Did You Know?           The first Aprons were Badges of Disgrace.  The first reference to clothing is found in Genesis 3,7. Wherein we read: Adam and Eve on realizing the nature of transgression sewed fig leaves together and made themselves Aprons.           John Hancock, the first signer of the Declaration of Independence was a member of Saint Andrews Lodge in Boston. He became Grand Master of Massachusetts. As Past Master he never neglected his Lodge.           Where the Hiramic Legend really came from no one knows. Hiram is mentioned in the Bible in I Kings and II Chronicles, stories written 700 years apart. He was also mentioned in the Cooke Ms of 1410 (Louis L. Williams). The first unequivocal reference to a Master’s Degree is found in the minutes for May 12, 1725 of “Philo-Musicae et Architecturae Societas Appoloni,” which was not a lodge but a society confining its membership to Freemasons. On November 27, of the same year, the Grand Lodge adopted a resolution amending Regulation XIII by providing that the “Master of each lodge, with the consent of his Wardens and the majority of the Brethren, being Masters may make Masters at their discretion.”           Regarding the Saints John, Mackey (Albert G. Mackey in An Encyclopedia of Freemasonry and its Kindered Sciences) says , “In the sixteenth century Saint John the Baptist seems to have been considered the peculiar patron of Freemasonry; but subsequently this honor was divided between the two Saints John, the Baptist and the Evangelist” (Vol. 2, p. 901). He goes on to illustrate the origin of the association of the Saints John with the parallel lines supporting the point within a circle, a device of all well furnished lodges. John the Baptist, as the forerunner of Jesus, may be said to have laid the foundations of Christianity by both his act of baptizing Him and prophesying His coming; John the Evangelist may be said to have completed the edifice by his reputed authorship of the Book which ends the New Testament. Thus we see the apostle Paul redirecting the Temple symbolism of traditional Judaism from the mundane to the spiritual: “For we know that if our earthly house of this tabernacle were disolved , we have a building of God, an house not made with hands, eternal in the heavens” (2 Cor. 5:1).           The Mason's Key In the early rituals of the last century, the tongue was called the key to the secrets of a Mason. One of the toasts given in the Lodge was in these words: "To that excellent key - a Mason's tongue, 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, adopts the virtue of a Mason - which is silence." - The Philalethes           What is a Mason A Mason is a man and a Brother Who is Square in all he Compasses; He has a Rite Understanding, a firm Grip; Therefore he has no complaints to lodge against life By being a loyal apprentice to duty He becomes Master of himself and others. And thus whatever his Degree, he fulfills An honorable career from his first Initiation Into the Order of Humanity Until he receives the final Password.           V. S. L. Most Brethren are well aware that the Old Testament of the Holy Bible is the Volume of the Sacred Law of both Christian and Jewish Brethren, but it is not so widely known that Brethren of other faiths use different books. The term “V. S. L.” therefore does not only distinguish the Bible. A description of these other books is provided by the Singapore Lodge, No. 7178, E.C., for the information of members and visitors. It is not uncommon for Lodges in Singapore, India, and other places for several Vs. S. L. to be placed on the Lodge altar. The Sacred Volumes reposing in Lodge Singapore at the present time number six and comprise the following: The Holy Book of the Sikhs, the Sri Guru Sahib. The Holy Bhagavad Gita, the Holy Book of the Hindus. The Khordeth Avesta of the Zoroastrians, the Holy Book of the Pharsees. The Holy Koran of the Moslems. The Holy Bible of the Christians, the Old Testament of which is also the V. S. L. of the Jews. There are two sects of Buddhists, the Hinayana who come from India, Ceylon, Burma, Cambodia and Thailand, the Mahayana who hail from China, Korea and Japan. The former do not recognize a Supreme Being but the later do and regard the Phammapada as their sacred book.