RAINBOW, THE MOST ANCIENT ORDER OF THE.
A secret association existing in Moorfields in 1760.
RAINS.
It was a custom among the English Freemasons of the middle of the eighteenth century, when conversing together on Freemasonry, to announce the appearance of a profane by the warning expression It rains. The custom was adopted by the German and French Freemasons, with the equivalent expression, Es regnet and II pluie. Baron Tschoudy, who condemns the usage, says that the latter refined upon it by designating the approach of a female by II neige, the French for It snows. Doctor Oliver says (Revelations of a Square, page 142) that the phrase It rains, to indicate that a Cowan is present and the proceedings must be suspended, is derived from the ancient punishment of an eavesdropper, which was to place him under the eaves of a house in rainy weather, and to retain him there till the droppings of water ran in at the collar of his coat and out at his shoes.
RAISED.
When a candidate has received the Third Degree, he is said to have been raised to the sublime Degree of a Master Mason. The expression refers, materially, to a portion of the ceremony of initiation, but symbolically, to the resurrection, which it is the object of the Degree to exemplify.
A curious sidelight upon the use of the expression is that obtained by considering the word as also meaning the acceptance or adoption of the candidate officially by the Fraternity. There is an ancient and striking parallel for this understanding. Amone the Roman customs connected with the birth of children that was the most remarkable which left it to the arbitrary will of the father whether his new-born child should be preserved or left to perish. The midwife always placed the child on the ground. If the father wished to preserve its life he raised it from the ground and this was said to be tollere infantem, the raising of the child. This was an intimation of his purpose to acknowledge and educate it as his own If the father did not choose to do this, he left the child on the ground, and thus expressed his wish to expose or abandon it, exponere. This exposing of a newborn child was an unnatural custom borrowed from the Greeks by which children were left in the streets and abandoned to their fate (see Fiske's Classical Antiquities, page 287).
Some highly significant pictorial instances of resurrection are found in old churches. The altar picture from Holyrood at Edinburgh, Scotland (see illustration), is a good example. Here the First Person of the Trinity supports or raises the Son. Usually the Third Person of the Trinity, the Holy Ghost, is also represented symbolically in such cases, the dove being as a rule selected to indicate the complete threefold unity of the Godhead. The altar symbolism from Holyrood is therefore a typical specimen of the Trinity portrayal and of the resurrection occurrence.
Brother J. E. Barton discusses the symbolism of the other illustration, the Trinity Boss in the West Porch of Peterborough Cathedral in England. This porch is from architectural details dated about 1375. Old writers would call the porch a "Galilee," a ritualistic provision for such occasions as Palm Sunday, and for processions generally on the Sabbath. The promise to the disciples, that the risen Christ should go before them into Galilee, is no doubt the origin of the name; for the chief ecclesiastical dignitary, who brought up the rear of the procession, here went first, and entered the porch through the ranks of his subordinates, as a Master in taking his seat in the Lodge.
Three probabilities are to be taken into account in considering this boss. It is the central ornament of a porch having special reference to the feast of the Resurrection. It was designed by a Gild—itself probably dedicated to the Holy Trinity, as at the Newark Parish Church, which would naturally wish the porch dedicated to the Holy Trinity. Its designers were inspired by a desire to connect, in a manner not unnatural to Freemasons with their own grades and ritual, the two ideas of the Holy Trinity and of the Resurrection.
Presumably the Masonic Gild, perhaps the chief Gild in Peterborough, was about to vault the porch it had given, and looked about for a suitable composition for its main boss. The first and inevitable suggestion was a Trinity subject, so common in sculptures stained glass, and on monumental brasses The usual Trinity is a design of God the Father sups porting the Son upon the Cross, with the Holv Spirit added in the form of a Dove. Next it was suggested that the Trinity should here be modified in form, so as to deplet a Risen, not a Crucified Lord, as being suitable to a Galilee Porch.
Last came the unifying suggestion that by the use Of a Masonic symbol the Resurrection of Christ, in the Trinity subject, should be marked at the point where Our Lord is about to be raised to Heaven by the hands of the Father; one hand gripping, and the other blessing. Hence the Second Person in the Trinity, who has already passed from the earthly Incarnation, is here at a singular position. His pierced hands show Him already crucified and rising from the grave, with the attitude common to medieval paintings of the Resurrection and the loin cloths still about Him. He is about to be raised to the sublime Degree, and God the Father, in order more expressly to note the AIasonic idea, is figured like the Sun at its meridian.
