand Lodges, page 530) saxs of the Annales, that it is one of the best historical productions that French Masonic literature possesses; while 13esuchet (Précis If istoriquc} Historical Summary ii, page 275) charges that he has attempted to discharge the functions of a historian without exactitude and without impartiality. These discordant views are to be attributed to the active part that Thory took in the contests between the Grand Orient and the Ancient and Accepted Scottish Rite, and the opposition which he offered to the claims of the former to the Supreme Masonic authority. Posterity will form its judgment on the character of Thory as a Masonic historian without reference to the evanescent rivalry of parties He died in October, 1827.

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THOUX DE SALVERTE

Founder in 1767, at Warsaw, of the Academy of-Ancients, which see.

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THREAD OF LIFE

In the earliest lectures of the eighteenth century, we find this Catechism:
Have you the key of the Lodge?
Yes, I have.
What is its virtue?
To open and shut, and shut and open
Where do you keep it?
In an ivory box. between my tongue and rny teeth, or within my heart, where all my secrets are kept.
Have you the chain to the key?
Yes, I have.
How long is it7
As long as from my tongue to my heart.

In a later lecture, this key is said to "hang by a tow line nine inches or a span." And later still, in the old Prestonian lecture, it is said to hang by "the thread of life, in the passage of elltrallee, nine inches or a span long, the supposed distance between guttural and pectoral All of which is intended simply to symbolize the close connection which in every Freemason should exist between his tongue and his heart, so that the one may utter nothing that the other does not truly dictate.

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THREE

Everywhere among the ancients the number three was deemed the most sacred of numbers. A reverence for its mystical virtues is to be found even among the Chinese, who say that numbers begin at one and are made perfect at three, and hence they denote the multiplicity of any object by repeating the character which stands for it three times. In the philosophy of Plato, it was the image of the Supreme Being, because it includes in itself the properties of the two first numbers, and because, as Aristötle says, it contains within itself a beginning, a middle, and an end. The Pythagoreans called it perfect harmony.

The Bible contains significant references to threes. Christ is thus mentioned (Matthew xii, 40): "For as Jonas was three days and three nights in the whale's belly; so shall the Son of man be three days and three nights in the heart of the earth." Another allusion is "Jesus answered and said unto them, destroy this temple, and in three days I will raise it up. Then, said the Jews, Forty and six years was this temple in building, and wilt thou rear it up in three days? But he spake of the temple of his body. " (John ii, 1>91.) David had his choice between three evils extended respectively over three years, or three months, or three days, "Choose thee either three years' famine; or three months to be destroyed before thy foes, while that the sword of thine enemies overtaketh thee; or else three days the sword of the Lord, even the pestilence, in the land, and the angel of the Lord destroying throughout all the coasts of Israel. Now, therefore, advise thyself what word I shall bring again to him that sentele" (First Chronicles xxi! 11, 12). Where is also the division of life, land, sea, stars, sun an(l moon, day and night into thirds as described in the New Testament (Revelation viii, 7-13).

Gideon's array of three hundred was divided also into three parts (Judges vii, 16). three of the sacrifices to the Lord God well each to be three years old (Genesis xv, 9). In fact, the first book of the Old Testament alone has about twenty-eight references to three of various kinds. Threescore is also a frequent number in the Bible as in Genesis (xxx, 7, 26) and Revelation (xi, 3; xii, 6, and xiii, 18) and there is the familiar "A three-fold cord is not easily broken" of Ecclesiastes (iv, 12).

So sacred was this number deemed by the ancients, that we find it designating some of the attributes of almost all the gods. The thunderbolt of Jove was three-forked; the scepter of Neptune was a trident; Cerberus, the dog of Pluto, was three-headed; there were three Fates and three Furies; the sun had three names, Apollo, Sol, and Liber; and the moon these three, Diana, Luna, and Hecate. In all incantations, three was a favorite number, for, aws Virgil says, Numero Deus impari gaudet, that is God delights in an odd number. A triple cord was used, each cord of three different colors, wilite, red, and black; and a small image of the Subject of charm visas carried thrice around the altar, as we see in Virgil's eighth Eclogue (line 73): Terna taxi hacc prinzuarl, triplici dirersa colore Licia circumdo, terQtte haec altaria circum Effigem duco.

First I surround thee with these three pieces of list or thread, and I earrv thy image three times round the altars.

Shakespeare (Macbeth, act i, scene iv) refers to the three-fold sorceries of the three witches. The author, T. G. Limollett in his novel Peregrine Pickle quotes as a well-known proverb the expression "Number three is always fortunate." Oliver Wendell Holmes has in "The Last Leaf" employed an old three-cornered hat as some excuse for mirth and there are many other references of interest in literature.

The Druids paid no less respect to this sacred number. Throughout their whole system, a reference is constantly made to its influence; and so far did their veneration for it extend, that even their sacred poetry was composed in triads.

In all the Mysteries, from Egypt to Scandinavia, we find a sacred regard for the number three, as in the father, mother and child deities, Osiris, Isis, and Horus. In the Rites of Mithras, the Empyrean was said to be supported by three intelligences, Ormuzd, Mithra, and Mithras. In the Rites of Hindustan, there was the trinity of Brahma, Vishnu, and Siva. It was, in short, a general character of the Mysteries to have three principal officers and three grades of initiation. In Freemasonry, the ternary is the most sacred of all the mystical numbers. Beginning with the old axiom of the Roman Artificers, that tres factunt colleyfum, or it requires three to make a college, they have established the rule that no less than three shall congregate to form a Lodge. Then in all the hits, whatever may be the number of superimposed grades, there lie at the basis the three Symbolic Degrees. There are in all the Degrees three principal officers, three supports, three greater and three lesser lights, three movable and three improvable jewels, three principal tenets, three working-tools of a Fellow Craft, three principal orders of architectures three chief human senses, three Ancient Grand Masters. In fact, everywhere in the system the number three is presented as a prominent Symbol. So much is this the case, that all the other mystical members depend upon it, for each is a multiple of three, its square or its cube, or derived from them. Thus, 9, 27, 81* are formed by the multiplication f three, as 3 X 3 = 9, and 32 X 3 = 27, and 32 X 32 = 81 (see Triad also 'three Points). But in nothing is the Masonic signification of the ternary made more interesting than its collection with the sacred delta, the symbol of Deity (see Triangle).

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TRAMPING MASONS
Unworthy members of the Order, who, using their privileges for interested purposes, traveling from city to city and from Lodge to Codger that they may seek relief by tales of fictitious distress, have been called tramping Masons. The true Brother should ever obtain assistance; the tramper should be driven from the door of every Lodge or the house of every Freemason where he seeks to intrude his imposture.

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TRANSFER OF WARRANT

The English Constitutions (Rule 221) enact that "No Warrant can be transferred under any circumstances." Similarly the Scotch Constitution (Rule 148) says "A Charter cannot be transferred under any circumstances."

