POPE, ALEXANDER.
Son of a Roman Catholic linen-dealer at London. Born May 21, 1688, died May 30, 1744. the body being buried in the parish church of Twickenham. Many of his satires took up the cause of this or that political question and Pope's associates and friends numbered among them men high in the public life of England at that period. Deformed by disease in childhood, he was for life an invalid, yet a busy man of letters whose prose and verse, original and translated, were clever, keen, abiding. Devoted to his mother, his quarrels elsewhere were equally earnest, lasting, thorough. Probably the venom of his literary attacks was in part due to great sensitiveness over his crippled, unhealthy condition. His verse is particularly smooth in flow, bright of allusion, phrases neatly framed, apt for quotation, as in the following familiar lines from his Essay on Man:
- Know then thyself, presume no God to scan;
- The proper study of mankind is man.
- An honest man s the noblest work of God
- Chaos of thought and passion, all confused;
- Still by himself abused and disabused
- Created half to rise, and half to fall
- Great lord of all things, yet a prey to all;
- Sole judge of truth, in endless error hurled
- The glory, jest and riddle of the world!
- The same work is equally striking in what is said f woman:
- Our grandsire, Adam, ere of Eve possesst
- Alone, and eten in Paradise unblest
- With mournful looks the blissful scenes survev'd,
- And wander'd in the solitary shade.
- The Maker saw, took pity, and bestow'd
- Woman, the last, the best reserv'd of God.
Several of his intimates were reputed to be members of the Craft. He is quoted as being a member of the same Masonic Lodge in London which enrolled on its books his life-long friends, Dean Swift and John ,Arbuthnot, by Brother J. H. Edge in the Builder, May, 1924- One therefore hunts through his writings or some reference to the Fraternity or its instruction. Strange but true is it that the Four Cardinal Virtues, Fortitude, Temperance, Prudence, and Justice exactly as they are enumerated in the Monitors, are given in that order by Alexander Pope:
- In clouded Majesty her dulness shone;
- Four guardian Virtues round, support her throne
- Fears champion Fortitude, that knows no fears
- Of hisses blows, or want, or less of ease:
- Calm Temperance, whose blessings these partake
- Who hunger, and who thirst for scribbling sake
- prudence, whose glass presents the approaching jail
- Poetic Justice, with her lifted scale
- Where. in nice balanee, truth with gold she weighs
- And solid pudding against empty brays.
Brother W. Wonnacott, late Grand Librarian of England, personally assured us that in his belief it is the name of Alexander Pope that is in the 1730 list of the members of the Lodge held at the Goat, a Tavern at the foot of The Haymarket, London, and our good Brother called attention to the above lines as probably pointing to some knowledge on Pope's part of the moralization that is impressed by us on our awly admitted Brethren.
The Universal Prayer, oft quoted in Masonic instruction, was written by Pope in 1738 and is given below:
- Father of all! In every age
- In every clime adored,
- By saint, by savage, and by sage,
- Jehovah, Jove, or Lord!
- Thou Great First Cause, least understood
- Who all my sense confined
- To know but this, that Thou art good
- And that myself am blind.
- Yet gave me, in this dark estate,
- To see the good from ill;
- And. binding Nature fast in fate
- Left free the human will.
- What conscience dictates to be done
- Or warns me not to do
- This teach me more than Hell to shun,
- That more than Heaven pursue.
- What blessings Thy free bounty gives
- Let me not east away
- For God is paid when man receives:
- To enjoy is to obey.
- Yet not to earth's contracted span
- Thy goodness let me bound
- Or think Thee Lord alone of man,
- When thousand worlds are round.
- Let not this weak, unknowing hand
- Presume Thy bolts to throw,
- And teach damnation round the land
- On eaeh I judge Thy foe.
- If I am right, Thy grace impart
- Still in the right to stay
- If r am wrong, oh, teach my heart
- To find that better way !
- Save me alike from foolish pride,
- Or impious discontent
- At aught Thy wisdom has denied,
- Or aught that goodness lent.
- Teach me to feel another's woe
- To right the fault I see
- That mercy I to others show,
- That mercy show to me.
- Mean though I am, not wholely so,
- Since quickened by Thy breath;
- Oh lead me nvheresoe'er I go
- Through this day's life or death.
- This day be bread and peace my lot;
- All else beneath the sun
- Thou know'st if best bestowed or not
- And let Thy will be done!
