BAPTISM, MASONIC.
The term Masonic Baptism has been applied in the United States by some authorities to that ceremony which is used in certain of the advanced Degrees, and which, more properly, should be called Lustration. It has been objected that the use of the term is calculated to give needless offence to scrupulous persons who might suppose it to be an imitation of a Christian sacrament. But, in fact, the Masonic baptism has no allusion whatsoever, either in form or design, to the sacrament of the Church. It is simply a lustration or purification by water, a ceremony which was common to all the ancient initiations (see Lustration).
BARBATI FRATRES.
Bearded Brothers---at an earlier date known as the Conversi---craftsmen known amoug the Conventual Builders, admitted to the Abbey Corbey in the year 851, whose social grade was more elevated than the ordinary workmen, and were freeborn. The Conversi were filiates or associates in the Abbeys, used a monastie kind of dress, could leave their profession whenever they chose and could return to civil life. Converts who abstained from secular pursuits as sinful and professed conversion to the higher life of the Abbeys, could stay without becoming monks. Scholae or gilds of such Operatives lodged within the convents.
We are told by Brother George F. Fort in his Criticat Inquiry Concerning the Mediaeval Conventual Builders, 1884, that the scholae of dextrous Barbati Fratres incurred the anger of their coreligionists, by their haughty deportment, sumptuous garb, liberty of movement, and refusal to have their long, flowing beards shaven-hence their name---thus tending to the more fascinating attractious of civil life as time carried them forward through the centuries to the middle of the thirteenth, when William Abbott, of Premontré, attempted to enforce the rule of shaving the beard.
"These worthy ancestors of our modern Craft deliberately refused,'' and they said, "if the execution of this order were pressed against them, 'they would fire every cloister and cathedral in the country.' " The decretal or edict was withdrawn.
BARD.
A title of great dignity and importance among the ancient Britons, which was conferred only upon men of distinguished rank in society, and who filled a sacred office. It was the third or lowest of the three Degrees into which Druidism was divided (see Druidical Mysteries).
There is an officer of the Grand Lodge of Scotland called the Grand Bard.
BAREFEET.
See Discalceation.
BARNEY, COMMODORE JOSHUA.
Distinguished American naval officer. Prominent for services rendered his country in the Wars of 1776 and 1812; wounded in land attack at Bladensberg.
Said to have attended, about 1779, the Lodge of Nine Sisters at Paris, but his name does not appear in records of that Lodge published by Louis Amiable.
His name appears on the roster of Lodge No. 3, Philadelphia, May 1, 1777 (see New Age, May, 1925). Born 1759, at Baltimore, Maryland, Brother Barney died 1818, at Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania.
BARNEY, JOHN.
Masonic ritualist, born at Canaan, Connecticut, October, 1780. Made a Freemason in Friendship Lodge No. 20, at Charlotte, Vermont, in 1810. He was deeply interested in all that pertained to the work and purposes of the Institution, and in August, 1817, he went to Boston for the express purpose of receiving instruction directly from Thomas Smith Webb, which he succeeded in doing, with the assistance of Benjamin Gleason, then Grand Lecturer of Massachusetts.
He attended the Grand Lodge of Vermont on October 6, 1817, and was registered as a visiting Brother. At this meeting a request was presented on behalf of Brother Barney for the approbation of this Grand Lodge, as a Lecturing Master. A committee was appointed to investigate the certificates and documents respecting Barney's qualifications and the report was as follows:
That they had examined Brother Barney on the first Degrees of Masonry, and find him to be well acquainted with the Lectures, according to the most approved method of work in the United States, and believe that he may be advantageously employed by the Lodges and Brethren who may wish for his services; but as many of the Lodges in this State are already well acquainted with the several Masonic Lectures, we do not believe it would be consistent to appoint a Grand Lecturer to go through the State, as the several Lodges have to pay the District Deputy Grand Masters for their attendance. We therefore propose to the Grand Lodge that they give Brother Barney letters of recommendation to all Lodges and Brethren wherever he may wish to travel, as an unfortunate brother deprived of his health, and unable to procure a living by the common avocations of life, but who is well qualified to give useful Masonic information to any who wish for his services. _
A. Robbins, For committee.
His first work after being authorized by his Grand Lodge was in Dorchester Lodge, at Vergennes, Vermont. He was employed by twelve members to , instruct them in the work and lectures. He continued lecturing in that State for several years. Brother Barney moved West in 1826, settling at Harpersfield, Ashtabula County, Ohio. In 1832 he assisted in establishing a Royal Arch Chapter in Cleveland, Ohio. He moved to Worthington, Ohio, in 1834, and became a member of New England Lodge No. 4 in that city.
Elected Grand Lecturer of the Grand Lodge of Ohio in January, 1836, Which office he held until 1843. In 1841 the Grand Master said of him: "The duties of Grand Lecturer of the Grand Lodge of Ohio, for the last two years especially, have been laborious and almost incessant. It were unnecessary for me to state to you a fact, which you are all so well apprised of, that his untiring and able exertions have essentially conduced to the prosperity which is now so apparent among our Lodges.
