WORSHIP.
WORSHIPFUL.II
WORSHIPFUL LODGE.
WORSHIPFUL MASTER.
WORSHIPFUL MASTER, THE.II
WORSHIPFUL MASTER, DEATH OF.
WORSHIPFUL, MOST.
WORSHIPFUL, RIGHT.
WORSHIPFUL, VERY.
Originally, the term "to worship" meant to pay that honor and reverence which are due to one who is worthy. Thus, where our authorized version translates Matthew xix, 19, "Honour thy father and thy mother," Wycliffe says, "Worship thi fadir and thi modir." And in the marriage service of the Episcopal Church, the expression is still retained, "with my body I thee worship," that is, "honor or reverence thee."
Hence the still common use in England of the words Worshipful and Right Worshipful as titles of honor applied to municipal and judicial officers. Thus the Mayors of small towns, and Justiees of the Peace, are stvled Worshipful, while the mayors of large cities, as London, are called Right Worshipful. The usage was adopted and retained in Freemasonry. The word worship, or its derivatives, is not met with in any of the old manuscripts.
In the "Manner of constituting a New Lodge," adopted in 1722, and published by Doctor Anderson in 1723, the word worship is applied as a title to the Grand Master (Constitutions, 1723, page 71).
WORSHIPFUL.
A title applied to a Symbolic Lodge and to its Master. The Germans sometimes use the title Hochwurdig. The French style the Worshipful Master Venerable, and the Lodge, Respectable.
In the seventeenth century, the Gilds of London began to call themselves Worshipful, as "the Worshipful Company of Grocers," etc.; and it is likely that the Lodges at the Revival, and perhaps a few years before, adopted the same style.
The reader will find in the remarks made to a Lodge by Paul Revere a significant and free use of the word in addressing both Masters and Wardens (see Revere, Paul). Many such instances are also mentioned in MisceUanea Latoinorum. On page 28, volume v, mention is made of the use of Right Worshipful Master in a number of Lodges, including the Lodge of Antiquity, No. 2, and Saint John the Baptist Lodge, No. 39, though it cannot be said to have been the usual practise. Two old Warrants issued by the Modern Grand Lodge in 1767 and 1769 are also noted on the same page as being "at the Petition of our Right Worshipful and well beloved Brethren."
Brother J. Vroom notes on page 44, volume v, that in the records of the Orphan's Friend Lodge, No. 34, on the registry of the Grand Lodge of Nova Scotia, Antients, until some time later than 1813, the three principal officers of the Lodge were styled Right Worshipful Master, Worshipful Senior Warden, and Worshipful Junior Warden. The writer suggested that this may be a local custom, derived through Massachusetts influence from Lodges established under Scottish Warrants.
Brother T. B. Whytehead, discussing Relics of the Grand Lodge at York (in volume xiii, 1900, page 107) Transactions, Quatuor Coronati Lodge, states that at a Communication of the Lodge held on November 30, 1778, "it was considered the title of Most Worshipful should be used in future to the Grand Master of all England and the Lodges granted in future under this Constitution the Masters of such Lodges be stiled Right Worshipful Master."
The expression has the prestige of long service as a term of respectful formality but is now of much more limited usefulness than formerly. In Samuel Pepys' famous Diary there is a pertinent entry under date of August 4, 1661, where it is recorded that a clergyman addressed his congregation as "Right Worshipful and dearly beloved This was in the Parish of "my Cousin Roger," who was the Member of Parliament for the town of Cambridge. Probably the presence of such persons of distinction was the reason for the expression employed by the preacher.
WORSHIPFUL LODGE.
See Worshipful.
WORSHIPFUL MASTER.
See Worshipful.
WORSHIPFUL MASTER, DEATH OF.
When the Master dies, the Senior Warden, or in his absence the Junior Warden, acts as Master in summoning the Lodge. The Senior Warden presides if present and, if not, then the Junior Warden. In England, by Rule 141 of the Grand Lodge, in case of the death or absence of the Master the chair is taken by the Immediate Past Master, or by the Senior Past Master of the Lodge, or by the Senior Past Master who subscribes to the Lodge. Failing all these, then the Senior Warden or, in his absence, the Junior Warden rules the Lodge. These last two may not, however, occupy the Master's chair and no initiation may take place or Degree be conferred under the English ruling unless a Master or Past Master in the Craft presides in the East.
WORSHIPFUL, MOST.
The prevailing title of a Grand Master and of a Grand Lodge.
WORSHIPFUL, RIGHT.
The prevailing title of the elective officers of a Grand Lodge below the Grand Master.
WORSHIPFUL, VERY.
A title used by certain of the Grand Officers of the Grand Lodge of England.
WOUND, MASON'S.