- To Thee NVhose temple is of space,—
- Whose altar earth sea skies—
- One chorus let all beings raise!
- All Nature s incense rise.
POPE, FREEMASONS AUK HORIZED BY .
See Freemasons authorized by Pope.
POPPY.
In the Mysteries of the Ancients, the poppy was the symbol of regeneration. The somniferous qualities of the plant expressed the idea of quiescence; but the seeds of a new existence which it contained were thought to show that nature, though her powers were suspended, yet possessed the capability of being called into a renewed existence. Thus the poppy planted near a grave symbolized the idea of a resurrection. Hence, it conveyed the same symbolism as the evergreen or sprig of acacia does in the Masonic mysteries.
PORCH OF THE TEMPLE.
See Temple of Solomon.
PORTA, GAMBATTISTA.
A physicist of Naples, who was born in 1545 and died in 1615. He was the founder of the Segreti, or Academy of Ancients, which see. He devoted himself to the study of the occult sciences, was the inventor of the camera obscura, and the author of several treatises on Magic, Physiognomy, and Secret Writing. De Feller (Universal Biography) classes him with Cornelius Agrippa, Cardan, Paracelsus, and other disciples of occult philosophy.
PORTER, A. K., ON MEDIEVAL MASONRY.
After a long and specialized training, Arthur E. Porter, Harvard University, devoted the whole of his career to Gothic Architecture, and for many years studied the still-existing buildings at first hand, and while doing so studied the history of the period in which the buildings were erected and existing documents connected with them.
His knowledge of Medieval architecture was encyclopedic. Near the end of his career he published in two volumes his great Medieval Architecture, illustrated throughout not by pictures for sake of pictures but by photographs and drawings essentially a part of the text, and with exhaustive bibliographies. This work stands in contrast to other histories of the Gothic style on three fundamentals: it makes clear that the Gothic style was a single, organic formula, not a collection of separate elements, or a revision of previous styles; it sees in each building a document of its times, and therefore
itself a chapter in history; more important still, and for the first time with any adequacy, it begins not with the buildings but with the builder, and finds in the building something thought out, designed, and constructed by them, and for their own purposes.
Historians before Porter had written—though it is hard to believe—as if a Gothic cathedral had been built by a pale abstraction called the Gothic style; as if the masonry had built itself.
Medieval Architecture is the most useful of books for students of Medieval Freemasonry. The early Gothic Freemasons emerge from it as living and breathing men, easily understandable, men who in character, mind, education, and skill towered unapproachably above other men in their period; and it is easy to see that it was they, and not the village stone masons, who found out for themselves and transmitted that set of truths which was carried on century after century and into Speculative Lodges. Porter's work and C. G. Coulton's Art and the Reformation, if placed together, comprise the most encyclopedic and the clearest account of Medieval Freemasonry now in print. (Medieval Architecture: Its Origin and Development, by Arthur Kingsley Porter, Baker & Taylor; New York; 1909; two volumes.)
PORTIFORIUM.
A word used in England during the Middle Ages to mean a breviary, a book containing the daily offices or prayers for the canonical hours. Doctor Mackey also found the name had been applied to a banner like unto the gonfalon, used as an ensign in cathedrals, and borne at the head of religious processions.
PORTRAIT PAINTER, GRAND.
The Grand Lodge of England created this position in 1785 when the Rev William Peters was appointed, due to his painting and presenting to the Grand Lodge a portrait of I ord Petre Past Grand Masters Brother Peters w as the only holder of this office. The Provincial Grand Lodge of Sussex, England, 1801, created the office of Provincial Grand Portrait Painter.
PORTUGAL.
Claims that Freemasonry flourished in Portugal as early as 1727 may or may not be true but according to the Minutes of the Grand Lodge of England it is certain that a Dispensation was granted to Brethren at Lisbon on April 17, 1735.
Continuous opposition to the Craft culminated in 1743 in the issue of an edict~of death against Freemasonry by Hing John V. The Craft revived in 1761 only to be crushed in 1776 by the Inquisition. Lodges were held in ships in the harbour amid the most unusual surroundings. These dangers it seems only made the Craft grow stronger for a Grand Lodge was actually organized during this period. This was closed by the Grand Master in 1807 to prevent its coming under the rule of the Grand Orient of France.
In the absence of any central control several small Jurisdictions sprang up and in 1849 five of them met to form a Grand Orient, but trouble arose and on January 31,1859, another Grand Orient was instituted.