What more appropriate than two figures typical of the Elect, redeemed by Christ, and raised and crowned with Him? Hence the two crowned figures, one apparently an ecclesiastic with an amice, whose diadems have the Trinity symbol of the trefoil, like the Father's crown in the Chester boss. In this Peterborough boss, indeed, each foil of the trefoil is itself trefoiled, as if to insist on the threefold notion.
RANDOLPH, PEYTON.
First president of the Continental Congress and a signer of the Declaration of Independence- Born 1721; died October 2°, 1775. He received a Warrant from Lord Petrie, Grand Master of England, on November 6, 1773, constituting him Master of Williamsburg Lodge No. 6, Williamsburg Virginia. Provincial Grand Master of Virginia in 1774 and until his death (see Washington zhe Man and the Mason, Charles H. Callahan, page o54, etc.; New Age, November, 1924; Masonry in the Formation of our Government—1761-1,99, Philip A. Roth, page 31).
RAPHAEL,
The Hebrew interpretation is the Sealing of God. The title of an officer in a Rose Croix Chapter- The name of the angel, under the Cabalistieal system, that governed the Planet Mercury. A messinger.
RATISBON.
A city of Bavaria, in which two Masonic Congresses have been held. The first was convoked in 1459, by Jost Dotzinger, the Master of the Works of the Strasburg cathedral. It established some new laws for the government of the Fraternity in Germany. The second was ealled in 1464, by the Grand Lodge of Strasburg, principally to define the relative rights of, and to settle existing difficulties between, the Grand Lodges of Strasburg, Cologne, Vienna, and Bera (see Stone Masons of the Middle Ages).
RAWLINSON MANUSCRIPT
In 1855, the Rev. J. S. Sidebotham, of New College, Oxford, published in the Freemasons Monthly Magazine a series of interesting extracts from a manuscript volume which he stated was in the Bodleian Library, and which he described as seeming "to be a kind of Masonic album, or commonplace book, belonging to Brother Richard Rawlinson, LL.D. and F.R.S., of the following Lodges: Sash and Cocoa-tree, Moorfields, 37; Saint Paul's Head, Ludgate Street, 40; Rose Tavern, Cheapside, and Oxford Arms, Ludgate Street, 94; in which he inserted anything that struck him either as useful or particularly amusing. It is partly in manuscript, partly in print, and comprises some ancient Masonic Charges, Constitutions, forms of summons, a list of all the Lodges of his time under the Grand Lodge of England, whether in London, the country, or abroad; together vith some extracts from the Grub street Journal, the General Evening Post, and other journals of the day. The dates range from 1724 to 1740" (Freemasons Monthly Magazzne, 1855, page 81). A later inquiry as to his membership disclosed that Richard Rawliason was a member of four Lodges, the one held at Sash and Cocoa-tree, the one at Saint Paul's Head, the Barbican, and the Oxford University Arms~ He served as Grand Steward in 1734.
Among the materials thus collected is one which bears the following title: The Freemasons Constito tiorLs, Copied from an Old Manuscript in the possession of Doctor Rawlinson. This copy of the Old Constitute tions does not differ materially in its contents from the other old manuscripts, but its more modern spelling and phraseology would seem to give it a later date, which may be from 172S50. In a note to the statement that King Athelstan "caused a roll or book to be made, which declared how this science was first invented, afterwards preserved and augmented, with the utility and true intent thereof, which roll or book he commanded to be read and plainly recited when a man was to be made a Freemason," Doctor Rawlinson says: "One of these rolls I have seen in the possession of Mr. Baker, a carpenter in Moorfields." The title of the manuscript in the scrap-book of Rawlinson is The Freemasons' Constitution, Copied from an Old Manuscript in the possession of Doctor Rawlinson. The original manuscript has not yet been traced, but possibly if found would be of about the end of the seventeenth century.
