In a fragment of a poem written before the time of King Alfred, a knight is described as riding forth "to win his worship"; he was a young soldier, and untried, he had labored through years of apprenticeship, he had only recently been clubbed a knight, and he was now setting forth to win a name for himself. The fragment proves that in its earliest usage the word already meant what it has continued to mean ever since. The Anglo-Saxon term weorth meant worth; the suffix ship meant to possess, to belong to; a man was entitled "worshipful" because honor, rank, position belonged to him. The word became a salutation of respect, and the early Operative Freemasons used it because it was in use everywhere.
The word master as now used in English is in reality three or four words, spelled and pronounced alike; as used in "Worshipful Master" it is derived from the same origin as "magistrate," and means "one who has complete authority," the mag having the sense of largest, chief, first; judges are called "magistrates," and a member of a special court may be described as "Master in Chancery." "Worshipful Master" is a title, not the name of an office; as such it means, "you are entitled to respect and honor because you are chief, or head, or magistrate of the Lodge."
The correct name for the Office itself is "Master of Masons," and not merely "Master." A Master Mason was so called because in his seven years of apprenticeship he had mastered his art, and when thus used it had the same meaning as the Latin word doctor," which connotes professional competency. But the phrase "Worshipful Master" comes not from that origin but from the ether origin, which means head, chief, magistrate. He is addressed as Worshipful Master in recognition of the Office he holds, not because he has mastered the art-the salutation appropriate to the latter is "Brother," which also is a title. In the third person the magistrate or administrative chief of the Lodge is referred to as Worshipful Master; in the second person he should be addressed as "Worshipful Sir."
The Worshipful Master of Masons has always been a constitutional officer because he has always been a constituting officer historically, and disregarding modern jurisprudence, the function of his Office in Freemasonry may be technically described as the means by which a Lodge of Freemasons is brought into existence, and maintained in existence it has always been constitutive, a word which means to organize, to set up, to establish. In the Middle Ages a lord or the government first set up an administration; the latter then selected and employed a Master of Masons many other titles and names were used at one time or another, but of these only "Master of Masons" has persisted because it is linguistically most correct. This Master of Masons sent out a call for craftsmen, employed such of the respondents as he chose, and organized these employed craftsmen into a Lodge with himself as its head. Much of this ancient constitutive, or constitutional authority continues in power at the center of the Office of Worshipful Master; he opens and closes his Lodge; calls it into special Communication; can summon his members; appoint Officers; preside over the Lodge, and superintend the work.
In any body of men consisting of a large number of members, and more especially if it belongs to a net-work of similar bodies, it is always a problem to find a means to come to a final decision binding on all without giving the means used too much power. If no such means is found the body becomes a victim of that "fallacy of action" which is called "elusive responsibility" where one man evades responsibility by passing it on to a second, and he to a third, etc., until the last man has evaded it; such a body of men can do nothing because it has no means to decide what to do. Centuries ago Freemasonry avoided this merry-go-round of elusive responsibility by making the Office of Master of Masons sovereign as well as first. When a decision comes to his office he makes it; when he has made it, it is final; neither he nor any member can return it to the floor to start over again, a futile circle of endless discussion, nor can any member evade the Master's sovereignty by appealing from him to the lodge. These decisions which come up to be made by the Worshipful Master always, directly or by implication or in principle, arc such as concern the Lodge as a whole. In his eyes the Lodge is an entity, an it; he is responsible for the it; if any appeal is made from his decision it is to the Grand Master or to the Grand Lodge, and the appeal is made by the Lodge itself.
Warden is of such ancient usage in the Fraternity that it is doubtful if any other term in the whole nomenclature is older, or as old. It was the root from which we have guard, guardian, ward, ward off, warder, etc. The Senior and Junior Wardens are executive officers, which means that in principle they assist the Worshipful Master to rule and govern his Lodge. Any other Officer or all the other Officers, may assist the Master; if he orders them to, then they must perforce do so; but no other officer assists him to rule and govern the Wardens are, as it were, deputy Masters, or Vice-Masters, and when the Worshipful Master is prevented from attending to his duties, the Lodge naturally looks to the Senior Warden to act for him; nevertheless, if the Senior Warden does so act lie acts only as a deputy for the Master, not as Master for the time being, because the Master is responsible for what is (lone in his name whether he is present or absent. For this reason the two Wardens also are constitutional offices because they have a share in the work of constituting; it is because this is true that for centuries Lodges have deemed terms in the offices of the Wardens to be the best training for the Mastership, hence that elective custom which is called "the Lodge Line; only a Warden can be elected a Master."