Nicolai, in the appendix to his Essay on the Accusations against the Templars, says that in a small dictionary, published at the beginning of the eighteenth century, the following definition is to be found. "Mason's Wound. It is an imaginary wound above the elbow, to represent a fracture of the arm occasioned by a fall from an elevated place."
The origin and esoteric meaning of the phrase have been lost. It was probably used as a test, or alluded to some legend which has now escaped memory. However, note also the Master's penalty in the Degree of Perfection.
WREN, SIR CHRISTOPHER.
One of the most distinguished architects of England was the son of Dr. Christopher Wren, Rector of East Knoyle in Wiltshire, and was born there October 20, 1632. He was entered as a Gentleman Commoner at Wadham College, Oxford, in his fourteenth year, being already distinguished for his mathematical knowledge. He has said to have invented, before this period, several astronomical and mathematical instruments. In 1645, he became a member of a scientific club connected with Gresham College, from which the Royal Society subsequently arose. In 1653, he was elected a Fellow of All Souls College, and had already become known to the learned men of Europe for his various inventions.
In 1657, he removed permanently to London, having been elected Professor of Astronomy at Gresham College.
During the political disturbances which led to the abolition of the monarchy and the establishment of the Commonwealth, Wren, devoted to the pursuits of philosophy, appears to have kept away from the contests of party. Soon after the restoration of Charles II, he was appointed Savillian Professor at Oxford, one of the highest distinctions which could then have been conferred on a scientific man. During this time he was distinguished for his numerous contributions to astronomy and mathematics, and invented many curious machines, and discovered many methods for facilitating the calculations of the celestial bodies. Wren was not professionally educated as an architect, but from his early youth had devoted much time to its theoretic study. In 1665 he went to Paris for the purpose of studying the public buildings in that city. and the various styles which they presented.
He was induced to make this visit, and to enter into these investigations, because, in 1660, he had been appointed by King Charles II one of a Commission to superintend the restoration of the Cathedral of Saint Paul's, which had been much dilapidated during the times of the Commonwealth. But before the designs could be carried into execution, the great fire occurred which laid so great a part of London, including Saint Paul's, in ashes.
Wren was appointed assistant in 1661 to Sir John Denham, the Surveyor-General, and directed his attention to the restoration of the burnt portion of the city. His plans were, unfortunately for the good of London, not adopted, and he confined his attention to the rebuilding of particular edifices. In 1667, he was appointed the successor of Denham as SurveyorGeneral and Chief Architect.
In this capacity he erected a large number of churches, the Royal Exchange, Greenwich Observatory, and many other public edifices. But his crowning work, the masterpiece that has given him his largest reputation, is the Cathedral of Saint Paul's, which was commenced in 1675 and finished in 1710. The original plan that was proposed by Wren was rejected through the ignorance of the authorities, and differed greatly from the one on which it has been constructed. Wren, however, superintended the erection as master of the work, and his tomb in the crypt of the Cathedral was appropriately inscribed with the words Si monumentum requiris, circumspice; that is, If you seek his monument, look around.
Wren was made a Knight in 1672, and in 1674 he married a daughter of Sir John Coghill. To a son by this marriage are we indebted for memoirs of the family of his father, published under the title of Parentalia.
After the death of his wife, he married a daughter off Viscount Fitzwilliam. In 1680, Wren was elected President of the Royal Society, and continued to a late period his labors on public edifices, building, among others, additions to Hampton Court and to Windsor Castle.
After the death of Queen Anne, who was the last of his royal patrons, Wren was removed from his office of Surveyor-General, which he had held for a period of very nearly half a century. He passed the few remaining years of his life in serene retirement. He was found dead in his chair after dinner, on February 25, 1723, in the ninety-first year of his age.
Notwithstanding that much that has been said by Doctor Anderson and other writers of the eighteenth century, concerning Wren's connection with Freemasonry, is without historical confirmation, there can, Doctor Mackey believed, be no doubt that he tools a deep interest in the Speculative as well as in the Operative Order.
The Rev. J. W. Laughlin, in a leeture on the life of Wren, delivered in 1857, before the inhabitants of Saint Andrew's, Hnlb(lrn, and briefly reported in the Freemasons Magazine, said that "Wren was for eighteen years a member of the old Lodge of Saint Paul's, then held at the Goose and Gridiron, near the Cathedral, now the Lodge of Antiquity; and the records of that Lodge show that the maul and trowel used at the laying of the stone of Saint Paul's, together with a pair of carved mahogany candlesticks, were presented by Wren, and are now in possession of that Lodge." By the order of the Duke of Sussex, a plate was placed on the mallet or maul, which contained a statement of the fact.
