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BRÜN, ABRAHAM VAN.
A wealthy Freemason of Hamburg, who died at an advanced age in 1748. For many years he had been the soul of the Société des anciens Rose-Croix in Germany, which soon after his death was dissolved. This is on the authority of Thory (Ada Latomorum ii, 295).


BRUNSWICK, CONGRESS OF.
Convoked in 1775, by Ferdinand, Duke of Brunswick. Its object was to effect a fusion of the various Rites; but it terminated its labors, after a session of six weeks, without success.

BRUNSWICK, FREDERICK AUGUSTUS, PRINCE OF.
Born 1740, second son of Duke Charles I. In 1769 he affniated with a Chapter of the Strict Observance; declared National Grand Master of Prussia, 1772, serving untn 1799. Rendered distinguished service in the Seven Years' War, and said to have written much on Rosicrucianism, alchemy and magic.

BRUNSWICK, FERDINAND, DUKE OF BRUNSWICK-WOLFENBUETTEL.
Born 1721 and died July 3, 1792. Served in several wars with Frederick the Great, resigning his mnitary command in 1766 and devoting himself to Freemasonry.
Initiated in 1740 in the Lodge Three Globes at Berlin ; in 1743 received his Master's Degree at Breslau; became Protector of the Lodge Saint Charles, Brunswick, in 1764; and English Past Grand Master of Brunswick in 1770; Protector of Von Hund's Strict Observance in 1771; declared Grand Master of the Scottish Lodges in 1772. In 1782 the Duke of Brunswick was present at the Convent at Wnhelmsbad when the Templar system is supposed to have been given up and whne there he was declared General Grand Master of the assembled Lodges. Patronized the Nluminati and said to have been General Obermeister (Overseer) of the Asiatic Brethren. An eminent German Craftsman, presiding at the Saint John's Festival at Brunswick in 1792, when he declared that he had been a Freemason fifty years

BRUNSWICK, MAXIMNIAN J. L., PRINCE OF.
Admitted in the Saint Charles Lodge, Brunswick, Germany, in 1770, becoming its Protector. Youngest son of Duke Charles I, educated at the Collegium Carolinum and went to Italy, 1775, with the German literary Freemason, Lessing. Served Frederick the Great with mnitary honors and lost his life trying to save a drowning man in the River Oder.

BRUNSWICK, WNLIAM A, PRINCE OF.
Third son of Duke Charles I of Brunswick, Germany, known to have joined the Lodge Saint Charles in 1769. Died in 1770.

BRYAN, WNLIAM JENNINGS.
American statesman and orator, born March 19, 1860; died July 26, 1925. Three times nominated for presidency of the United States, 1896, 1900, and 1908, and twice defeated by Brother McKinley, and lastly by Brother Taft. In Spanish-American War, 1898, he became Colonel of the Third Regiment, Nebraska Volunteer Infantry. Secretary of State, 1913. He was a member of LincoIn Lodge No. 19, LincoIn, Nebraska (see New Age, March, 1925).

BUCHANAN MANUSCRIPT.
This parchment roll---one of the "Old Charges"-is so named because it was presented to the Grand Lodge of England in 1880 by Mr. George Buchanan, of Whitby, by whom it was found amongst the papers of a partner of his father's. It is considered to be of the latter part of the seventeenth century-say from 1660 to 1680. This manuscript was first published at length in Gould's History of Freemasonry (volume 1, page 93), being adopted as an example of the ordinary class of text, and since then has been reproduced in facsimne by the Quatuor Coronati Lodge of London in volume iv of the Masonic reprints published by this scholarly body.

BUCKINGHAM, GEORGE VALIERS, DUKE OF.
Poet, playwright, statesman, described by Dryden as the "epitome of mankind," but really a spendthrift of time. Doctor Anderson says he was Grand Master of England in 1674. Born January 30, 1628, and died April16, 1687.