Richard Rawlinson, LL.D., was a celebrated antiquary, who was born in London about 1689, and died April 6, 1755. He was the author of a Life of Anthony Wood, published in 1711, and of The English Topographer, published in 1720. Doctor Rawlinson was consecrated a Bishop of the nonjuring communion of the Church of England, March 25, 1728. He was an assiduous collector of old manuscripts, invariably purchasing, sometimes at high prices, all that were offered him for sale. In his will, dated June 2, 1752, he bequeathed the whole collection to the University of Oxford. The manuscripts were placed in the Bodleian Library, and still remain there. In 1898, Dr. W. J. Chetwode Crawley published in the Transactions, Quatuor Coronati Lodge (volume xi), a full account of the Rawlinson manuscripts, in which he shows (page 15) that the collection was not reallv made by Doctor Rawlinson, but by one Thomas Towl.
RAWLINSON, RICHARD.
An English scholar, Doctor of Civil Law and Fellow of the Royal Society, noted for his large and valuable collections of old manuscripts anal books on Freemasonry and other subjects. Born at London in 1689, initiated about 1726 his name appearing in rosters of four London Lodges. Grand Steward in 1734. He was nonjuring bishop of the Church of England, consecrated March 95, 1728. His Masonic literature is now deposited in the Bodleian Library, Oxford, many interesting old documents being included, one 3 COpy of the Old Constitutions said to be as old as 1700 and the original of which has never been found. Brother Rawlinson died April 6, 1755. There is an interesting letter from Doctor Rawlinson to Mr. Thomas Towl at AGr. Heath's near the Black Dog in Shoreditch. The letter is as follows:
Dear Sir: As you preserve all relating to the Subjeet of Masonry I send you this from Mr. Whitfields Continuation of his Journal, London. 1739, October, page 6.
Saavannah in Georgia Friday 24th June, 1738
To the great surprise of myself and people was enabled to read Prayers and preach with power before the Free Masons, with whom I afterwards dined, and was used with the utmost Civility. May God make therm Sertants of Christ, and then, and rzot tic then wig thev be free indeed
What notions this Gent has of the craft you may guess by his surprise and wish. I am, sir, yours to command,
13 January, 1738/9. R. R.
Brother W. Wonnacott, late Grand Librarian of United Grand Lodge of England, has called our attention to the two dates given in this letter from Doctor Rawlinson to his Vriend. They do not harmonize and evidently some mistake has been made in the figures. Another error as to the actual day is commented upon by Brother Crawley:
Opportunity may here be taken to draw attention to the singular error in Dr. Richard Rawlinson's letter to
Towle. in which the Freemasons' hospitality is quoted from George Whitfield's Dxarv; the 24th June, 1738, did not fall on a Friday but on a Saturday. The misdating Of the entry is probably due to a clerical exTor, for there is not wanting contemporary evidence that the incident occurred on Saturday, June 24th, 1738.
(See foot-note, Brother W. J. Chetwode Crawley's article on Reverend John Wesley and the Lodge at Downpatrick, in the Transactions, Quatuor Coronati Lodge, volume xv, page 105.)
RAYMOND, EDWARD ASA.
Born February 6, 1791, in Golden, Massachusetts, and died in Brookline, Massachusetts, on August 4, 1864. For more than forty years Brother Ravmond was an active member of the Masonic Order, having become a Freemason January 15, 1816, in Amicable Lodge, Cambridge and being admitted a member of Saint Johns Lodge, Boston, April 2, 1836. He affiliated with the Massachusetts Lodge in 1843 on November 24. In the course of his Masonic career, Brother Raymond, who was the possessor of a large fortune, acted as Grand High Priest of the Grand Chapter, Grand Master of the Grand Encampment of Massachusetts, and Grand Commander of the Supreme Council for the Northern Jurisdiction of the United States. The period during which he served as Grand Master of Massachusetts dated from December 27, 1848, and ended December 30, 1851. The Memorial Volume of the 125th Anniversary of the Masaachusetts Lodge is dedicated in honor of Brother Raymond.
RECEIVED AND ACKNOWLEDGED.
A term applied to the initiation of a candidate into the Sixth or Most Excellent Master's Degree of the American Rite (see Acknowledged).
RECEPTION.
The ceremony of initiation into a Degree of Freemasonry is called a
reception.
RECIPIENT.
The French call the candidate in any Degree the Racipiendaire, or Recipient.
RECOGNITION, MODES OF.
Smith says ( Use and Abuse of Masonry, page 46) that at the institution of the Order, to each of the Degrees "a particular distinguished test was adapted, which test, together with the explication, was accordingly settled and communicated to the Fraternity previous to their dispersion, under a necessary and solemn injunction to secrecy; and they have been most eautiously preserved and transmitted down to posterity by faithful Brethren ever since their emigration." Hence, of all the landmarks, the modes of recognition are the most legitimate and unquestioned. They should admit of no variation, for in their universality consist their excellence and advantage.