These two Grand Orients, combined with some Lodges on the Irish list, formed ten years later the Grand Orient of Lusitania, comprising a Symbolie Grand Lodge, a Supreme Council, a Supreme Rose Croix Chapter for the French Rite and a Grand Chapter of Royal Arch Brethren. Therefore, as Brother Oliver Day Street says; "It thus appears that Freemasonry of all Rites is united in one Supreme governing body."
PORTUGUESE EAST AFRICA.
Lodges chartered by the United Lusitanian Grand Orient of Portugal are located at Beira, Chai-chai, Ibo, Mozambique and Quilimane.
PORTUGUESE WEST AFRICA.
In this district the Grand Orient of Portugal has chartered eleven Lodges, two at Loanda and one each at Bie, Cabinda, Landana, Luxares, Mossamedes, Quibanda, Liumbale, Qussol and San Antonio de Zairo.
POSTULANT.
The title given to the candidate in the Degree of Knight Radosh. From the Latin word postulans, meaning asking for, Wishing to have.
POTIER, MELCHIOR.
Published a history of the Lodge of Nine Sisters at Paris, 1839.
POTOCKI.
Polish family of nobility, the following members being Freemasons: Ignaz Potocki, Grand Master, 1781-3; Stanislas Felix Potocki, Grand Master,1789, and Stanislas Kostka Potocki, Grand Master, 1812-23.
POT OF INCENSE.
As a symbol of the sacrifice which should be offered up to Deity, it has been adopted in the Third Degree (see Incense).
POT OF MANNA.
See Manna, Pot of.
POUND, ROSCOE.
Roscoe Pound, born in 1870, Dean of the Law School of Harvard University, became famous for the variety as well as for the vastness of his learning; in legal erudition he had no superior
in America and possibly no peer, but at the same time he was an extraordinary linguist (he learned his English and Latin together in childhood), an authority on field botany on which he wrote a text-book used in colleges, an authority on Medieval law and history, and also was one of the most learned of American Masons.
He published two works of permanent value on Masonry, Philosophy of Freemasonry, and Jurisprudence of Freemasonry, after the larger part of the two had first been published in The Builder. In A Bibliography of the Writings of Roscoe Pound; Harvard University Press; 1942; Franklyn C. Setars devotes Part III, Section
2, page 127, to a bibliography of his writings on Freemasonry.
Dean Pound was Past Master of Laneaster Lodge, No- 54, A. F. & A. M., Lincoln. Neb.; was a member of Belmont Lodge and also of Beaver Lodge, in Belmont, Mass., and of The Harvard Lodge, Cambridge, zIass., and Past Deputy Grand Master, Grand Lodge of Massachusetts- He was a member of the A. & A. S. R., at Lincoln, Neb.; was crowned 33°, Northern Jurisdictions September 16, 1913. His two works on Masonry are contributions to Masonic thought rather than to either history or practice; he was the first to interpret Krause to the American Craft; he gave a newts fresh appraisal of the work of Preston (a welcome contrast to the harsh and misleading portrait painted by Gould in his History); and when in his Philosophy he devoted a chapter to a "pragmatic" philosophy of Freemasonry he established in American Masonic thought for the first time what in substance is the true distinction between "Instituted" and "Constituted" as applied to the Fraternity.
(It was a happy coincidence that Sir Frederick Pollock who occupied in legal scholarship in England a position corresponding to Pound's in the United States, also was an active Mason and a Masonic writer; author, among other things, of a memorable essay on Masonic ranks in The Builder. He was the Pollock of the published [Judge Oliver Wendell] Holmes—Pollock Correspondence.)
POURSUIVANT.
More correctly, Pursuivant, which see.
PRACTICUS.
The Third Degree of the German Rose Croix.
PRAXOEANS.
The followers of Praxeas in the second century, who proclaimed a unity in God, and that He had suffered upon the cross.
PRAYER.
Freemasonry is a religious institution, and hence its regulations inculcate the use of praver "as a proper tribute of gratitude," to borrow the language of Preston, "to the beneficent Author of Life." Hence it is of indispensable obligation that a Lodge, a Chapter, or any other Masonic Body, should be both opened and closed with prayer; and in the Lodges working in the English and American systems the obligation is strictly observed. The prayers used at opening and closing in the United States differ in language from the early formulas found in the second edition of Preston, and for the alterations we are probably indebted to Webb. The prayers used in the middle and perhaps the beginning of the eighteenth century are to be found in Peston (1775 edition) and are as follows:
At opening - May the favor of Heaven be upon this our happy meeting: may it begun , carried on, and ended in order , harmony, and brotherly love: Amen.