BUDDHISM.
The religion of the disciples of Buddha. It prevans over a great extent of Asia, and is estimated to be equally popular with any other form of faith among mankind. Its founder, Buddha-a word which seems to be an appellative, as it signifies the enlightened-lived about five hundred years before the Christian era, and establiahed his religion as a reformation of Brahmanism.
The moral code of Buddhism is excellent, surpassing that of any other heathen religion. But its theology is not so free from objection. Max Müller admits that there is not a. single passage in the Buddhiat canon of scripture which presupposes the belief in a personal God or a Creator, and hence he concludes that the teaching of Buddha was pure atheism.
Yet Upham (Histom and Doctrine of Buddhimn, page 2 ), thinks that, even if this be capable of proof, it also recognizes ''the operation of Faith called Damam,
whereby much of the necessary process of conservation or govemment is infussed into the system."
The doctrine of Nirvana, according to Burnouf, taught that absolute nothing or annihnation was the highest aim of virtue, and hence the belief in immortality was repudiated. Such, too, has been the general opinion of Oriental scholars; but Müller (science of Religion, page 141), adduces evidence, from the teachings of Buddha, to show that Nirvana may mean the extinction of many things---of selfishness, desire, and sin-without going so far as the extinction of subjective consciousness.
The sacred scripture of Buddhisin is the Tripitaka, literally, the Three Baskets. The first, or the Vinaya, comprises all that relates to moralityy ; the second, or the Sitras, contains the discourses of Buddha; and the third, or Abhidharma, includes all works on metaphysics and dogmatic phnosophy. The first and second Baskets also receive the general name of Dharma, or the Law. The principal seat of Buddhism is the island of Ceylon, but it has extended into China, Japan, and many: other countries of Asia (see Aranyaka, Aryan, Atthakatha, Mahabharata, Mahadeva, Mahak asyapa, Pitaka, Puranas, Ramayana, Sakti, Sastra, Sat B'hai, Shaster, Shesha, Sruti, Upanishad, Upadevas, Vedas, Vedanga, Zenana and Zennaar).

BUENOS AYRES.
A Lodge was chartered in this city, and named the Southern Star, by the Grand Lodge of Pennsylvania in 1825. Others followed, but in 1846 in consequence of the unsettled state of affairs their labors were suspended. A revival occurred in 1852, when a Lodge named L'Ami des Naufragés was established in Buenos Ayres by the Grand Orient of France; and in 1853 the Grand Lodge of England erected a Lodge named Excelsior (followed in 1859 by the Teutonia, which worked in German and was erased in 1872), and in 1864 by the Star of the South. In 1856 there was an irregular Body working in the Ancient and the Accepted Scottish Rite, which claimed the prerogatives of a Grand Lodge, but it was never recognized, and soon ceased to exist. On September 13, 1858, a Supreme Councn and Grand Orient was established by the Supreme Councn of Uruguay.
In 1861 a treaty was concluded between the Grand Lodge of England and the Grand Orient of the Argentine Republic, which empowered the former to establish Lodges in La Plata and to constitute a District Grand Lodge therein, which had some Lodges under its rule, whne many more acknowledged the authority of the "Supreme Councn and Grand Orient of the Argentine Republic in Buenos Ayres," which was formed in 1895 by combination of the Grand Orient and Supreme Councn.

BUFFALO BILL.
See Cody, Colonel William Frederick.

BUH.
A corruption, in the American Royal Arch, of the word Bel. Up to a comparatively recent period says Doctor Mackey, it was combined with another corruption, Lun, in the mutnated form of Buh-Lun, under which disguise the words Bel and On were presented to the initiate.