Yet such variations have unfortunately been admitted, the principal of which originated about the middle of the eighteenth century, and were intimately connected with the division of the Fraternity in England into the t vo eonflieting societies of the Antients and the Moderns; and although by the reconciliation in 1813 uniformity was restored in the United Grand Lodge which was then formed, that uniformity did not extend to the subordinate Bodies in other countries which had derived their existence and their different modes of recognition from the two separated Grand Lodges; and this was, of course, equally applicable to the higher degrees which sprang out of them.
Thus, while the modes of recognition in the York and Scottish Rites are substantially the same, those of the French or Modern Rite differ in almost everything. In this there is a Password in the First Degree unrecognized by the two other Rites, and all afterwards are different.
Again, there are important differences in the York and American Rites, although there is sufficient similarity to relieve American and English Freemasons from any embarrassment in mutual recognition. Although nearly all the Lodges in the United States, before the Revolution of 1776, derived their existence from the Grand Lodges of England, the American Freemasons do not use the multitude of signs that prevail in the English system, while they have introduced, in the opinion of Brother Mackey, through the teachings of NVebb, the Due Guard, which is totally unknown to English Freemasonry. Looking to these differences, the Masonic Congress of Paris, held in 1856, recommended, in the seventh proposition, that "Masters of Lodges, in conferring the degree of Master Mason, should invest the candidate with the words, signs, and grips of the Scottish and Modern Rites." This proposition, if it had been adopted, would have mitigated, if it did not abolish, the evil; but, unfortunately, it did not receive the general concurrence of the Craft.
As to the antiquity of modes of recognition in general, it may be said that, from the very nature of things, there was al vays a necessity for the members of every secret society to have some means for recognizing a Brother that should escape the detection of the uninitiated. We find evidence in several of the classic writings showing that such a custom prevailed among the initiated in the pagan mysteries. Livy tells us (xxxi, 14) of two Acarnanian youths who accidentally entered the temple of Ceres during the celebration of the mysteries, and, not having been initiated, were speedily detected as intruders, and put to death by the managers of the temple. They must, of course, have owed their detection to the fact that they were not in possession of those modes of recognition which were known only to the initiated.
That they existed in the Dionysiac rites of Bacchus we learn from Plautus, who, in his Miles Gloriosus (act iv, scene ii), makes Misphidippa say to Pyrgopolonices, Cedo signum si harunc Baccharum es, that is, Give the sign, if you are one of these Bacchae.
Jamblichus (On the Pythagorean Life) tells the story of a disciple of Pythagoras, who, having been taken sick, on a long journey, at an inn, and having exhausted his funds, gave, before he died, to the landlord, who had been very kind to him, a paper, on which he had written the account of his distress, and signed it with a symbol of Pythagoras. This the landlord affixed to the gate of a neighboring temple. Months svfterward another Pythagorean, passing that way, recognized the secret symbol, and, inquiring into the tale, reimbursed the landlord for all his trouble and expense.
Apuleius, who was initiated into the Osirian and Isiac Mysteries, says, in his Defenno, "if any one is present who has been initiated into the same secret rites as myself, if he will give me the sign, he shall then be at liberty to hear what it is that I keep with such care." But in another place he is less cautious, and even gives an inkling of what was one of the signs of the Osirian Initiation. For in his Golden Ass (book xi) he says that in a dream he beheld one of the disciples of Osiris, "who walked gently, with a hesitating step, the ankle of his left foot being slightly bent, in order, no doubt, that he might afford me some sign by which I could recognize him." The Osirian Initiates had then, it seems, like the Freemasons, mystical steps.
That the Gnostics had modes of recognition we learn from Saint Epiphanius, himself at one time in early life a Gnostic, who says in his Pananum, written against the Gnostics and other heretics, that "on the arrival of any stranger belonging to the same belief, they have a sign given by one to another. In holding out the hand, under pretence of saluting each other, they feel and tickle it in a peculiar manner underneath the palm, and so discover if the newcomer belongs to the same sect. Thereupon, however poor they mav be, thev serve up to him a sumptuous feast, with abundance of meats and wine."