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TRANSIENT BRETHREN

Freemasons who do not reside in a particular place, but only temporarily visit it, are called Transient Brethren. They are, if worthy, to be cordially welcomed, but are never to be admitted into a Lodge until, after the proper precautions, they have been proved to be "true and trusty." This usage of hospitality has the authority of all the Old Constitutions, which are careful to inculcate it. Thus the Lansdowne Manuscript charges "that every Mason receive or cherish Strange Fellows when they come over the country, and sett them on work if they will work, as the manner is, that is to say, if the Mason have any mold stone in his place, on work; and if he have none, the Mason shall refresh him with money unto the next Lodge. " Although Speculative Freemasons no longer visit Lodges for the sake of work or wages, the usage of our Operative predecessors has been spiritualized in our symbolic system. Hence visitors are often invited to take a part in the labors of the Lodge, and receive their portion of the Light and Truth which constitute symbolic pay of a Speculative Freemason.

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TRANSITION PERIOD

Findel calls that period in the history of Freemasonry, when it was gradually changing its character from that of an Operative to that of a Speculative Society, the Transition Period. It began in 1600, and terminated in 1717 by the establishment of the Grand Lodge of England in London, after which, says Findel (History, English Translation page 131), "modern Freemasonry was now to be taught as a spiritualizing art, and the Fraternity of Operative Masons was exalted to a Brotherhood of Symbolic Builders, who, in the place of visible, perishable Temples, are engaged in the erection of that one, invisible, eternal Temple of the heart and mind."

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TRANSMISSION, CHARTER OF

A deed said to have been granted by James de Molay, just before his death, to Mark Larmenius, by which he transmitted to him and to his successors the office of Grand Master of the Templars. It is the foundation deed of the Order of the Temple. After having disappeared for many rears it was rediscovered and purchased by Brother Fred J. W. Crowe of Chichester, England, who thought it too important and valuable to remain in private hands, and it was placed in the possession of the threat Priory of England. It is written in a Latin cipher on a large folio sheet of parchment. The outward appearance of the document is of great antiquity. but it lacks internal evidence of authenticity. It is, therefore, by many authorities, considered a forgery (see Temple, Order of the).

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TRAPPISTS, ORDER OF RELIGIOUS

An order founded by that devotee of secret organizations, Count La Perche, in 1140.

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TRAVEL

In the symbolic language of Freemasonry, a Freemason always travels from West to East in search of light—he travels from the lofty tower of Babel, where language was confounded and Freemasonry lost, to the threshing-floor of Ornan the Jebusite, where language was restored and Freemasonry found. The Master Mason also travels into foreign countries in search of wages. All this is pure symbolism, unintelligible, in any other sense (for its interpretation, see Foreign Country and Threshing Floor).

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TRAVELING MASONS

There is no portion of the history of the Order so interesting to the Masonic scholar as that which is embraced by the Middle Ages of Christendom, beginning with about the tenth century, when the whole of civilized Europe was perambulated by those associations of workmen, who passed from country to country and from city to city under the name of Traveling Masons, for the purpose of erecting religious edifices. There is not a country of Europe which does not at this day contain honorable evidences of the skill and industry of our Masonic ancestors. We therefore propose, in the present article, to give a brief sketch of the origin, the progress, and the character of these traveling architects.

George Godwin, in a lecture published in the Builder (volume ix, page 463), says: "There are few points in the Middle Ages more pleasing to look back upon than the existence of the associated Masons; they are the bright spot in the general darkness of that period, the patch of verdure when all around is barren."

Clavel, in his Histoire Pittoresque de la FrancMaçonnerie, has traced the organization of these associations to the "Collegia Artificum," or Colleges of Artisans, which were instituted at Rome, by Numa, in the year 714 B.C., and whose members were originally Greeks, imported by this lawgiver for the purpose of embellishing the city over which he reigned. They continued to exist as well-established corporations throughout all the succeeding years of the Kingdom, the Republic, and the Empire (see Roman Colleges of Artificers).

These "sodalitates," or fraternities, began, upon the invasion of the barbarians, to decline in number in respectability, and in power. But on the conversion of the whole Empire, they, or others of a similar character, began again to flourish. The Priests of the Christian Church became their patrons, and under their guidance they devoted themselves to the building of churches and monasteries. In the tenth century, they were established as a free Gild or Corporation in Lombardy. For when, after the decline and fall of the empire, the City of Rome was abandoned by its sovereigns for other secondary cities of Italy, such as Milan and Ravenna, and new courts and new capitals were formed, the Kingdom of Lombardy sprang into existence as the great center of all w energy in trade and industry, and of refinements in art and literature. Como was a free Republic to which many fled during the invasions of the Vandals and Goths. It was in Lombardy, as a consequence of the great center of life from Rome, and the development not only of commercial business, but of all sorts of trades and handicrafts, that the corporations known as Gilds were first organized.

Among the arts practiced by the Lombards, that of building held a pre-eminent rank. And Muratori tells us that the inhabitants of Como, a principal city of Lombardy, Italy, had become so superior as Masons, that the appellation of Magistri Comacini, or Masters from Como, had become generic to all of the profession.

Thomas Hope, in his Historical Essay on Architecture, has treated this subject almost exhaustively. He says:

We cannot then wonder that, at a period when artificers and artists of every class, from those of the most mechanical, to those of the most intellectual nature formed themselves into exclusive Corporations, architects—whose art may be said to offer the most exact medium between those of the most urgent necessity and those of mere ornament, or, indeed, in its wide span to embrace both—should, above all others, have associated themselves into similar bodies, which, in conformity to the general style of such Corporations assumed that of Free and Accepted Masons, and was composed of those members who, after a regular passage through the different fixed stages of apprenticeship were received as Masters, and entitled to exercise the profession on their own account.

In an age, however, in which lay individuals, from the lowest subject to the sovereign himself, seldom built except for mere shelter and safety—seldom sought, nay rather avoided, in their dwellings an elegance which might lessen their security, in which even the community collectively, in its public and general capacity, divided into component parts less numerous and less varied required not those numerous public edifices which we possess either for business or pleasure.

Thus, when neither domestic nor civic architecture of any sort demanded great ability or afforded great employment churches and monasteries were the only buildings required to combine extent and elegance, and sacred architecture alone could furnish an extensive field for the exercise of great skill, Lombardy itself, opulent and thriving as it was, compared to other countries, soon became nearly saturated with the requisite edifices, and unable to give these Companies of Free and Accepted Masons a longer continuance of sufficient custom, or to render the further maintenance of their exclusive privileges of great benefit to them at home. But if, to the south of the Alps, an earlier civilization had at last caused the number of architects to exceed that of new buildings wanted, it fared otherwise in the north of Europe, where a gradually spreading Christianity began on every side to produce a want of sacred edifices of churches and monasteries, to design which architects existed not on the spot.

Those Italian Corporations of Builders, therefore, whose services ceased to be necessary in the countries where they had arisen, now began to look abroad towards those northern climes for that employment which they no longer found at home: and a certain number united and formed themselves into a single greater Association, or Fraternity, which proposed to seek for occupation beyond its native land; and in any ruder foreign region, however remote, where new religious edifices and skillful artists to erect them, were wanted to offer their services, and bend their steps to undertake the work.

