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LIBERIA.
Oriental Lodge at Monrovia, founded early in the nineteenth century, with two others, Saint Paul's and Saint John's, formed a Grand Lodge of Liberia in 1867. This Body has its own Temple and has been recognized by many of the Grand Lodges of the world. Liberia is a negro republic on the west coast of Africa, founded in 1820 by freed slaves under the American Colonization Society and recognized as an independent State in 1847.
LIBERTAS.
Latin word, meaning Liberty. A significant word in the Red Cross Degree. It refers to the "Liberty of Passage" gained by the returning Jews over their opponents at the river Euphrates, as described in the Scottish Rite Degree of Knight of the East, where the old French instructions have "Liberté du Passer" (see Liberty).
LIBERTE, ORDRE DE LA.
French name for Order of Liberty. A French androgyn, both sexes, Order existing in Paris in 1740, and the precursor of La Maconnerie d'Adoption (Thory, Acta Latomorum i, page 320).
LIBERTINE.
The Charges of 1722 commence by saying that "a Mason is obliged by his tenure to obey the moral law; and if he rightly understands the art, he will never be a stupid Atheist, nor an irreligious libertine" (Constitutions, 1723, page 50). The word libertine there used conveyed a meaning different from that which it now bears. In the present usage of language it signifies a profligate and licentious person, but originally it meant a Freethinker, or Deist. Derived from the Latin libertines, a man that was once a bondsman but who has been made free, it was metaphorically used to designate onewho had been released, or who had released himself from the bonds of religious belief, and become in matters of faith a doubter or a denier.

Hence "a stupid Atheist" denoted, to use the language of the Psalmist, "the fool who has said in his heart there is no God," while an "irreligious libertine" designated the man who, with a degree less of unbelief, denies the distinctive doctrines of revealed religion. And this meaning of the expression connects itself very appropriately with the succeeding paragraph of the Charge. "But though in ancient times, Masons were charged in every country to be of the religion of that country or nation, whatever it was, yet 'tic now thought more expedient only to oblige them to that religion in which all men agree, leaving their particular opinions to themselves."
The expression "irreligiou31ibertine," alluding, as it does, to a scoffer at religious truths, is eminently suggestive of the religious character of our Institution, which, founded as it is on the great doctrines of religion, cannot be properly appreciated by anyone who doubts or denies their truth.

"A Libertine in earlier use, was a speculative free^ thinker in matters of religion and in the theory of morals. But as by a process which is seldom missed free-thinking does and will end in free-acting, so a Libertine came in two or three generations to signify a profligate," one morally bankrupt (On the Study of Words, Trench, lecture ui, page 90).
LIBERTY, EQUALITY, FRATERNITY.
Suplement
The motto of the French Freemasons.
LIBERTY OF PASSAGE.
A significant phrase in the advanced Degrees (see Libertas). The French rituals designate it by the letters L.-. D.-. P. . as the initials of L~iberté de Passer, or Liberty of Passage. But Brother Pike proposes to interpret these letters asLiberté de Penser, Liberty of Thought; the prerogative of a Freeman and a Freemason.
LIBRARY.
It is the duty as well as the interest of Lodges to facilitate the efforts of the members in the acquisition of Masonic knowledge, and no method is more appropriate than the formation of Masonic Libraries. The establishment of a Grand Lodge Library is of course not objectionable, but it is in Doctor Mackey's opinion of far less value and importance than a Lodge Library. The original outlay of a few dollars in the beginning for its establishment, and of a few more annually for its maintenance and increase, would secure to every Lodge in the land a rich treasury of Masonic reading for the information and improvement of its members. The very fact that Masonic books were within their reach, showing themselves on the well-filled shelves at every meeting, and ready at their hands for the mere asking or the trouble of taking them down, would induce many Brethren to read who never yet have read a page or even a line upon the subject of Masonic history and science.