We do not refer to the fanciful theories of Doetor Oliver—the first one is most probably a joke, and therefore out of place in his Symbolical Dictionary
founded on passages of Homer and Quintus Curtius, that Achilles and Alexander of Macedon recognized the one Priam and the other the High Priest by a sign. But there are abundant evidences of an authentic nature that a system of recognition bv signs, and words, and grips has existed in the earliest times, and, therefore, that they were not invented by the Freemasons, who borrowed them, as they did much more of their mystical system, from antiquity.
RECOMMENDATION.
The petition of a candidate for initiation must be recommended by at least two members of the Lodge.
Preston requires the signature to be witnessed by one person; he does not say whether the witness must be a member of the Lodge or not, and that the candidate must be proposed in open Lodge by a member.
Webb says that "the candidate must be proposed in form, by a member of the Lodge, and the proposition seconded by another member."
Cross says that the recommendation glib to be signed bv two members of the Lodge," and he dispenses with the formal proposition.
These gradual changes, none of them, however, substantially affecting the principle, have at last resulted in the present simpler usage, which is, for two members of the Lodge to affix their names to the petition, as recommenders of the applicant.
The petition for a Dispensation for a new Lodge, as preliminary to the application for a Warrant of Constitution, must be recommended by the nearest Lodge. Preston says that it must be recommended "by the Masters of three regular Lodges adjacent to the place where the new Lodge is to be held." This is also the language of the Constitution of the Grand Lodge of Ireland. The Grand Lodge of Scotland requires the recommendation to be signed "by the Masters and officers of two of the nearest Lodges." The modern Constitution of the Grand Lodge of England requires a recommendation "by the officers of some regular Lodge," without saying anything of its vicinity to the new Lodge. The rule now universally adopted is, that it must be recomnleaded by the nearest Lodge (see Doctor Mackey's revised Jurisprudence of Freernasonry).
RECONCILIATION, LODGE OF.
When the two contending Grand Lodges of England, known as the Antients and the Moderns, resolved, in 1813 under the respective Grand Masterships of the Dukes of Rent and Sussex, to put an end to all differences and to form a United Grand Lodge, it was provided in the fifth Article of Union, that each of the two Grand Masters should appoint nine Master Masons to meet at some convenient place; and each party having opened a just and perfect Lodge in a separate apartment, they should give and receive mutually and reciprocally the obligations of both Fraternitie sand being thus duly and equally enlightened in both forms, they should be empowered and directed to hold a Lodge, under the Warrant or Dispensation to be entrusted to them, and to be entitled the Lodge of Reconciliation.
The duty of this Lodge was to visit the several Lodges under both Grand Lodges, and to instruct the officers and members of the same in thf forms of initiation, obligation, etc., in both, so that uniformity of working might be established. The Lodge of Reconciliation was constituted on the 27th of December, 1813, the day on which the Union was perfected. This Lodge was only a temporary one, and the duties for which it had been organized having been performed, it ceased to exist by its own limitation in 1816. (For a full account of this Lodge and its work see Transactions, Quatuor Coronati Lodge, volume xxiii, 1910.)
RECONSIDERATIONS MOTION FOR.
A motion for reconsideration can only be made in a Grand Lodge, Grand Chapter, or other Grand Body, on the same day or the day after the adoption of the motion which it is proposed to reconsider. In a Lodge or other subordinate body, it can only be made at the same meeting. It cannot be moved by one who has voted in the minority.
It cannot be made when the matter to be reconsidered has passed out of the control of the body, as when the original motion was for an appropriation which has been expended since the motion for it was passed. A motion for reconsideration is not debatable if the question proposed to be reconsidered is not. It cannot always be adopted by a simple majority vote. It may be postponed or laid upon the table.
If postponed to a time definite, and when that time arrives is not acted upon, it cannot be renewed. If laid upon the table, it cannot be taken up out of its orderl snd no w.eond motion for reconsideration can be offered while it lies upon the table, hence to lay a motion for reconsideration on the table is considered as equivalent to rejecting it. When a motion for reconsideration is adopted, the original motion comes up immediately for consideration, as if it had been for the first time brought before the body, in the form which it presented when it was adopted.
RECONSIDERATION OF THE BALLOT.