From Lombardy they passed beyond the Alps into all the countries where Christianity, but recently established, required the erection of churches. A monopoly was granted to them for the erection of all religious edifices; they Were declared independent of the sovereign in whose dominions they might he temporarily residing, and Subject only to their own private laws; they were permitted to regulate the amount of their wages; were exempted from all kinds of taxation; and no Freemason, not belonging to their Association, was permitted to compete with or oppose them in the pursuit of employment.

After filling the Continent with cathedrals, parochial churches, and monasteries, and increasing their own numbers by accessions of new members from all the countries in which they had been laboring, they passed over into England, and there introduced their peculiar style of building. Thence they traveled to Scotland, and there have rendered their existence ever memorable by establishing, in the Parish of Kilwinning, where they erected an abbey, the germ of Scottish Freemasonry, with halls regularly descended through the Grand Lodge of Scotland to the present day.

Thomas Hope accounts for the introduction of the non-working or unprofessional members into these associations by a theory which is confirmed by contemporary history. He says: Often obliged, from regions the most distant, singly to seek the common place of rendezvous and departure of the troop, or singly to follow its earlier detachments to places of employment equally distant, and that, at an era when travelers met on the road every obstruction and no convenience, when no inns existed at which to purchase hospitality, but lords dwelt everywhere, who only prohibited their tenants from waylaying the traveler because they considered this, like killing game, one of their own exclusive privileges; the members of these communities contrived to render their journeys more easy and safe by engaging with each other, and perhaps even, in many places, with individuals not directly participating in their profession, in compacts of mutual assistance, hospitality and good services, most valuable to men so circumstanced.

They endeavored to compensate for the perils which attended their expeditions by institutions for their needy or disabled brothers, but lest such as belonged not to their communities should benefit surreptitiously by these arrangements for its advantage, they framed signs of mutual recognition, as carefully concealed from the knowledge of the uninitiated, as the mysteries of their art themselves.

Thus supplied with whatever could facilitate such distant journeys and labors as they contemplated, the members of these Corporations were ready to obey any summons with the utmost alacrity, and they soon received the encouragement they anticipated. The militia of the Church of Rome, which diffused itself all over Europe in the shape of missionaries, to instruct nations and to establish their allegiance to the Pope, took care not only to make them feel the want of churches and monasteries, but likewise to learn the manner in which the want might be supplied. Indeed, they themselves generally undertook the supply; and it may be asserted that a new apostle of the Gospel no sooner arrived in the remotest corner of Europe, either to convert the inhabitants to Christianity, or to introduce among them a new religious order, than speedily followed a tribe of itinerant Freemasons to back him, and to provide the inhabitants with the necessary places to worship or reception.

Thus ushered in, by their interior arrangements assured of assistance and of safety on the road, and, by the Bulls of the Pope and the support of his ministers abroad, of every species of immunity and preference at the place of their destination, bodies of Freemasons dispersed themselves in every direction every day began to advance further, and to proceed from country to country, to the utmost verge of the faithful, in order to answer the increasing demand for them, or to seek more distant custom.

The government of these Fraternities, whenever they might be for the time located, was very regular and uniform. When about to commence the erection of a religious edifice, they first built huts, or, as they were termed, Lodges, in the vicinity, in which they resided for the sake of economy as well as convenience. It is from these that the present name of our places of meeting is derived. Over every ten men was placed a Warden, who paid them wages, and tool care that there should be no needless expenditure of materials and no careless loss of implements. Over the whole, a surveyor or Master, called in their old documents Magister, presided, anti directed the general labor.

The Abbé Grandidier, in a letter at the end of the Marquis Luchet's Essai sur les Illuminés, has quoted from the ancient register of the Freemasons at Strassburg the Regulations of the Association which built the splendid cathedral of that city. Its great rarity renders it difficult to obtain a sight of the original work, but the l'Histoire Pittoresque of Clavel supplies the most prominent details of all that Grandidier has preserved. The Cathedral of Strassburg was commenced in the year 1277, under the direction of Erwin of Steinbach. The Freemasons, who, under his directions, were engaged in the construction of this noblest specimen of the Gothic style of architecture, were divided into the separate ranks of Masters, Craftsmen, and Apprentices.

The place where they assembled was called a Hutte, a German word equivalent to our English term Lodge. They employed the implements of Freemasonry as emblems, and wore them as insignia. They had certain signs and words of recognition, and received their new members with peculiar and secret ceremonies, admitting, as has already been said many eminent persons, and especially ecclesiastics, who were not Operative Masons, but who gave to them their patronage and protection.

The Fraternity of Strassburg became celebrated throughout Germany, their superiority was acknowledged by the kindred associations, and they in time received the appellation of the Haupt Hütte, or Grand Lodge, and exercised supremacy over the hütten of Suabia, Hesse, Bavaria, Franconia, Saxony, Thuringia, and the countries bordering on the river Moselle. The Masters of these several Lodges assembled at Ratisbon in 1459, and on the 25th of April contracted an Act of Union, declaring the chief of the Strassburg Cathedral the only and perpetual Grand Master of the General Fraternity of Freemasons of Germany. This Act of Union was definitely adopted and promulgated at a meeting held soon afterward at Strassburg.

Similar institutions existed in France and in Switzerland, for wherever Christianity had penetrated, there churches and cathedrals were to be built, and the Traveling Freemasons hastened to undertake the labor.

They entered England and Scotland at an early period. Whatever may be thought of the authenticity of the York and Kilwinning legends, there is ample evidence of the existence of organized Associations Gilds, or Corporations of Operative Freemasons at an epoch not long after their departure from Lombardy. From that period, the Fraternity, with various intermissions, continued to pursue their labors, and constructed many edifices which still remain as monuments of their skill as workmen and their taste as architects. Kings, in many instances became their patrons, and their labors were superintended by powerful noblemen and eminent prelates who, for this purpose, were admitted as members of the Fraternity. Many of the old Charges for the better government of their Lodges have been preserved, and are still to be found in our Books of Constitutions, every line of which indicates that they were originally drawn up for Associations strictly and exclusively Operative in their character.

In glancing over the history of this singular body of architects, we are struck with several important peculiarities.

In the first place, they were Strictly ecclesiastical in their Constitution. The Pope, the Supreme Pontiff of the Church, was their patron and protector. They were supported and encouraged by Bishops and Abbots, and hence their chief employment appears to have been in the construction of religious edifices.

They were originally all Operative Masons. But the artisans of that period were not educated men, and they were compelled to seek among the clergy, the only men of learning, for those whose wisdom might contrive, and whose cultivated taste might adorn, the plans which they, by their practical skill, were to carry into effect. Hence the germ of that Speculative Masonry which, once dividing the character of the Fraternity Mirth the Operative, now completely occupies it, to the entire exclusion of the latter.