The office of Secretary is constitutional in the sense that the Lodge could not continue to exist without it - it is also constitutional in the sense that the Grand Lodge Constitution provides for it, but the sense as just given is the more important: it also is the more revealing, for unless it is understood the office of Secretary cannot be understood. A Communication is the means by which the Freemasons in a given Jurisdiction act together as a body, and do so officially; when a Lodge thus acts it often acts for the future; therefore the Lodge's action, any time, is binding on the Lodge a year from then, or ten years from then, and binding in the same sense as a law. Since that is true the Communication of tonight does not come to an end when the Master closes the Lodge but is transferred to the Minutes, where it will continue to be active and alive through the future. It is the function of the Secretary to transfer all the acts of a Communication to the Minutes, and to act as the custodian of the Minutes. He may read letters, write letters, file letters, keep books; he may perform the functions which Secretaries in other societies perform; but in a Masonic Lodge his chief function is to see that the records of a given Communication are transferred to the Minutes, and that it is there preserved without alteration or tampering, because the Minutes of any given Communication continue to be binding on the Lodge for years afterwards.
When the Secretary thus acts as the custodian of those past Communications which are never dead and done with, he is acting for the Lodge as a body, as a unit to do so is one of the meanings of "constitutional office."
The Treasurership of the Lodge is a constitutional office for like reasons; the Treasurer acts for the Lodge, he never acts for himself, and he is far more than a bookkeeper. In the oldest Lodge Minutes the monies of a Lodge are never spoken of as the "treasury," but always as "the box," and in some of them the custodian of it is called "the box-master" many American organizations called their treasurer "box-master" as late as the middle of the Nineteenth Century. This box was kept in open Lodge; in it the members deposited dues, fees, fines, and gifts. In many Lodges it was used as a repository for membership cards (the members did not carry their cards about with them), and since the membership was often thought of as "the Lodge" this custom may have given its name to that odd piece of furniture used in Consecration Ceremonies which is still called "the Lodge" it is a material emblem of the membership. Lodge monies were not banked, but boxed. That is, they were put into a receptacle and nothing was done with them except to keep charge of them. The Lodge was not in business; it did not buy or sell; it made no profits, interest, or dividends. Its money, in short, was a fund, and from the moment of deposit each dollar was earmarked for some fixed expenditure.
The Lodge Treasurer has therefore two fundamental and constitutional functions; first, he is the official custodian of these funds, and as such his first thought is for their safety; second, he is to see that no money is taken from the funds except by action of the Lodge; and this action must prove the authenticity of any requisition or warrant made on him for any part of the funds. He is therefore not the Lodge's financial manager, or its financial agent; the Lodge is its own financial manager.
Deacon was a Greek word, and originally meant "messenger." The earliest Speculative Lodges had only one Deacon. The reason for having two is not made wholly clear by early Lodge records, but such of the data as can be pieced together indicate that a second Deacon (Junior) was made necessary by changes in the office of Tiler. At one time the Tiler had a number of duties inside the Lodge Room; he might conduct the Candidate; he drew designs on a floor-cloth, and then rubbed them off; he cared for the regalia, and handed it about; he was inner guard as well as outer guard. When the office of Tiler was shorn of all duties inside the Lodge Room, and he became wholly an outside officer, a vacuum was left, and to fill it Lodges began to appoint a second Deacon, giving the two the titles of Senior and Junior. But while their titles are thus modern, as well as some details of their function, the office of Deacon is as old as Freemasonry. The need for them arises from the fact that the Principal Officers of the Lodge occupy Stations. Neither the Master nor his Wardens are supposed to leave their stations except at fixed times and on fixed occasions; whenever unexpected or unpredictable calls are made on the Master or Wardens to go elsewhere, to act away from their Stations, the Deacons are there to go or come as they command, to escort visitors or members, to take or bring messages, etc. (It is not good form for a Master to move at will about his Lodge Room.)
Steward is one of the very oldest words in our language, or in any language. In it or behind it is the picture of provisions stored up against the future, animals, fruits, grains, with a man standing guard over them. In Freemasonry also it is an ancient term, and the office has belonged to the Craft from the first; there are paragraphs about it among the rules and regulations of the Regius MS. It is a constitutional office because feasts, bread and meat and drink, have always been one of the necessary functions of a Lodge - in the Lodge for which the Regius Ms was written feasts must have been held monthly because the members are advised to take turn in acting as Steward, and the Lodge is urged to pay its feast bills promptly. Sociability is requisite of a Lodge; the Junior Warden, with the Stewards to assist him, is custodian, guard, arranger, and administrator of those sociabilities.
The word tiler is a mystery to philologists, Masonic and nonMasonic. For centuries the gild of tilers who cut and laid tiles of stone, clay, and slate on roofs was an organized branch of the building craft; it may be that the Outer Guard is named after them because he closes in, or shuts in, the Lodge. Historians of literature believe that the word came into use as the name for the doorkeepers of clubs, inns, and taverns who kept the hats of the guests. The word had been used as the name for a covering, as of a box, or pot, or jar, and from that had passed into usage as the name of head covering such phrases as "the Master remained covered" supports this latter theory. It is also possible, and is very probable, that both these meanings and usages converged tiler would not be the first word to have two or more origins.