The labors of that officer are, however, now becoming burdensome, and the calls for his services will be more frequent as the wants of the fraternity increase." Brother Barney was a delegate to the Baltimore Convention in 1843. At the meeting of his Grand Lodge in that year the question of recognition of the Grand Lodge of Michigan was considered and he was appointed one of the committee to whom the matter was referred, but at his request was excused from such service, and this is the last record we have of him in connection with the Grand Lodge of Ohio. About this time he settled in Chicago, Illinois, becoming a member of Apollo Lodge No. 32 in that city.
He was appointed Grand Lecturer of the Grand Lodge of Illinois in October, 1845, holding the office for one year. Part of the years 1844 and 1845 were spent lecturing in Michigan, and his labors during these two years gave to that State the system which has been the authorized work for many years. Undoubtedly several states owe much to this worthy Brother for their close connection with the ceremonial work of Thomas Smith Webb.
Brother Barney died on June 22, 1847, at Peoria, Illinois (see Freemasonry in Michigan, J. S. Conover, 1896, page 249; the Barney work is discussed in American Tyler, volume iii, No. 6, page 5, and No. 17, page 2, and vo1ume v, No 18, page 4, and No. 28, page10)
BARRUEL, ABBE.
Augustin Barruel, generally known as the Abbé Barruel, who was born, October 2, 1741, at Villeneuve de Berg in France, and who died October 5, 1820, was an implacable enemy of Freemasonry. He was a prolific writer, but owes his reputation principally to the work entitled Mémoires pour servir à l'Histoire du Jacobinisme, or Recollections to serve for a History of Jacobinism, in four volumes, octavo, published in London in 1797. In this work he charges the Freemasons with revolutionary principles in politics and with infidelity in religion. He seeks to trace the origin of the Institution first to those ancient heretics, the Manicheans, and through them to the Templars, against whom he revives the old accusations of Philip the Fair and Clement V.
His theory of the Templar origin of Freemasonry is thus expressed (11, 382) :
"Your whole school and all your Lodges are derived from the Templars. After the extinction of their Order, a certain number of guilty knights, having escaped the proseription, united for the preservation of their horrid mysteries. To their impious code they added the vow of vengeance against the kings and priests who destroyed their Order, and against all religion which anathematized their dogmas.
They made adepts, who shoiuld transmit from generation to generation the same mysteries of iniquity, the same oaths, and the same hatred of the God of the Christians, and of kings, and of priests. These mysteries have descended to you, and you continue to perpetuate their impiety, their vows, and their oaths. Such is your origin. The lapse of time and the change of manners have varied a part of your symbols and your frightful systems; but the essence of them remains, the vows, the oaths, the hatred, and the conspiracies are the same.''
It is not astonishing that Lawrie (History of Freemasonry, page 50) should have said of the writer of such statements, that-
"That charity and forbearance which distinguish the Christian character are never exemplified in the work of Barruel ; and the hypocrisy of his pretensions is often betrayed by the fury of his zeal. The tattered veil behind which he attempts to cloak his inclinations often discloses to the reader the motives of the man and the wishes of his party."
Although the attractions of his style and the boldness of his declamation gave Barruel at one time a prominent place among anti-masonic writers, his work is now seldom read and never cited in Masonic controversies, for the progress of truth has assigned their just value to its extravagant assertions.
BARTOLOZZI, FRANCESCO.
A famous engraver who lived for some time in London and engraved the frontispiece of the 1784 edition of the Book of Constitutions. He was initiated in the Lodge of the Nine Muses in London on February 13, 1777.
Born at Florence in Italy, he studied in Venice, and then at Rome and Mi1an, practised his art most successfully, settling at London in 1764.After forty years in Eng1and he went to Portugal and died in Lisbon. Brother Hawkins gives the year of his birth as 1728, and that of his death as 1813. Others give the dates as from 1725 to 1830, and 1813 to 1815.
But all authorities agree in their high estimate of his ability.
BARTON, CLARA.
American philanthropist. Born at Oxford, Massachusetts, December 25, 1821; died at Glen Echo, Maryland, April 12, 1912. During Civil War distributed large quantities of supplies for the relief of wounded soldiers and later organized at Washington a Bureau of Records to aid in the search of missing men. She identified and marked the graves of more than twelve thousend soldiers at Andersonville, Georgia. She took part in the Intemational Committee of the Red Cross in Franco-Prusian War, and was first president of the American Red Cross until 1904. She was the author of the American Amendment providing that the Red Cross shall distribute relief not only in war but in times of other calamities.
She later incorporated and became president of the National First Aid of America for rendering first aid to the injured. There is a reference to her in Masonic Tidings, Milwaukee, December 1927, page 19, entitled Son of founder of Eastern Star tells of beginnings of Order, in the course of which he says: "Yes, it is true that my father gave the beloved Clara Barton the degree.