Brother E. E. Cauthorne has a few words of comment: "There probably never was a time when the Operative Masons did not furnish the architect. When an ecclesiastic performed this function it was an exception, and there were few of them. The profession of the architect seems to have been a distinct profession since Theoretic established himself at Ravenna, in 493, and appointed an official architects All through the Lombard period and at all later periods the architect or Master was distinctive" (see also the Reviser's paragraph in Stone-Masons of the Middle Ages).

But lastly, from the circumstance of their union and concert arose a uniformity of design in all the public buildings of that period—a uniformity so remarkable as to find its explanation only in the fact that there construction was committed throughout the whole of Europe, if not always to the same individuals, at least to members of the same Association. The remarks of Thomas Hope on this subject are well worthy of perusal:

The architects of all the sacred edifices of the Latin Church, wherever such arose,—North, South, East, or West,—thus derived their science from the same central school, obeyed in their designs the same hierarchy were directed in their constructions by the same principles of propriety and taste; kept up with each other, in the most distant parts to which they might be sent, the most constant correspondence; and rendered every minute improvement the property of the whole body and a new conquest of the art. The result of this unanimity was, that at each successive period of the monastic dynasty, on whatever point a new church or new monastery might be erected, it resembled all those raised at the same period in every other place, however distant from it as if both had been built in the same place by the same artist. For instance, we find, at particular epochs, churches as far distant from each other as the north of Scotland and the south of Italy, to be minutely similar in all the essential characteristics.

In conclusion, we may remark, that the world is indebted to this Association for the introduction of the Gothic, or, as it has lately been denominated, the Pointed Style of architecture. This style—so different from the Greek; and Roman Orders, whose pointed arches and minute tracery distinguish the solemn temples of the olden time, and whose ruins arrest the attention and claim the admiration of the spectator—has been universally acknowledged to be the invention of the Traveling Freemasons of the Middle Ages. And it is to this Association of operative Artists that, by gradual changes into a Speculative System, we are to trace the Freemasons of the present day.

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TRAVELING WARRANTS
Warrants under which military Lodges are organized, and so called because the Lodges which act under them are permitted to travel from place to place with the regiments to which they are attached (see Military Lodges).

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TRAVENOL, LOUIS

A zealous and devoted French Freemason of much ability, who wrote several Masonic works, which the author published under the assumed name of Leonard Gabanon. The most valuable of his productions is one entitled Catéchisme des Francs-Maçons, précédé d'un Abrégé de l'Histoire d'Adoram, etc. (Catechism of Free Masons, preceded by an Abridged History of Adoram), published by him at Paris in 1743.

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TREASURE, INCOMPARABLE

This was a phrase of mystical import with the Alchemists and Hermetic Philosophers. Pernetty (Dictionnaire Mytho-Hermetique), thus defines it: "The incomparable treasure is the powder of projection, the source of all that is good, since it procures unbounded riches, and a long life, without infirmities, to enjoy them."

The "powder of projection" was the instrument by which they expected to attain to the full perfection of their work. What was this incomparable treasure was the great secret of the Hermetic Philosophers. They concealed the true object of their art under a symbolic language. "Believest thou, O fool," says Artephius, one of them, "that we plainly teach this secret of secrets, taking our words according to their literal signification?" But we do know that it was not, as the world supposed, the transmutation of metals, or the discovery of an elixir of life, but the acquisition of Divine Truth.

Many of the advanced Degrees which were fabricated in the eighteenth century were founded on the Hermetic Philosophy; and they, too, borrowed from it the idea of an incomparable treasure. Thus in the Ultimate Degree of the Council of the Emperors of East and West, which Degree became afterwards the Sublime Prince of the Royal Secret of the ,Scottish Rite, we find this very expression. In the old French instructions we meet with this Sentence: "Let us now offer to the invincible Xerxes our sacred incomparable Treasure, and we shall succeed victoriously" And out of the initial letters of the words of this Sentence in the original French they fabricated the three most important words of the Degree.

This "incomparable treasure" is to the Freemasons precisely what it was to the Hermetic Philosophers— Divine Truth. "As for the Treasure," says one of these books, the Lumen de Lumine, cited by Hitchcock, "it is not yet discovered, but it is very near."

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TREASURER

An officer, found in all Masonic Bodies, whose duty it is to take charge of the funds and pay them out under proper regulations. He is simply the banker of the Lodge or Chapter, and has nothing to do with the collection of money, which should be made by the Secretary. He is in the United States an elective officer.. The Treasurer's jewel is a key, as a symbol that he controls the chest of the Lodge. His position in a Lodge of the United States is on the right of the Worshipful Masters in front. In an English Lodge however, he is placed in the north.

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TREASURER, GRAND
See Grand treasurer

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TREASURER, HERMETIC

The French title is Tresorier hermetique. A Degree in the manuscript collection of Peuvret. This collection contains eight other Degrees with a similar title, namely: Illustrious Treasurer, Treasurer of Paracelsus, Treasurer of Solomon, Treasurer of the Masonic Mysteries, Treasurer of the Number Seven, Sublime Treasurer, Depositor of the Key of the Grand Work, and, lastly, one with the grandiloquent title of Grand and Sublime Treasurer, or Depositor of the Great Solomon, Faithful Guardian of Jehovah.

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TREDIC

The King highest in rank in the Scandinavian Mysteries

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TREE ALPHABET

There are alphabets used among the Persians and Arabs as secret ciphers, which it can scarcely be doubted were original, and ages ago adopted and recognized as the ordinary business mode of communication among mankind. Of these ciphers the Tree Alphabet is the most common. The Philosopher Dioscorides wrote several works on the subject of trees and herbs, and made prominent the secret characters of this alphabet, which became known by his name, and was adopted and used by others.

The characters were distinguishable by the number of branches on either side of the tree; thus, the T H is recognizable from the S. H, notwithstanding each has three limbs on the left hand of the stem or trunk, by the one having six and the other seven branches on the right-hand side. As an example, there are in the illustration nine of the mystic characters and their relative values.The characters in the lower line given in the engraving are the relative value, and known as the Alphabet of Hermes or Mercury.

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TREE WORSHIP

The important position whit h this peculiar faith occupied among the peoples in the earliest ages of the world is apt to be overlooked in the multitude of succeeding beliefs, to which it gave many of its forms and ceremonies, and with which it became materially blended. In fact, Tree and Serpent worship were Combined almost at their inception. So prominent a position does Tree worship take in the opinion of Fergusson, in his absorbing work on free and Serpent Worship, that he designates the Tree as the first of Faiths; and adds that "long before the Theban gods existed, Tree and Serpent Faiths flourished. The Methidy tree was brought into the later religion, to shade with holy reverence the tomb of Osiris; the Sycamore was holy to Netpe, and the Persea to Athor, whilst the Tamarisk planed an important part in all the rites and ceremonies of Osiris and Isis; and all who are orthodox will acknowledge that Abram seemed to consider that he could not worship his Jove till he had planted his grove and dug a well (Genesis xxi, 33).