Considering the immense number of books that have been published on the subject of Speculative Freemasonry, many of which would be rendered accessible to every one by the establishment of Lodge Libraries, the Freemason who would then be ignorant of the true genius of his art would be worthy of all shame and reproach. As thoughtful municipalities place public fountains in their parks and at the corners of streets, that the famished wayfarer may allay his thirst and receive physical refreshment, 80 should Masonic Lodges place such intellectual fountains in reach of their members, that they might enjoy mental refreshment. Such fountains are libraries; and the Lodge which spends fifty dollars, more or less, upon a banquet, and yet does without a Library, commits a grave Masonic offense; for it refuses, or at least neglects, to diffuse that light among its cXl~nshiD ohligotien requires it to do.
Of two Lodgoo the one without and the other with a Library the difference is this, that the one will have more ignorance in it than the other. If a Lodge takes delight in an ignorant membership, let it forego a Library. If it thinks there is honor and reputation and pleasure in having its members well informed, it will give them means of instruction.
But let us not mistake the collecting of books for the study of them. Book buying and book reading are not necessarily the same. Many a book of knowledge goes unread by the owners and many a Library is an unworked mine of information. In fact, cases have been known where a Library within reach at the Lodge has been urged as a sufficient excuse for members to possess no books of their own and further inquiry soon determined that the Library was rarely used. A Library is never intended as an idle possession.
The Library of many volumes always has the problem before it to get its treasures known and used. our leading libraries are doing this by circulation of works by mail and providing systematic courses of instruction for classes in profitable Masonic reading. But the Brother who has some reliable, thorough books of his own for reference can take these from the shelves at pleasure, dip deeply or moderately as opportunity may serve, and brouse happily and profitably with the Masonic authorities, settling for himself those queries and problems that his own experience or the questions of his Brethren suggest for investigation. In this way the Library of the individual Brother is a splendid possession fortified and supplemented by the larger institutions appealing to the bibliophite and student with their great collections of books. An uninformed Freemason is a liability that the wise use of books may turn into an asset for the Craft with equal pleasure and profit to himself. The task of becoming proficient is not drudgery, it is but to read as one's advancement requires, not enough to cause indigestion, but sufficient for Masonic health and progress.

Grand Lodges maintain libraries several of which are notable in the scope of their collections and the rarity of many of their treasures. Among these one readily calLs to mind the fine Masonic libraries of the Grand Lodges of England, Ireland and Scotland. In the United States the Grand Lodge of Iowa has a separate building at Cedar Rapids devoted entirely to library purposes, and there are splendid collections housed by the Grand Lodges of Pennsylvania, New York, and Massachusetts, the latter having acquired by gift the library of Brother Samuel R. Lawrence which included that of Brother Enoch T. Carson of Ohio which he had purchased.
The Supreme Council, Southern Jurisdiction, Ancient and Accepted Scottish Rite, has a Sne library at Washington, District of Columbia, in the House of the Temple, which includes amongst its possessions the books of General Albert Pike. There are many very good local libraries such as for example the useful collections preserved practically by the Masonic Library Association of Cincinnati which holds in trust the Stacker Williams Library, the property of the Grand Lodge of Ohio. Another excellent library of choice works is found in the Masonic Temple at Evanston, Illinois, due to the enterprise of Brother Wm. S. Mason and his associates. The few mentioned are simply given as representative of the interest found in the several States and a complete list of really noteworthy libraries would be too extensive to be dealt with freely here.
LIBYAN or LYBIC CHAlN.
The eighty-fifth grade of the Rite of Memphis; old style.
LICHT, RITTER VON WAHREN.
Knight of the True Light, presumed to have been founded in Austria in 1780, by Hans Heinrich Freiherr von Ecker and Eckhoffen. It consisted of five grades.
LICHTSEHER, ODER ERLEUCHTETE.
German, meaning the Enlightened. A mystical sect established at Schlettstadt by Kuper Martin Steinbach, in the sixteenth century. Mentioned in the Handbuch, in 1566, by Pastor Reinhard Lutz. It delved in Scriptural interpretation.
LIEUTENANT GRAND COMMANDER.
The title of the second and third officers of a Consistory in the Ancient and Accepted Scottish Rite, and the second officer in a Supreme Council.
LIFE.
The three stages of human life are said in the lectures to be symbolized by the three Degrees of Ancient Craft Freemasonry, and the doctrine is illusv trated in the Third Degree by the emblem of the Steps on the Master's Carpet, which see.
LIFE, ETERNAL.
See Eternal Life.
LIFE MEMBER.
It is the custom in some Lodges to permit a member to become a life member by paying dues for some number of years, say twenty-one to twenty-five), determined by the By-Laws of the Lodge or the immediate payment of a sum of money, after which he is released from any subsequent payment of quarterly or yearly dues. Such a system is of advantage inapecuniarysenseto the Lodge, if themoneypaid for life membership is invested in profitable stock, because the interest continues to accrue to the Lodge even after the death of a member.
A Lodge consisting entirely of life members would be a Lodge the number of whose members might increase, but could never decrease. Life members are subject to all the discipline of the Lodge, such as suspension or expulsion, just as the other members. Such Life Membership is, however, not recognized by the Grand Lodge of England, which restricts the privileges of the Craft to those who continue to be subscribing members of some Lodge (see Report, June 1873, Grand Lodge of England). The Grand Lodge of Scotland permits the commutation of Annual Contributions by a single payment (Law 176), but has therefore decided it is illegal to stipulate for payment of the life-membership fee by installments (Digest of ScottishMasonicJurisprudence, R. E. Wallace-James, page 8). on the subject of paying dues by a single outlay the Grand Lodge of Ohio (Masonic Code, page 57) has an interesting decision. "It is improper, because leading to improvidence in the present, and therefore unjust to those who succeed the present membership, for Lodges to receive from their members dues in bulk in lieu of annual dues, and the Grand Lodge declares any such Regulation or By-law inexpedient and void."
LIGHT.
Light is an important word in the Masonic system. It conveys a far more recondite meaning than it is believed to possess by the generality of readers. It is in fact the first of all the symbols presented to the neophyte, and continues to be presented to him in various modifeations throughout all his future progress in his Masonic career. It does not simply mean, as might be supposed, truth or Sodom, but it contains within itself a far more abstruse allusion to the very essence of Bpeculative Freemasonry, and embraces within its capacious signification all the other symbols of the Order. Freemasons are emphatically called the Sons of Light, because they are, or at least are entitled to be, in possession of the true meaning of the symbol; while the profane or uninitiated who have not received this knowledge are, by a parity of expression, said to be in darkness.