At Closing.—May the blessing of Heaven be with us and all regular Masons, to beautify and cement us title every moral and social virtue: Amen.
There is also a prayer at the initiation of a candidate, which has, at the present day, been very slightly varied from the original form. This prayer, but in a very different form, is much older than Preston, who changed and altered the much longer formula which had been used previous to his day. It was asserted by Dermott that the prayer at initiation was a ceremony only in use among the Antients or Atholl Freemasons and that it was omitted by the Moderns. But this
cannot be so, as is proved by the insertion of it in the earliest editions of Preston. We have moreover a form of prayer into be used at the admission of a brother, " contained in the Pocket Companion, published in 1754, by John Scott, an adherent of the Moderns, which proves that they as well as the Antients observed the usage of prayer at an initiation. There is a still more ancient formula of "Prayer to be used of Christian Masons at the empointing of a brother,"
said to have been used in the reign of Edward IV from 1461 to 1483, which is as follows:
The might of God, the Father of Heaven, with the wisdom of his glorious Son through the goodness of the Holy Ghost, that hath been three persons in one Godhead be with us at our beginning give us grace to govern in our living here, that we may only come to his bliss
that shall never have an end.
The custom of commencing and ending labor with prayer was adopted at an early period by the Operative Freemasons of England. Findel says ( History, page 78), that "their Lodges were opened at sunrise, the Master taking his station in the East and the Brethren forming a half circle around him. After prayer, each Craftsman had his daily work pointed out to him, and received his instructions. At sunset they again assembled after labor, prayer was offered,
and their wages paid to them.
" We cannot doubt that the German Stone Masons, who were even more religiously demonstrative than their English Brethren must have observed the same custom. As to the posture to be observed in Masonic prayer, it may be remarked that in the lower Degrees the usual posture is standing. At an initiation the candidate kneels, but the Brethren stand. In the higher Degrees the usual posture is to kneel on the right knee. These are at least the usages which are generally practiced in the United States.
We may add to the above comments by Doctor Mackey a few items of interest. Brother L. P. Newby (Sidelights on Templar Law, 1919, pages 96, 130) says:
Who is responsible for having two different versions of the Lord's Prayer in our Serviees, I am unable to state. It is a mistaken assumption that the Committee on Revision of 1910 (Grand Encampment Knights Templar of the United States) prepared a Lurial Service containing the Lord's Prayer, in which the words "Tres pass and Trespasses"' were used. The committee did
prepare and present a short form of Burial Service. but it was not acted upon bv the Grand Encampment in 1910, the further consideration of it was postponed, and it has never been acted upon (see Proceedings, 1910, middle and perhaps the beginning of the eighteenth page 203).
The proper words to be used with the Lord's Prayer in the Asylum of the Commandery are debts and Debtors," and at Burial Services "Trespass and Trespasses (see Proceedings, 1916, pages 36-8 Brother Newby also says of the two expressions:
Our Saviour upon two occasions instructed His people how to pray, first in His Sermon on the Mount, and second. about two years afterward; but in neither prayer did He use the words "Trespass and Trespasses" (see St. Matthew vi, >12; St. Luke xi, 1-13). In His Sermon on the Mount He did say to the people: "If ye forgive men their trespasses, your Heavenly Father wil also forgive you; but if ye forgive not men their trespasses neither will your Heavenly Father forgive your trespasses." These statements were made in a sermon and not in a prayer. As the form of the Lord's prayer used by the members of other Churches contains the words "debts and debtors," it is not for a layman to determine the question as to which form is correct, yet
it is rather remarkable that those who prepared our Ceremonies did not agree upon the Lord's Prayer.
The Lord's Prayer should also be examined in the ught of the translation by Professor Edgar J. Goodspeed, University of Chicago, whose English of the New Testament aims to reproduce the ease, boldness, and unpretending vigor of the original Greek, in the common language of everyday life during the era of one Savior.
The frequently observed expression "for Thine is the power and glory for ever," is a conclusion not to be found in any of the oldest manuscripts but in most of the later copies of Matthew only. It occurs the Didache, the teachings of the Apostles, a disvery at Constantinople in early Christian literature which a copy finished by the writer, Leo, on June 1, 1156, was found in the Library of the Jerusalem Jonastery.