His Oak or Terebinth, or turpentine tree, on the plains of Mamre, was commonly worshiped till the fourth century after Christ, and it is revered by Jews to the present hour." And again: "That long ere Buddha or his saints were represented by images and adored, long ere the eaves and temples of that faith had sanctuaries for holy relies, the first actual symbol-worship he can trace is that of the Bo tree, which he describes as upon a bas-relief in a cave called the Jodea Gopa at Katak, Bengal, proving how early that worship was introduced, and how pre-eminent it was among the Buddhists of those days" and says J. G. R. Forlong, in his Rivers of Life, or Faiths of Man, "before Vedic days (the period in India of about 1600 B.C.) and can be found in almost every cave and temple allied to the Phallic faith as certainly as can be found ever standing at the entrance of these Houses of God the Phallic pillar or pillars. It is the old story whether we turn to Solomon's temple, 1000 B.C., or to the Karli Buddhist temples, which gaze down upon us from Bombay to Poona, and which date from about the Christian era."

The Bael tree, as a representative of the triad and monad, was always offered at Lingam worship, and the god was commonly to be found under an umbrageous or leafy-screened Bael. All nations, Aryans in particular, considered tree planting a sacred duty. The grand old trees became centers of life and of great traditions, and the character of the foliage had its symbolic meanings.

At the Jewish Feast of Tabernacles, at the autumnal harvest, lews are ordered to hang boughs of trees, laden with fruit, round the borders of their booths also boughs of barren trees. The worshipers go to the Synagogue carrying in their right hand one palm branch, three myrtles, and two willows, all tied together; and in the left hand a citron branch with fruit on it. These they make touch each other, and wave to the East, then South, then West, and then North. this is termed Hosanna, an exclamation of praise to God, the Hebrew word meaning "Save, I pray." On the seventh day of the Feast, all save the willow bough must be laid asides. The Palm, as a tree, yields more to man than any other class of trees. Nineveh shows the Palm surrounded by winged deities holding the pine-cone— symbol of life, which there takes the place of the Crux Ansata, or Cross with circle. The Phoenix resting on the Palm signifies Resurrection to eternal life. The four Evangelists are depicted in "an evangelum," in the library of the British Museum, as all looking up to the Palm-tree. Christians, for a similar ideal, erected a cross-bar, and placed an Alpha and an Omega on it.

At Najran, in Yemen, Arabia, Sir William Ouseley describes the most perfect tree-worship as still existing close to the city. The tree is the Palm or Sacred Date. The Palm has always borne a most important part in all the faiths of the world down to the present day. The Jews gave the Palm a distinguished place in architecture. The tree and its lotus top, says Kitto, took the place of the Egyptian column on Solomon's famous phalli, the Jachim and Boaz.

The two trees in Genesis were those of Life and Knowledge, and were probably drawn from the Egyptian and Zoroastrian stories. But no further reverence is taken in the Bible of the Tree of Knowledge after Genesis, but to that of Life, or the "Tree which gives Life," as in the Apocalypse (ii, 7). This is also the Eastern name and significance of the Lingam or Pillar; and when covered with carved inscriptions, the Toth or Pillar in Egypt became known as the Tree of Knowledge.

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TRESTLE-BOARD

The Trestle-Board is defined to be the board upon which the Master inscribes the designs by which the Craft are to be directed in their labors. The French and German Freemasons have confounded the Trestle-Board with the Tracing-Board; and Doctor Oliver (Landmarks I, page 132) has not avoided the error. The two things are entirely different. The trestle is a framework for a table—in Scotch, trest; the Trestle-Board is the board placed for convenience of drawing on that frame. It contains nothing but a few diagrams, usually geometrical figures. The Tracing-Board is a picture formerly drawn on the floor of the Lodge, whence it was called The Floor-Cloth or Carpet. It contains a delineation of the symbols of the Degree to which it belongs. The Trestle-Board is to be found only in the Entered Apprentice's Degree. There is a Tracing-Board in every Degree, from the first to the highest. And, lastly, the Trestle-Board is a symbol; the Tracing-Board is a piece of furniture or picture containing the representation of many symbols.

It is probable that the Trestle-Board, from its necessary use in Operative Masonry, was one of the earliest symbols introduced into the Speculative system. It is not, however, mentioned in the Grand Mystery, published in 1724. But Prichard, who wrote only six years afterward, describes it, under the corrupted name of Trestle-Board, as one of the immovable jewels of an Apprentice's Lodge. Browne, in 1880, following Preston, fell into the error of calling it a Tracing-Board, and gives from the Prestonian lecture what he terms "a beautiful degree of comparison," in which the Bible is compared to a Tracing-Board. But the Bible is not a collection of symbols, which a Tracing-Board is, but a Trestle-Board that contains se plan for the construction of a spiritual Temple. Webb, however, when he arranged his system of lectures, took the proper view, and restored the true word, Trestle-Board.

Notwithstanding these changes in the name, Trestle-Board, Trestle-Board, Tracing-Board, and Trestle-Board again, the definition has continued from the earliest part of the eighteenth century to the present Day the same. It has always been enumerated among the jewels of the Lodge, although the English system says that it is immovable and the American movable; and it has always been defined as "a Board for the Master Workman to draw his designs upon." In Operative Masonry, the Trestle-Board is of vast importance. It was on such an implement that the genius of the ancient Masters worked out those problems of architecture that have reflected an unfading luster on their skill. The Trestle-Board was the cradle that nursed the infancy of such mighty monuments as the cathedrals of Strassburg and Cologne; and as they advanced in stature, the Trestle board became the guardian spirit that directed their growth. Often have those old Builders pondered by the midnight lamp upon their Trestle-Board, working out its designs with consummate taste and knowledge—here springing an arch, and turning an angle there, until the embryo edifice Stood forth in all the wisdom, strength, and beauty of the Master's art.

What, then, is its true Symbolism in Speculative Freemasonry? To construct his earthly Temple, the Operative Mason followed the architectural designs laid down on the Trestle-Board, or book of plans of the architect. By these he hewed and squared his materials; by these he raised his walls; by these he Constructed his arches; and by these strength and durability, combined with grace and beauty, were bestowed upon the edifice which he was constructing.

In the Masonic Ritual, the Speculative Freemason is reminded that, as the Operative Artists erects his temporal building in accordance with the rules and designs laid down on the Trestle-Board of the Master Workman, so should he erect that spiritual building, of which the material is a type, in obedience to the rules and designs, the precepts and commands, laid down by the Grand Architect of the Universe in those great books of nature and revelation which constitute the spiritual Trestle-Board of every Freemason.

The Trestle-Board is then the Symbol of the natural and moral law. Like every other Symbol of the Order, it is universal and tolerant in its application, and while, as Christian Freemasons, we cling with unfaltering integrity to the explanation which makes the Scriptures of both Dispensations our Trestle-Board, we permit our Jewish and Mohammedan Brethren to content themselves with the books of the Old Testament or Koran. Freemasonry does not interfere with the peculiar form or development of any one's religious faith. All that it asks is that the interpretation of the symbol shall be according to what each one supposes to be the revealed will of his creator. But so rigidly exacting is it that the symbol shall be preserved and, in some rational way, interpreted, that it peremptorily excludes the atheist from its communion, because, believing in no Supreme Being—no Divine Architect—he must necessarily be without a spiritual Trestle-Board on which the designs of that Being may be inscribed for his direction (see Floor cloth).