The connection of material light with this emblematic and mental illumination, was prominently exhibited in all the ancient systems of religion and esoteric mysteries. Among the Egyptians, the hare was the hieroglyphic of eyes that are open, because that animal was supposed to have his eyes always open.
The priests afterward adopted the hare as the symbol of the moral illumination revealed to the neophytes in the contemplation of the Divine Truth, and hence, according to Champollion, it was also the symbol of Osiris, their principal divinity, and the chief object of their mystic rites thus showing the intimate connection that they maintained in their symbolic language between the process of initiation and the contemplation of divinity. On this subject a remarkable coincidence has been pointed out by Baron Portal (Les Symboles des Egyptiens, 69) in the Hebrew language. There the word for hare is arnebet, which seems to be compounded of aur, tight, and nabat, to see; so that the word which among the Egyptians was used to designate an initiation, among the Hebrews meant to see the light.

If we proceed to an examination of the other systems of religion which were practiced by the nations of antiquity, we shall find that light always constituted a principal object of adoration, as the primordial source of knowledge and goodness, and that darkness was with them synonymous with ignorance and evil. Doctor Beard (Eruryclopedia of Biblical Literature), attributes this view of the Divine origin of light among the Eastern nations, to the fact that:
Light in the East has a clearness and brilliancy, is accompanied by an intensity of heat, and is followed in its influence by a largeness of good, of which the inhabitants of less genial climates have no conception.
Light easily and naturally became, in consequence, with Orientals, a representative of the highest human good. All the more joyous emotions of the mind, all the pleasing sensations of the frame all the happy hours of domestic intercourse, were described under imagery derived from light. The transition was natural from earthly to heavenly, from corporeal to spiritual things; and so light came to typify true religion and the felicity which it imparts. But as light not onlv came from God but also makes man's way clear before him, so it w as employed to signify moral truth and preeminently that divine system of truth which is set forth in the Bible, from its earliest gleamings onward to the perfect day of the Great Sun of Righteousness.

As light was thus adored as the source of goodness, darkness, which is the negation of light, was abhorred as the cause of evil, and hence arose that doctrine which prevailed among the ancients, that there were two antagonistic principles continually contending for the govermnent of the world. Duncan (Religion of Profane Antiquity, page 187) says:

Light is a souree of positive happiness: without it man could barely exist. And since all religious opinion is based on the ideas of pleasure and pain, and the corresponding sensations of hope and fear, it is not to be wondered if the heathen reverenced light. Darkness, on the contrary, by replunging nature, as it were, into a state of nothingness, and depriving man of the pleasurable emotions conveyed through the organ of sight, was ever held in abhorrence, as a source of misery and fear. The two opposite conditions in which man thus found himself placed, occasioned by the enjoyment or the banish ment of light, induced him to imagine the existence of two antagonistic principles in nature, to whose dominion he was alternately subjected.