He was making a tour of Massachusetts, lecturing. When he reached Oxford he found a message from Clara Barton, expressing a desire to receive the degree. In the parlor of her home, father communicated to her the Order of the Eastem Star. From this Clara Barton created the great American Red Cross, and cheerfully gave her services to the heroes of the Civil War."
There is also another reference in the New Age (March, 1924, page 178), where Clara Barton is said to have observed when becoming a member of the Order of the Eastern Star, "My father was a Mason; to him it was a religion, and for the love and honor I bear him, I am glad to be connected with anything like this," However, Mrs. Minnie E. Keyes, Grand secretary, Order of the Eastem Star, letter of May 2g, 1928, informs us that "The Chapter in Oxford, Massachusetts, was named for her and With her permission in 1898, but she herself did not join until june, 1906.
The Secretary tells me the Minutes of the meeting of June 29, 1906, show: 'After a short intermission this Chapter received the great honor of being allowed to confer the degrees of this Order upon our illustrious namesake, Miss Clara Barton. It was an occasion long to be remembered as with feelings of pride and pleasure we witnessed the work so impressively and gracefully rendered and received.
It was with quite reverential feeling that at its close we were privileged to take her by the hand as our sister.'"
BASILICA.
Literally and originally a royal palace. A Roman pagan basilica was a rectangular hall whose length was two or three times its breadth, divided by two or more lines of columns, bearing entablatures, into a broad central nave and side aisles.
It was generally roofed with wood, sometimes vaulted. At one end was the entrance. From the center of the opposite end opened a semicircular recess as broad as the nave, called in Latin the Tribuna and in Greek the Apsis. The uses of the basilica were variotts and of a pubfic character, courts of justice being held in them. Only a few ruins remain. .
The significance of the basilica to Freemasons is that it was the form adopted for early Christian churches, and for its influence on the building gilds.
For the beginning of Christian architecture, which is practically the beginning of Operative Freemasonry, we must seek very near the beginning of the Christian religion. For three centuries the only places in pagan Rome where Christians could meet with safety were in the catacombs, long unerground galleries. When Constantine adopted Christianity in 324, the Christians were no longer forced to worship in the catacombs. They were permitted to worship in the basilica and chose days for special worship of the Saints on or near days of pagan celebrations or feast days, so as not to attract the attention or draw the contempt of the Romans not Christians.
Examples of this have come down to us, as, Christmas, St.John the Baptist's Day, St. John the Evangelist's Day, etc.
The Christian basilicas spread over the Roman Empire, but in Rome applied specially to the seven principal churches founded' by Constantine, and it was their plan that gave Christian churches this name. The first builders were the Roman Artificers, and after the fall of the Western Empire, we find a decadent branch at Como that developed into the Comacine Masters, who evolved, aided by Byzantine workmen and influence Lombardian architecture (see Como).
BASKET.
The basket or fan was among the Egyptians a symbol of the purification of souls. The idea seems to have been adopted by other nations, and hence, "initiations in the Ancient Mysteries," says Rolle (Culte de Bacchus,1, 30), "being the commencement of a better life and the perfection of it, could not take place till the soul was purified.
The fan had been accepted as the symbol of that purification because the mysteries purged the soul of sin, as the fan cleanses the grain." John the Baptist conveys the same idea of purification when he says of the Messiah, "His fan is in his hand, and he will thoroughly purge his floor" (Matthew iii, 12 ; Luke iii, 17).
The sacred basket in the Ancient Mysteries was called the xikvov, and the one who carried it was termed the xwv or basket-bearer. Indeed, the sacred basket, containing the first fruits and offerings, was as essential in all solemn processions of the mysteries of Bacchus and other divinities as the Bible is in the Masonic procession. As lustration was the symbol of purification by water, so the mystical fan or winnowing-basket was, according to Sainte Croix (Mystéres du Paganisme, tome ii, page 81), the symbol in the Bacchic rites of a purification by air.
BASLE, CONGRESS OF.
A Masonic Congress was held September 24, 1848, at Basle, in Switzerland, consisting of one hundred and six members, representing eleven Lodges under the patronage of the Swiss Grand Lodge Alpina. The Congress was principally engaged upon the discussion of the question,
"What can and what ought Freemasonry to contribute towards the welfare of mankind locally, nationally, and internationally?" The conclusion to which the Congress appeared to arrive upon this question was briefly this :
"Locally, Freemasonry ought to strive to make every Brother a good citizen, a good father, and a good neighbor; whilst it ought to teach him to perform every duty of life faithfully. Nationally, a Freemason ought to strive to promote and to maintain the welfare and the honor of his native land, to love and to honor it himself, and, if necessary, to place his life and fortune at its disposal; Internationally, a Freemason is bound to go still further:
he must consider himself as a member of that one great family,-the whole human race,-who are all children of one and the same Father, and that it is in this sense, and with this spirit, that the Freemason ought to work if he would appear worthily before the throne of Eternal Truth and Justice."
The Congress of Basle appears to have accomplished no practical result.
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