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TRIAD

In all the ancient mythologies there were triads, which consisted of a mysterious union of three deities. Each triad was generally explained as consisting of a creator, a preserver, and a destroyer. The principal heathen triads were as follows: The Egyptian, Osiris, Isis, and Horus; the Orphic, Phanes Uranus, and Kronos; the Zoroastric, Ormuzd, Mithras, and Ahriman; the Indian, Brahma, Vishnu, and Siva; the Cabirie, Axereos, Axiokersa, and Axiokersos; the Phenician, Ashtaroth, Mileom, and Chemosh; the Tyrian, Behls, Venus, and Thammuz; the Grecian, Zeus, Poseidon, and Hades; the Roman, Jupiter, Neptune, and Pluto; the Eleusinian, Iacchus, Persephone, and Demeter; the Platonie, Tagathon, Nous, and Psyche; the Celtic, Hu, Ceridwen, and Creirwy; the Teutonic, Fenris, Midgard, and Hela; the Gothic, Woden, Friga, and Thor; and the Seandinavians, Odin, Vile, and Ve. Even the Mexicans had their triads, which were Vitzliputzli, Kaloc, and Tescalipuca.

This system of triads has, indeed, been so predominant in all the old religions, as to be invested with a mystical idea; and hence it has become the type in Freemasonry of the triad of three governing officers, who are to be found in almost every Degree. The Master and the two Wardens in the Lodge give rise to the Priest, the King, and the Seribe in the Royal Arch; to the Commander, the Generalissimo, and the Captain-General in Templarism; and in most of the higher Degrees to a triad which presides under various names.

We must, perhaps, look for the origin of the triads in mythology, as we certainly must in Freemasonry, to the three positions and functions of the sun. The rising sun or creator of light, the meridian sun or its preserver, and the setting sun or its destroyer (see Three).

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TRIAD SOCIETY OF CHINA

The San Hop Hwai, or Triad Society, is a secret political association in China, which has been mistaken by some writers for a species of Chinese Freemasonry; but it has in reality no connection whatsoever with the Masonic Order. In its principles, which are far from innocent, it is entirely antagonistic to Freemasonry. The Deputy Provincial Grand Master of British Freemasonry in China made a statement to this effect in 1855, in Notes and Queries (first series, volume xii, page 233).

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TRIALS, MASONIC

As the only object of a trial should be to seek the truth and fairly to administer justice, in a Masonic trial, especially, no recourse should ever be had to legal technicalities whose use in ordinary courts appears simply to be to afford a means of escape for the guilty. Masonic trials are, therefore, to be conducted in the simplest and least technical method, that will preserve at once the rights of the Order and of the accused, and which will enable the Lodge to obtain a thorough knowledge of all the facts in the case. The rules to be observed in conducting such trials have been laid down by Doctor Mackey in his Jurisprudence of Freemasonry and he refers to them in the present article. They are as follows:

1. The preliminary step in every trial is the accusation or charge. The charge should always be made in writing, signed by the accuser, delivered to the Secretary, and read by that officer at the next Regular Communication of the Lodge. The accused should then be furnished with an attested copy of the charge, and be at the same time informed of the time and place appointed by the Lodge for the trial.

Any Master Mason may be the accuser of another, but a profane cannot be permitted to prefer charges against a Freemason. Yet, if circumstances are known to a profane upon which charges ought to be predicated, a Master Mason, may justly avail himself of that information, and out of it frame an accusation, to be presented to the Lodge. Such an accusation will he received and investigated, although remotely derived from one who is not a member of the Order. It is not necessary that the accuser should be a member of the same Lodge. It is sufficient if he is an affiliated Freemason. We say an affiliated Freemason, for it is generally held, and we believe correctly, that an unaffiliated Freemason is no more competent to prefer charges than a profane.

2. If the accused is living beyond the geographical jurisdiction of the Lodge, the charges should be communicated to him by means of a registered letter through the post-office, and a reasonable time should be allowed for his answer, before the Lodge proceeds to trial. But if his residence be unknown, or if it be impossible to hold communication with him, the Lodge may then proceed to trial—care being had that no undue advantage be taken of his absence, and that the investigation be as full and impartial as the nature of the circumstances will permit.

3. The trial must commence at a Regular Communication, for reasons which have already been stated; but having commenced, it may be continued at Special Communications, called for that purpose; for, if it was allowed only to be continued at regular meetings, which take place but once a month, the long duration of time occupied would materially tend to defeat the ends of justice.

4. The Lodge must be opened in the highest Degree to which the accuser has attained, and the examinations of all witnesses must take place in the presence of the amused and the accuser, if they desire it. It is competent for the amused to employ counsel for the better protection of his interests, provided such counsel is a Master Mason. But if the counsel be a member of the Lodge, he forfeits, in Doctor Mackey's opinion, by his professional advocacy of the accused, the right to vote at the final decision of the question.

5. The final decision of the charge, and the rendering of the verdict, whatever be the rank of the accused, must always be made in a Lodge opened on the Third Degree; and at the time of such decision, both the accuser and the accused, as well as his counsel, if he have any, should withdraw from the Lodge.

6. It is a general and an excellent rule, that no visitors shall be permitted to be present during a trial.

7. The testimony of Master Masons is usually taken on their honor, as such. That of others should be by affidavit, or in such other manner as both the accuser and accused may agree upon.

8. The testimony of profanes, or of those who are of a lower Degree than the accused, is to be taken by a Committee and reported to the Lodge, or, if convenient, by the whole Lodge, when closed and sitting as a Committee. But both the accused and the accuser have a right to be present on such occasions.

9. When the trial is concluded, the accuser and the accused must retire, and the Master will then put the question of guilty, or not guilty, to the Lodge. Not less than two-thirds of the votes should be required to declare the accused guilty. A bare majority is hardly sufficient to divest a Brother of his good character, and render him subject to what may perhaps be an ignominious punishment. But on this subject the authorities differ.

10. If the verdict is guilty, the Master must then put the question as to the nature and extent of the punishment to be inflicted, beginning with expulsion and proceeding, if necessary, to indefinite suspension and public and private reprimand. To inflict expulsion or suspension, a vote of two-thirds of those present is required, but for a mere reprimand, a majority will be sufficient. The votes on the nature of the punishment should be viva voce, the living voice, or, rather, according to Masonic usage, by a show of hands.

Trials in a Grand Lodge are to be conducted on the same general principles; but here, in consequence of the largeness of the Body, and the inconvenience which would result from holding the examinations in open Lodge, and in the presence of all the members, it is more usual to appoint a Committee, before whom the case is tried, and upon whose full report of the testimony the Grand Lodge bases its action. And the forms of trial in such Committees must conform, in all respects, to the general usage already detailed.