In Operative Freemasonry the Tiler was openly and frankly an armed guard, who remained outside the Lodge door or the Lodge building to ward off intruders, cowans, eavesdroppers; in many Eighteenth Century Lodges the office carried the title of Outer Guard. The Masons' Company of London called him beadle. In Lodges he was also called "the servant" or "the officer"; he was supposed to belong to the lower social orders as it has been said "he represented the presence of the servant class in early Lodge organization"; the humbleness of his position was also emphasized by giving him gifts, fees and tips. But this class status was inherently contradictory to the spirit and tenets of Freemasonry, and the Speculative Fraternity had been at work barely a half century when the standing as well as the duties of the Tiler began to be changed. When Lodges began to fee their Secretaries it took the curse off Tiler's fees; a number of his duties were turned over to the Junior Deacon; after the post office came in he no longer delivered Lodge summons by hand; after the towns had their armed police forces his own sword (or poignard "the sharp instrument") became merely a symbolic weapon.
The Tiler is one of the most colorful of the officers of the Lodge partly because of his sword, partly because he is on guard, and often because he is likely to develop idiosyncrasies if he remains many years at his post as many Tilers do; he has been the subject of immeasurable pictures, songs, poems, stories, and jokes. Much of the colorfulness is an inheritance from the past; in future centuries this office is likely to increase in dignity and probably will take on more functions it is not impossible that a Department of the Outer Precincts ("the Porch") may develop, with the Tiler as its head, assisted by a standing examining committee and an officer in charge of the Preparation Room. He is the only officer who remains outside the Room, who has not so much a place as a post, and he is the link between the Lodge and the outside ("profane") world, and the representative of the Lodge's hospitality as he is the first to receive and greet guests, visitors, and strangers. As indicative of Freemasonry's inherent Democracy, Masonic Lodges elect the retiring Master to be Tiler, tho he does not serve as such.
In Anti-Masonic literature it was once a favorite charge that a Lodge is not only secret and secretive, that it hides itself from view, and conceals itself behind Chinese walls of silence; the office of the Tiler was always a standing contradiction of that charge. He is not a closed gate between the Lodge and the outside world but a link between the two, or a bridge, and he stands in plain view, though an officer of the Lodge; any stranger, any non-Mason can knock at the outer door of his Ante-Room. There is no street door to a Lodge room; between the Lodge Room and the outside world is the Tiler; in a very complete sense the Lodge Room itself is inviolable; but what is it that cannot violate it? Only that which cannot enter it lawfully. It does not say in the Landmarks of Inviolability that none shall Pass; it says that none shall pass or repass except the duly qualified. The Tiler's sword is never lifted against any man, Mason or non-Mason, who has lawful business with the Lodge. There are many bridges between the Lodge and the world outside; the fact is both signalized and proved by the number of Masonic assemblies which are not Tiled.
The word marshal is in American general usage most often the "officer of the day" who keeps order in military parades, and hence has a military connotation; that connotation is strengthened by the similarity of sound as between marshal and martial. Also the word is widely used as the name for a peace officer, the town marshal, who is the local policeman, and this again links it with the use of armed force. But there is no necessary connection between marshal and martial. The word came to us from the French in which it was spelled mareschal, and in which it had less application with mars, than with mark, or margo, which is preserved in landmark, and means boundary, limits, fixed lines. A marshal is not concerned with things and objects; he has nothing to say as to why men assemble and move or march; his one and only function is to see that they keep order and remain in the line of march or according to the rules of decorum. Many Lodges do not have the office, perhaps because it sounds military, and would appear to be out of place in a Lodge Room. In Lodges which have it the Marshal's duty is to maintain order, and to supervise the movements of the members when they move together in a body.
Similarly, some Lodges have the Office of Chaplain, and others do not; each Lodge however has in it the functions which belong to the office and they are performed by the Master, or by any Brother deputized by him. Originally a Chaplain was a priest in control of a chapel, and when so it was he, and not the worshippers, who had authority over the services and observances; but a Masonic Lodge never makes over any control of its own actions to any but its own installed officers, therefore the religious usages are as much in the Master's keeping as any other, and if a Lodge has a Chaplain he acts under the Master's direction, and he may be a clergyman or a layman whomever the Master may appoint.
Anti-Masonic writers, a number of them,
have made use of the fact that Lodges have an office of Chaplain
to argue that Freemasonry is a religion. This ignored the fact
that governments, legislatures, courts, the army, the navy, and
many societies and clubs have chaplains even a private family
may have a chaplain as is often done in Britain or Europe; but
it ignores (or misses) the more fundamental fact that the office
of Chaplain proves the opposite, for in a Lodge a Chaplain always
acts for the Lodge and never acts as the spokesman, priest, or
official of any church, religion or theology.
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