Such was the dogma of Zoroaster, the great Persian philosopher, who, under the names of Ormuzd and Ahriman, symbolized these two principles of light and darkness. Such was also the doctrine, though somewhat modified, of Manes, the founder of the sect of Manichees, who describes God the Father as ruling over the kingdom of light and contending with the powers of darkness. Pythagoras also maintained his doctrine of two antagonistic principles. He called the one, unity, light, the right hand, equality, stability, and a straight line; the other he named binary, darkness, the left hand, inequality, instability, and a curved line. Of the colors, he attributed white to the good principle, and black to the evil one.

The Jewish Cabalists believed that, before the creation of the world, all space was filled with the Infinite Intellectual Light, which afterward withdrew itself to an equal distance from a central point in space, and afterward by its emanation produced future worlds. The first emanation of this surrounding light into the abyss of darkness produced what they called the Adam Kadmon, the first man, or the first production of the Divine energy.
In the Bhagavad-Gita the Book of Devotion, a work purporting to be a dialogue between Krishna, Lord of Devotion, and Arjuna, Prince of India, and one of the religious books of the Brahmans, it is said:

Light and darkness are esteemed the world's eternal ways; he who wralketh in the former path returneth not that is, he goeth immediately to bliss; whilst he who walketh in the latter eometh back again upon the earth.

In fact, in all the ancient systems, this reverence for light, as an emblematic representation of the Eternal Principle of Good, is predominant. In the Mysteries, the candidate passed, during his initiation, through scenes of utter darkness, and at length terminated his trials by an admission to the splendidly illuminated sacellurn, the Holy of Holies, where he was said to have attained pure and perfect light, and where he received the necessary instructions which were to invest him with that knowledge of the Divine Truth which had been the object of all his labors.
LIGHT, ORDER OF.
See Order of Light.
LIGHTS, FIXED.
According to the old instructions of the eighteenth century, every Lodge-room was furnished, or supposed to be furnished, with three windows, situated in the East, West, and South. They were called the Fixed Lights, and their uses were said to be "to light the men to, at, and from their work."
LIGHTS, GREATER.
The Bible, and the Square and Compasses, which see. In the Persian initiations, the Archimagus informed the candidate, at the moment of illumination, that the Divine Lights were dies played before him.
LIGHT, TO BRING TO.
A technical expression in Freemasonry meaning to initiate; as, "He was brought to light in such a Lodge," that is, he was initiated in it.
LIGURE. :
The first stone in the third row of the High Priest's breastplate. Commentators have been divided in opinion as to the nature of this stone; but in the time of Doctor Mackey was supposed by the best authorities to have been the rubellite, which is a red variety of the tourmaline. Leshem, the Hebrew word, referring to ligure, has had many explanations as to the meaning and derivation, the latter being usually traced to the Greek Lynkourion, meaning a gem. Some connect the word with amber from its source, by the Greeks, Liguria, in northern Italy. Petrie identifies Lecture with yellow agate, others with jacinth, etc., usually with some yellow gem. The figure in the Breastplate was referred to the Tribe of Dan.
LILIS
or LILITH. In the popular belief of the Hebrews, a female specter, in elegant attire, who secretly destroys children. The fabled wife of Adam, before he married Eve, by whom he begat devils.
LILY.
The plant so frequently mentioned in the Old Testament under the name of lily, as an emblem of purity and peace, was the lotus lily of Egypt and India. It occupies a conspicuous place among the ornaments of the Temple furniture. The brim of the molten sea was wrought with flowers of the lotus; the chapiters on the tops of the pillars at the porch, and the tops of the pillars themselves, were adorned with the same plant. Sir Robert Ker Porter, describing a piece of sculpture which he found at Persepolis, says