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TRIANGLE

There is no symbol more important in its significance, more various in its application, or more generally diffused throughout the whole system of Freemasonry, than the triangle. An examination of it, therefore, cannot fail to be interesting to the Masonic student.

The equilateral triangle appears to have been adopted by nearly all the nations of antiquity as a symbol of the Deity, in some of his forms or emanations, and hence, probably, the prevailing influence of this symbol was carried into the Jewish system, where the yod within the triangle was made to represent the Tetragrammaton, or sacred name of God.

The equilateral triangle, says Brother D. W. Nash (Freemasons Magazine iv, page 294), "viewed in the light of the doctrines of those who gave it currency as a divine symbol, represents the Great First Cause, the Creator and Container of all things, as one and indivisible, manifesting Himself in an infinity of forms and attributes in this visible universe." Among the Egyptians, the darkness through which the candidate for initiation was made to pass was symbolized by the trowel, an important Masonic implement, which, in their system of hieroglyphics, has the form of a triangle. The equilateral triangle they considered as the most perfect of figures, and a representative of the great principle of animated existence, each of its sides referring to one of the three departments of creation, the animal, vegetable, and mineral.

The equilateral triangle is to be found scattered throughout the Masonic system. It forms in the Royal Arch the figure within which the jewels of the officers are suspended. It is in the Ineffable Degrees the sacred Delta, everywhere presenting itself as the symbol of the Grand Architect of the Universe. In Ancient Craft Masonry, it is constantly exhibited as the element of important ceremonies. The seats of the principal officers are arranged in a triangular form, the three Lesser Lights have the same situation, and the Square and Compasses form, by their union on the greater light, two triangles meeting at their bases. In short, the equilateral triangle may be considered as one of the most constant forms of Masonic symbolism.

The right-angled triangle is another form of this figure which is deserving of attention. Among the Egyptians, it was the symbol of universal nature; the base representing Osiris, or the male principle; the perpendicular, Isis, or the female principle; and the hypotenuse, Horus, their son, or the product of the male and female principle.

This symbol was received by Pythagoras from the Egyptians during his long sojourn in that country, and with it he also learned the peculiar property it possessed, namely, that the sum of the squares of the two shorter sides is equal to the square of the longest side—symbolically expressed by the formula, that the product of Osiris and Isis is Horus. This figure has been adopted in the Third Degree of Freemasonry, and will be there recognized as the Forty-seventh Problem of Euclid (see Geometry, Circle, Square, and Forty-seventh Problem).

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TRIANGLE AND SQUARE

As the Delta was the initial letter of Deity with the ancients, so its synonym is among modern nations, It is a type of the Eternal, the All-Powerful, the Self Existent. The material world is typified by the Square as passive matter, in opposition to force symbolized by the Triangle. The Square is also an emblem of humanity, as the Delta or Triangle typifies Deity. The delta, Triangle, and Compasses are essentially the same. The raising one point, and then another, signifies that the divine or higher portion of our nature should increase in power, and control the baser tendencies. This is the real, the practical "journey toward the Last." The interlacing Triangles or Deltas (figure 1) symbolize the union of the two principles or forces, the active and passive, male and female, pervading the universe. The two Triangles "TYPE=PICT;ALT=Triangl2.jpg-19704,0K", one white and the other black, interlacing, typify the mingling of the two apparent powers in nature, darkness and light, error and truth, ignorance and wisdom, evil and good, throughout human life.

The Triangle and Square together form the Pyramid (Figure 3), as seen l in the Entered Apprentice's Apron. In this combination the Pyramid is the metaphor for units of matter and force, as well as the oneness of man and God. The numbers 3, 5, 7, 9, have their places in the parts and points of the Square and Triangle when in pyramidal form, and imply Perfection (see Pointed Cubical Stone and Broached Thurnel).

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TRIANGLE, DOUBLE
See Seal of Solomon and Shield of David

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TRIANGLE OF PYTHAGORAS
See Pentalpha

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TRIANGLE, RADIATED

A Triangle placed within and surrounded by a circle of rays. This circle is called in Christian art, a Glory. When this Glory is distinct from the Triangle, and surrounds it in the form of a circle, it is then an emblem of God's Eternal glory. This is the usual form in religious uses. But when, as is most usual in the Masonic symbol, the rays emanate from the center of the Triangle, and, as it were, enshroud it in their brilliancy, it is symbolic of the Divine Light. The perverted ideas of the Pagans referred these rays of light to their sun-god and their Sabian worship.

But the true Masonic idea of this Glory is, that it symbolizes that Eternal Light of Wisdom which surrounds the Supreme Architect as a Sea of Glory, and from Him as a common center emanates to the universe of His creation.

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TRIANGLE, TRIPLE

The perdalpha, or Triangle of Pythagoras, is usually called also the Triple Triangle, because three triangles are formed by the intersection of its sides. But there is another variety of the Triple Triangle which is more properly entitled to the appellation, and which is seen in the illustration. It will be familiar to the Knight Templar as the form of the jewel worn by the Prelate of his Order. Like every modification of the triangle, it is a symbol of the Deity; but as the Degree of Knights Templar appertains exclusively to Christian Freemasonry, the Triple Triangle there alludes to the Mystery of the Trinity. In the Ancient and Accepted Scottish Rite Degree of Knight of the East the symbol is also said to refer to the triple essence of Deity; but the symbolism is made still more mystical by supposing that it represents the sacred number 81, each side of the three triangles being equivalent to 9, which again is the square of 3, the most sacred number in Freemasonry.

In the Twentieth Degree of the Ancient and Accepted Scottish Rite, or that of "Grand Master of all Symbolic Lodges," it is said that the number 81 refers to the triple covenant of God, symbolized by a Triple Triangle said to have been seen by Solomon when he consecrated the Temple. Indeed, throughout the Ineffable and the Philosophic Degrees, the allusions to the triple triangle are much more frequent than they are in Ancient Craft Masonry. The Indian Trimourti, or Triple Triangle of the Hindus is of a different form, consisting of three concentric triangles. In the center is the sacred triliteral name, Aum. The interior triangle symbolizes Brahma, Vishnu, and Siva; the middle one Creation, Preservation, and Destruction; and the exterior one, Earth, Water, and Air.

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TRIBES OF ISRAEL

All the twelve Tribes of Israel were engaged in the construction of the first Temple. But long before its destruction, ten of them revolted, and formed the nation of Israel; while the remaining two, the Tribes of Judah and Benjamin, retained possession of the Temple, and of Jerusalem under the name of the Kingdom of Judah. To these two Tribes alone, after the return from the captivity, was entrusted the building of the second Temple. Hence in the advanced Degrees, which, of course are connected for the most part with the Temple of Zerubbabel, or with events that occurred subsequent to the destruction of that of Solomon, the Tribes of Judah and Benjamin only are referred to. But in the primary Degrees, which are based on the first Temple, the Masonic references always are to the twelve Tribes. Hence in the old lectures the twelve original points are explained by a reference to the twelve Tribes (see Twelve Original Points of Freemasonry).