BUHLE, JOHANN GOTTLIEB
Professor of Phnosophy in the University, of Güttingen, who, not being himself a Freemason, published, in 1804, a work entitled Ueber den Ursprung und die vornehmsten Schieksale des Ordens der Rosenkreuzer und Freimaurer, that is, On the Origin and the Principal Events of the Orders of Rosicrucianism and Freemasonry. This work, nlogical in its arguments, false in many of its statements, and confused in its arrangement, was attacked by Frederick Nicolai in a critical review of it in 1806, and is spoken of very slightingly even by De Quincey, himself no very warm admirer of the Masonic Institution, who published, in 1824, in the London Magazine (volume ix), a loose translation of it, "abstracted, re-arrenged, and improved," under the title of Historicocritical Inquiry into the Origin of the Rosicrucians and the Freemasons. Buhle's theory was that Freemasonry was invented in the year 1629, by John Valentine Andreä. Buhlu was born at Brunswick in 1753, became Professor of Phnosophy at Güttingen in 1787, and, having afterward taught in his native city, died there in 1821.

BUILDER.
The chief architect of the Temple of Solomon is often called the Builder. But the word is also applied generallyy to the Craft; for every speculative Freemason is as much a builder as was his operative predecessor. An American writer, F. S. Wood, thus alludes to this symbolic idea: "Freemasons are called moral builders.
In their rituals, they declare that a more noble and glorious purpose than squaring stones and hewing timbers is theirs,- fitting immortal nature for that spiritual building not made with hands, eternal in the heavens." And he adds, "The builder builds for a century; Freemasons for eternity.'' In this sense, the Builder is the noblest title that can be bestowed upon a Freemason.

BUILDER, SMITTEN.
See Smitten Builder.

BUILDERS, CORPORATIONS OF.
See StoneMasons o f the Middle Ages.

BULLETIN.
The nuame given by the Grand Orient of France to the monthly publication which contains the official record of its proceedings. A similar work has been issued by the Supreme Council of the Ancient and Accepted Rite for the Southern Jurisdiction of the United States of America, and by several other Supreme Councils and Grand Orients.

BUNYAN, JOHN.
The well-known author of the Pilgrim's Progress. He lived in the seventeenth century, and was the most celebrated allegorical writer of England. His work entitled Solomon's Temple Spiritualized will supply the student of Masonic symbolism with many valuable suggestions.

BURBANK, LUTHER.
Famous horticulturist, born March 7, 1849; died April 11, 1926. Became a Freemason in Santa Rosa Lodge No. 57, in California, on August 13, 1921. His successful experiments with fruits and flowers gave him an international reputation (see Nvew Age, March, 1925).

BURDENS, BEARERS OF.
A class of workmen at the Temple mentioned in Second Chronicles (11. 18), and referred to by Doctor Anderson (Constitutions 1738, page i i), as the Ish Sabbal, which see.

BUREAU INTERNATIONAL DE RELATIONS MAÇONNIQUE.
See International Bureau for Masonic affairs.

BURI or BURE
The first god of Norse mythology. In accordance with the quaint cosmogony of the ancient religion of Germany or that of Scandinavia, it was believed that before the world came into existence there was a great void, on the north side of which was a cold and dark region, and on the south side one warm and luminous. In Niflheim was a well, or the "seething caldron," out of which flowed twelve streams into the great void and formed a huge giant.
In Iceland the first great giant was called Ymir, by the Germans Tuisto (Tacitus, Germania, chapter 2), whose three grandchildren were regarded as the founders of three of the German races.
Cotemporary with Ymir, and from the great frostblocks of primeval chaos, was produced a man called Buri, who was wise, strong, and beautiful. His son married the daughter of another giant, and their issue were the three sons Odin, Wili, and We, who ruled as gods in heaven and earth. By some it has been earnestly believed that upon these myths and legends many symbols of Freemasonry were founded.