Of the prayer itself several points have aroused diseussion. Daily bread, for example, was given various interpretations by the old authorities. Hastings nictionary of the Bible (page 553) suggests for conslderation the two aspects, "the word bread may be taken in an earthly or a heavenly sense. The fulness af Scriptural language justifies the widest application of the term, whatsoever is needed for the coming day, to be sought in daily morning prayer—"give us
today" or whatsoever is needed for the coming days of life. The petition becomes a prayer for the presence of Him who has revealed Himself as "the Bread." The clause "as we forgive our debtors" is by some old authorities read "as we have forgiven our debtors." The conclusion of the prayer is usually repeated as "deliver us from evil" but the Greek ending is indefinite and Hastings says this may be read "the evil one," or "the evil," or "whatsoever is evil." However, as to these variations, they can be heeded in the spirit of the poet, Coleridge (Ancient Mariner, Part vii):
- He prayeth best who loveth best
- All things, both great and small.
- And as to forms we have Brother Kipling's Song of Kabir:
- My brother kneels, so saith Kabir
- To stone and brass in heathen-wise,
- But in my brother's voice I hear
- My own unanswered agonies.
- His God is as his fates assign
- His prayer is all the world's—and mine.
- Madame de Stael has in Corinne (Book x, chapter v) commented earnestly and with precision on the benefit of praying with one another,
- To pray together in whatever tongue or ritual, is the most tender brotherhood of hope and sympathy that men can contract in this life.
An old prayer was given in the Printing Art, and was contributed by us to the American Freemason, June, 1910. Appearing in the Wolangerichtete Buchdruckerei of Ernesti it is a reminder of the pronounced religious fervor of craftsmen. The sentiment of loyalty and respect to the craft was so commonly observed that when a German traveling workman entered a town and found his way to the local place of his trade the usual salutation was "God bless the Art," Gott grus die kunst. Here is the prayer:
Oh Lord, Almighty God, printing is a glorious and a noble art—a blessing Thou hast reserved for mankind in these latter days, an art by which all conditions of men, and especially Thy Holy Church, are greatly nourished. And since, good Lord, Thou hast of Thy free grace given me an opportunity of exercising an Art and Craft so exalted, I pray Thee to guide me by Thy Holy Spirit in using the same to Thy honor. Thou knowest, dear Lord, the great diligence, continual care and accurate knowledge of the characters of many languages are needful in this Art, therefore I eall to Thee for help; that I may be earnest and careful, both in the setting up of types, and in printing the same. Preserve my soul in the constant love of Thy Holy Word and truth, and my body in sobriety and purity, that so, after a life here befitting a printer, I may hereafter, at the last coming of my most worthy Savior, Jesus Christ, be found a good workman in his sight, and wear the everlasting crown in His presence. Hear me, dearest God, for Thy honor and my welfare, Amen.
Another Masonic prayer, one used by the Worshipe ful Master, Henry Pears, Tyrian Lodge, No. 370, Cleveland, Ohio, is here submitted as when first heard there by us many years ago:
Almighty and Eternal God—there is no number of Thy days nor of Thy mercies. Thou has sent us into the world to serve Thee, but we wander from Thee in the paths of error. Our days are but a span in length, yet tedious because of calamities that surround us on every side. The days of our pilgrimage are few and full of evil. our bodies are frail, our passions violent and distempered, our understanding weak and our will perverse. Look thou, Almighty Father, upon us with pity and with mercy. We adore Thy majesty, and trust like little children in Thy infinite goodness. Give us patience to live well; and firmness to resist evil. even as our departed Brother resisted. Give us faith and confidence in Thee, and enable us so to live that when we come to die, we may lie down in the grave like one who composes himself to sleep, and may we hereafter be worthy to be held in the memories of men. Bless us, O God, and bless our fraternity throughout the world. May we live and emulate the example of our departed Grand Master, and finally may we attain in this world a knowledge of Thy truth, and in the world to come life everlasting. Amen.
Heartiness of invocation is not necessarily any measure of the length of a prayer, an effectual prayer recorded by Saint Luke (xviu, 13) was "Lord, be merciful to me a sinner." At Royal Arch Chapter dinners in Europe we noted that the grace as given in our hearing on several occasions was even less lengthy than the one just mentioned and had but a couple of Latin words, "Benedictus, Bened*at," meaning May the Blessed One bless. After the dinner there was an equally brief prayer, also in Latin, "Benedicto Benedicatur," May the Blessed One be blessed.
|