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TRIBUNAL

The modern Statutes of the Supreme Council of the Ancient and Accepted Scottish Rite for the Southern Jurisdiction of the United States direct trials of Masonic offenses, committed by any Brethren of the Rite above the Eighteenth Degree, to be held in a court called a Tribunal of the Thirty-first Degree, to be composed of not less nor more than nine members. An appeal lies from such a Tribunal of Inspectors Inquisitors to the Grand Consistory or the Supreme Council.

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TRIBUNAL, SUPREME

This has two distinct references for us.
1. The Seventy-first Degree of the Rite of Mizraim.
2. The meeting of Inspectors Inquisitors of the Thirty-first Degree of the Ancient and Accepted Scottish Rite according to the more recent practice of the Mother Council.

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TRIFELS

The name of the ruined castle, four miles from Madenburg, on a mountain slope, where Sir Richard Coeur de Lion was a prisoner for more than a year, by decree of the Emperor Henry III, and until his liberation by the faithful Blondel. Naught remains but thirty feet of the tower and some fragments of wall. It is recorded that there may be seen engraved deep in the window-stone of the tower this Mark: the Passion Cross standing upon the square with an apex upward, and having upon it an inverted Tau of proportionate size at an inclination of about forty-nine Degrees.

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TRILITERAL NAME

Three-lettered Name. The sacred name of God among the Hindus is so called because it consists of the three letters, A U M (see A Otto).

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TRILITHON

Three stones, two of which are placed parallel on their ends, and Crossed by the third at the top. Many curious combinations of this rude but imposing construction are to be found in Europe, as at Stonehenge in England and Brittany in France.

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TRINIDAD

Freemasonry was introduced into the island of Trinidad by the establishment of a Lodge called Les Freres Unis, United Brothers, under a Charter from the Grand Lodge of Pennsylvania, in 1797. A Charter had been granted the year before by the Grand Orient of France, but never acted on, in consequence of the suspension of that body by the French revolutions In 1804, the Grand Lodge of Pennsylvania, in its capitular capacity, granted a Charter for a Royal Arch Chapter, which continued to meet until 1813, when it obtained a new Warrant of Constitution from the Supreme Chapter of .Scotland. In 1814, exemplar Masonry was established by a Deuchar Warrant from the Grand Conclave of Scotland. In 1819, a Council of Royal and Select Masters was established. Trinidad has also had established a Provincial Grand Lodge under the Grand Lodge of Scotland, and some Lodges under the government Grand Lodge of England.

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TRINITARIANS, ORDER OF

An androgynous, both sexes, Order founded in 1198, in the time of lnnocent III, for the purpose of ransoming Christians from the Moors.

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TRINITY, RELIGIOUS FRATERNITY OF THE HOLY
Instituted at Rome by Saint Philip Neri in 1548

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TRINOSOPHS

The Lodge of the Trinosophs was instituted at Paris by the celebrated Ragon, October 15, 1816, and installed by the Grand Orient, January 11, 1817. The Word Triposophs is derived from the Greek and signifies Students of three Sciences, in allusion to the three primitive degrees, which were the especial object of study by the members; although they adopted both the French and Scottish Rites, to whose high Degrees, however, they gave their own philosophical interpretation. It was before this Lodge that Ragon delivered his Interpretative and Philosophic Course of Initations. The dodge was composed of some of the most learned freemasons of France, and played an important part in Masonic literature.

No Lodge in France has obtained so much celebrity as did the Trinosophs. It was connected with a Chapter and Council in which the advanced Degrees were conferred, but the Lodge confined itself to the three Symbolic Degrees, which it faithfully sought to preserve in the utmost purity.

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TRIPITAKA

A compound Word among the Hindus, Tri, meaning three and Pitaka, basket. The canonical book of the Buddhists, written two hundred years after the third Ecumenical Council, or about 60 B.C. The former Asiatic doctrines having become intolerable Sakya, a reformer in religion, rejected the god Brahma, and the holy books of the Veda, the sacrifices at other rites, and said: "My law is grace for all." These Sacred writings of the Hindus were called the Three Baskets. the Basket of Laws, the Basket of Discipline, and the Basket of Doctrincs. The first Basket is called Dharma, and relates to the law for man; the second, Vinaya, and relates to the discipline of the priests; and the third, Abhidharma, and pertains to the gods.

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TRIPLE ALLIANCE

An expression in the advanced Degrees, which, having been translated from the French instructions, should have more properly been the Triple Covenant. It is represented by the Triple Triangle, and refers to the Covenant of God With his people, that of King Solomon with Hiram of Tyre, and that which binds the Fraternity of Freemasons.

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TRIPLE TAU

The Tau Cross, or Cross of Saint Anthony, is a Cross in the form of a Greek T. The Triple Tau is a figure formed by three of these crosses meeting in a point, and therefore resembling a letter T resting on the traverse bar of an H. This emblem, placed in the center of a Triangle and Circle—both emblems of the Deity—constitutes the jewel of the Royal .Arch as practiced in England where it is so highly esteemed as to be called the ''emblem of all emblems,'' and "the grand emblem of Royal Arch Masonry." It was adopted in the same form as the Royal Arch badge, by the General Grand Chapter of the United States in 1859; although it had previously been very generally recognized by American Freemasons. It is also found in the Capitular Freemasonry of Scotland (see Royal Arch Badge).

The original signification of this emblem has been variously explained. Some suppose it to include the initials of the Temple of Jerusalem, T. H., Templum Hierosolymse; others, that it is a symbol of the mystical union of the Father and Son, H. signifying Jehovah, and T. or the cross, the Son. A writer in Moore's Magazine ingeniously supposes it to be a representation of three T-squares, and that it alludes to the three jewels of the three ancient Grand Masters. It has also been said that it is the monogram of Hiram of Tyre; and others assert that it is only a modification of the Hebrew letter shin, 0, which was one of the Jewish abbreviations of the sacred name.

Doctor Oliver thinks, from its connection with the circle and triangle in the Royal Arch jewel, that it was intended to typify the a sacred name as the Author of Eternal Life. Old English Royal Arch lectures say that by its intersection it forms a given number of angles that may be taken in five regular combinations; and, reduced, their amount in right angles will be found equal to the five Platonic bodies which represent the four elements and the sphere of the Universe."

Amid so many speculations, Doctor Mackey felt that he need not hesitate to offer one of his own. The Prophet Ezekiel speaks of the tau or tau cross as the Mark distinguishing those who were to he saved, on account of their sorrow for their sins, from those who, as idolaters, were to be slain. It was a mark or sign of favorable distinction; and with this allusion we may, therefore, suppose the triple tau to be used in the Royal Arch Degree as a mark designating and separating those who know and worship the true name of God from those who are ignorant of that August mystery (see Three).

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TRIPOLI

Italian territory in Northern Africa on the shore of the Mediterranean Sea. The Grand Orient of Italy controls three Lodges at Tripoli City and others at Bengazi, Derna and Homs.

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TRIVIUM

See Quadrivium and Liberal Arts and Sciences.

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TROWEL