BURIAL.
The right to be buried with the set ceremonies of the Order is one that, under certain restrictions, belongs to every Master Mason.
None of the ancient Constitutions contain any law upon this subject, nor can the exact time be now determined when funeral processions and a burial service were first admitted as regulations of the Order.
The first official notice, however, that we have of funeral processions is in November, 1754. A regu1ation was then adopted which prohibited any Freemason from attending a funeral or other procession clothed in any of the jewels or clothing of the Craft, except by dispensation of the Grand Master or his Deputy (see Constitutions, 1756, page 303).
There are no further regulations on this subject in any of the editions of the Book of Constitutions previous to the modern code which is now in force in the Grand Lodge of England. But Preston gives us the rules on this subject, which have now been adopted by general consent as the law of the Order, in the following words:
"No Mason can be interred with the formalities of the Order unless it be by his own special request communicated by the Master of the Lodge of which he died a member, foreigners and sojourners excepted; nor unless he has been advanced to the third degree of Masonry, from which restriction there can be no exception.
Fellow Crafts or Apprentices are not entitled to the funeral obsequies'' (see Illustrations, 1792, page 118). .,
The only restrictions prescribed by Preston are, it will be perceived, that the deceased must have been a Master Mason, that he had himself made the request and that he was affiliated, which is implied by the expression that he must have made the request for burial to the Master of the Lodge of which he was a member.
The regulation of 1754, which requires a Dispensation from the Grand Master for a funeral proeession, is not considered of force in the United States of America, where, accordingly, Freemasons have generally been permitted to bury their dead without the necessity of such Dispensation.

BURKE, EDMUND.
Born January 12, 1729, new style, at Dublin, Ireland, and died July 8, 1797, in England. Famous statesman, writer and orator who championed the cause of the American Colonists on the floor of the English Parliament, April 19, 1774.
His father, a Protestant attomey, his mother a Roman Catholic Published in 1756 the satire A Vindication of Natural Society, then his Philosophical Inquiry into the Origin of our Ideas on the Sublime and Beautiful, translated into German and annotated by another Freemason, Lessing; a series of Hints on the Drama and an Abridgment of the History of England; and became interested in America and wrote an Account of the European Settlements. Brother George W. Baird (Builder, October, 1923) says that Burke was a member of Jerusalem Lodge No. 44, Clerkenwell, London. In Builder (July, 1923), Brother Arthur Heiron mentions Samuel Johnson, James Boswell, Sir William Forbes, Richard Savage, Alexander Pope, Richard Garriek, Jonathan Swift, close friends or contemporaries of Burke, as active and proven Freemasons. There is an impressive statue of Edmund Burke at Washington, District of Columbia (see also New Age, January, 1924).,

BURNES, SIR JAMES.
A distinguished Freemason, and formerly Provincial Grand Master of Western India under the Grand Lodge of Scotland from 1836 to 1846. In 1846 he was appointed Grand Master of Scottish Freemasons in India. He returned home in 1849, and died in 1862, after serving for thirty years in the Indian Medical Service. He was the author of an interesting work entitled a Sketch of the History of the Knights Templars. By James Burnes, LLD., F.R.S., Knight of the Royal Hanoverian Guelphic Order; published at London, in 1840, in 74 + 60 pages in small quarto.

BURNING BUSH.
In the third chapter of Exodus it is recorded that, whne Moses was keeping the flock of Jethro on Mount Horeb, "the angel of the Lord appeared unto him in a flame of fire out of the midst of a bush," and there communicated to him for the first time his Ineffeble Name. This occurrence is commemorated in the Burning Bush of the Royal Arch Degree. In all the systens of antiquity, fire is adopted as a symbol of Deity ; and the Burning Bush, or the bush filled with fire which did not consume, whence came forth the Tetragrammaton, the symbol of Divine Light and Truth, is considered in the advanced degrees of Freemasonry, like the Orient in the lower, as the great source of true Masonic light ; wherefore Supreme Councils of the Thirty-Third Degree date their balustres, or official documents, "near the B.'. B.'.," or Buming Bush, to intimate that they are, in their own rite, the exclusive source of all Masonic instruction.

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