Almost every one in this procession holds in his hand a figure like the lotus. This flower was full of meaning among the ancients and occurs all over the East. Egypt, Persia, Palestine, and India present it everywhere over their architectures in the hands and on the heads of their sculptured figures, whether in statue or in bas-relief. We also find it in the sacred vestments and architecture of the tabernacle and Temple of the Israelites.
The lily which is mentioned by our Savior, as an image of peculiar beauty and glory, when comparing the works of nature with the decorations of art, was a different dowerprobably a species of lilium. This is also represented in all pictures of the salutation of Gabriel to the Virgin Mary, and, in fact, has been held in mysterious veneration by people of all nations and times. •' It is the symbol of divinity, of purity, and abundance, and of a love most complete in perfection, charity, and benedietion; as in Holy Seripture, that mirror of purity, Susanna is defined Susa, which signified the lily flower, the chief city of the Persians, bearing that name for excellency.
Hence, the lily's three leaves in the arms of Franee meaneth Piety, Justice, and Charity." so far, the general impression of a peculiar regard to this beautiful and fragrant Sower; but the espy Persians attached to it a peculiar sanctity. We must not, however, forget the difference betvween the lotus of the Old Testament and the lily of the New. The former is a Masonic plant; the latter is scarcely referred to. Nevertheless, through the ignorance of the early translators as to sacred plants, the lotus is constantly used for the lily; and hence the same error has crept into the Masonic instructions (see Lotus).
LILY-OF-THE-VALLEY.
A side Degree in the Templar system of France.
LILY WORK.
The lily work which is described as a part of the ornamentation of the two pillars in the porch of Solomon's Temple is said to be, from the whiteness of the plant, symbolic of purity and peace. Properly, it is lotus work (see Lily, Lotus, and Pllars of the Porch).
LIMBS.
See Qualifications, Physical.
LINDBERGH, CHARLES A.,
Another Pioneer Masonic Aviators. Famous air-mail pilot whose non-stop flight from the United States to France, May 2-1, 1927, followed a trip by air from San Diego, California, to St. Louis, Missouri, thence to the Atlantic seaboard, and these excursions were continued with journeys to the countries southward in the Western Hemisphere, returning to his home city of St. Louis by way of Havana, Cuba, all daring exploits modestly done. Born on February 4, l902, Colonel Lindbergh was initiated in Keystone Lodge No. 243, St. Louis, on July 9, 1926; Passed, October 20, and Raised, December 15, and became a member of St. Louis Chapter No. 22. Other notable air-men of the period included Commander Richard E. Byrd who also made, on June 29-July 1, 1927, a non-stop trip to France and had similarly journeyed to the North Pole, May 9, 1926, was Raised, March 9, 1921, in Federal Lodge No. 1 at Washington, District of Columbia; Lieutenants Albert F. Hegenberger and Lester J. Maitland, the first to make a successful flight by air to Hawaii from the United States, were both Freemasons, Brother Hegenberger a member of Stillwater Lodge No. 616, Dayton, Ohio, Brother Maitland a member of Kenwood Lodge No. 303, Milwaukee, Wisconsin, Raised July 19, 1921; Edward S. Evans, Master in 1927 of Palestine Lodge No. 357, Detroit, Michigan, circled the globe in 28 days, 14 hours, and 36 minutes, spending 16 days on ocean, 5 on trains, 8 on planes; traveling 8,000 miles by boat, 4,000 by train, the remainder by plane about 18,700 miles in all. A courageous attempt to break this record by use of plane only was made by another Palestiner, Brother Edward F. Schlee, who traveled eastward from Detroit as far as Japan when the trip was abandoned. Clarence D. Chamberlain and Charles A.
Levine, the latter a member of Fortitude Lodge No. 19, Brooklyn, New York, made the journey in a plane from New York to Germany, June 4-6, 1927. Major Frederick L. Martin, United States Army, commanded the first world flight in 1924; he, a member since 1919 of Myron M. Parker Lodge No. 27, Washington, District of Columbia, and Lieutenant Leslie P. Arnold, another world flier, and Major Herbert A. Darque, appointed commander air expedition to circle South American continent, 1926, are Freemasons. Paul Redfern, lost on a monoplane 4,600mile trip, Georgia to Rio de Janeiro, leaving August 25, petitioned Richland Lodge No. 39, Columbia, South Carolina, August 8, 1927, and at request of Richland Lodge was initiated by Atlantic Lodge No. 82, Brunswick, Georgia. Lieutenant Bernt Balchin, mechanic of Commander Byrd's airplane flight to France, since initiated in Norsemen Lodge No. 878, Brooklyn, New York (see Grand Lodge Bulletin, Iowa, September, 1927; American Tyler Keystone, November, i92 Masonic Outlook, August, 1927).

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