When the petition of a candidate for initiation has been rejected, it is not permissible for any member to move for a reconsideration of the ballot. The folloWing four principles set forth in a summary way the doctrine of Masonic parliamentary law on this subject:
REFORMED MASONIC ORDER OF MEMPTIIS, OR RITE OF THE GRAND LODGE OF PHILADELPHES
See Memphis, Rite of.
REFORMED RITE.
This Rite was established in 1872, by a Congress of Freemasons assembled at \5iilhelmsbad, in Germany, over whose deliberations Ferdinand, Duke of Brunswick, presided as Grand Master. It was at this Convention that the Reformed Rite was first established, its members assuming the title of the Beneficent Knights of the Holy City because they derived their system from the Freneh Rite of that name. It was called the Reformed Rite, because it professed to be a reformation of a Rite which had been established in Germany about a quarter of a century before under the name of the Rite of Strict Observance. This latter Rite had advanced a theory in relation to the connection between Freemasonry and the Order of Knights Templar, and traced the origin of our institution to those Knights at the Crusades This hypothesis the Convention at Wilhelmsbad rejected as unfounded in history or correct tradition. By the adoption of this Rite, the Congress gave a death-blow to the Rite of Strict Observance.
The Reformed Rite is exceedingly simple in its organization, consisting only of five Degrees, namely:
1. Entered Apprentice;
2. Fellow Craft;
3. Master Mason;
4. Scottish Master;
5. Knight of the Holy City.
The last Degree is, however, divided into three sections, those of Novice, Professed Brother, and Knight, which really gives seven Degrees to the Rite.
REFRESHMENT.
In Masonic language, refreshment is opposed in a peculiar sense to labor.
While a Lodge is in activity it must be either at labor or at refreshment. If a Lodge is permanently closed until its next eommunication, the intervening period is one of abeyance, its activity for Masonic duty having for the time been suspended; although its powers and privileges as a Lodge still exist, and may be at any time resumed. But where it is only temporarily closed, with the intention of soon again resuming labor, the intermediate period is called a time of refreshment, and the Lodge is said not to be closed, but to be called from labor to refreshment. The phrase is an old one, and is found in the early rituals of the eighteenth Century. Callingfrom labor to refreshment differs from closing in this, that the ceremony is a very brief one, and that the Junior Warden then assumet the eo trol of the draft, in token of which he erects his column on his stand or pedestal, while the Senior Warden lays his down. This is reversed in caging on, in which the ceremony is equally brief.
The word refreshment no longer bears the meaning among Freemasons that it formerly did. It signifies not necessarily eating and drinking, but simply cessation from labor. A Lodge at refreshment may thus be compared to any other society when in a recess During the whole of the eighteenth century, and part of the next, a different meaning was given to the word arising from a now obsolete usage, which Doctor Oliver (Masonic Jurisprudence, page 210) thus describes:
The Lodges in ancient times were not arranged according to the praetise in use amongst ourselves at the present day. The Worshipful Master, indeed, stood in t he East, but both the Wardens were plaeed in the West the South was occupied by the senior Entered Apprentiee, whose business it was to obey the instructions of the Master, and to welcome the visiting Brethren, after has ing duly ascertained that they were Freemasons. The junior Entered Apprentice was placed in the north to present the intrusion of cowans and eavesdroppers; and a long table, and sometimes two, where the Lodge was numerous, were extended in paraUel lines from the pedestal to the place where the Wardens sat, on which appeared not only the emblems of Freemasonry, but also materials for refreshments—for in those days every section of the lecture had its peculiar toast or sentiment
and at its conclusion the Lodge was called from labour to refreshment by certain ceremonies, and a toast, teellnieallv called "the Charge," was drunk in a bumper xvitll the bonours, and not unfrequently aceonlpanied ivy an appropriate song. After which the Lodge M as caned from refreshment to labour, and another section was delivered with the like result.
At the present day, the banquets of Lodges, When they talie place, are alxvays held after the Lodge is closed; although they are still supposed to be under the charge of the Junior Warden. When modern Lodges are called to refreshment, it is either as a part of the ceremony of the Third Degree, or for a brief period; sometimes extending to more than a day when labor, which had not been finished, is to be resumed and concluded.
The mythical history of Freemasonry says that high twelve or noon was the hour at Solomon's Temple when the Craft were permitted to suspend their labor, which was resumed an hour after. In reference to this myth, a Lodge is at all times supposed to be called from labor to refreshment at "high twelve," and to be called on again "one hour after high twelve."
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