C. W. King, who was not a Freemason, but has derived his statement from a source to which he does not refer (but which was perhaps Nicolai) makes, in his work on the Gnostics (page 176) the following statement, which is here quoted merely to show that the traditionary belief of Wren's connection with Speculative Freemasonry is not confined to the Craft. He says:
Another and a very important eireumstsLnee in this discussion must always be kept in view: our Freemasons (as at present organized in the form of a secret Society) derive their title from a mere accidental eireumstanee connected with their actual establishment. It was in the Common Hall of the London Gild of Freemasons (the trade) that their first meetings were held under Christopher Wren, president, in the time of the Commonwealth.
Their real object was political—the restoration of monarchy; hence the necessary exclusion of the publie and the oaths of secrecy enjoined on the members. The pretenee of promoting architectures and the choice of the place where to hold their, meetings, suggested by the profession of their president, were no more than blinds to deceive the existing government.
Doctor Anderson, in the first edition of the Constitutions, makes but a slight reference to Wren, only calling him "the ingenious architect, Sir Christopher Wren." Doctor Mackey was almost afraid that this passing notice of him who has been called "the Vitruvius of England" must be` attributed to servility. George I was the stupid monarch who removed Wren from his office of Surveyor-General, and it would not do to be too diffuse with praise of one who had been marked by the disfavor of the king. But in 1727 George I died, and in his second edition, published in 1738, Doctor Anderson gives to Wren all the Masonic honors to which he claims that he was entitled.
It is from what Anderson has said in that work, that the Masonic writers of the eighteenth century and the first half of the nineteenth, not requiring the records of authentic history, have drawn their views of the official relations of Siren to the Order. He first introduces Wren (page 101) as one of the Grand Wardens at the General Assembly held December 27, 1663, when the Earl of Saint Albans was Grand Master, and Sir John Denham, Deputy Grand Master. He says that in 1666 Wren was again a Grand Warden, under the Grand Mastership of the Earl of Rivers; but immediately afterward he calls him Deputy Wren, and continues to give him the title of Deputy Grand Master until 1685, when he says (page 106) that "the Lodges met, and elected Sir Christopher Wren Grand Master, who appointed Mr. Gabriel Cibber and Mr. Edmund Savage Grand Wardens; and while carrying on Saint Paul's he annually met those Brethren who could attend him, to keep up good old usages."
Brother Anderson (on page 107) makes the Duke of Richmond and Lennox Grand Master, and reduces Wren to the rank of a Deputy; but he says that in 1698 he was again chosen Grand Master, and as such "celebrated the Cape-stone" of Saint Paul's in 1708. "Some few years after this," he says, "Sir Christopller Wren neglected the office of Grand Master." Finally he says (on page 109) that in 1716 "the Lodges in London finding themselves neglected by Sir Christopher Wren," Freemasonry was revived under a new Grand Master. Some excuse for the aged architect's neglect might have been found in the fact that he was then eighty-five years of age, and had been long removed from his public office of Surveyor-General.
Brother Noorthouek is more considerate. Speaking of the placing of the last stone on the top of Saint Paul's—which, nohvithstanding the statement of Doetor Anderson, was done, not by Wren, but by his son—he says (Constitutions, page 204): The age and infirmities of the Grand Master, which prevented his attendance on this solemn occasion, confined him afterlvards to great retirement; so that the Lodges suffered from mant of his usual presence in visiting and regulating their meetings, and were reduced to a small number.
Brother Noorthouck, however, repeats substantially the statements of Doetor Anderson in reference to Wren's Ckrand Mastership. How much of these state ments can be authenticated by history is a question that must be decided only by more extensive in vestigations of documents not yet in possession of the Craft. Findel says in his History (page 127) that Doctor Anderson, having been commissioned in 1735 by the Grand Lodge to make a list of the ancient Patrons of the Freemasons, so as to afford something like a historical basis, "transformed the former Patrons into Grand Mastefs, and the Masters and Superintendents into Grand Wardens and the like, which were unknown until the year 1717." Of this there can be no doubt; but there is other evidence that Wren was a Freemason. In Aubrey's Natural History of Wiltshire (page 277) a manuscript in the library of the Royal Society, Halliwell finds and cites, in his Early Historty of Freemasonry in England (page 46) the following passage:
This day, May the 15th, being Monday, 1691, after Rogation Sunday, is a great convention at Saint Paul's Church of the Fraternity of the Accepted (the word Free was first written, then the pen drawn through it and
the word Accepted written over it) Seasons, where Sir Christopher Wren is to be adopted a brothers and Sir Henry Goodrie of the Tower, and divers others. There have been Kings that have been of this sodality.
If this statement be true—and we have no reason to doubt it, from Aubrey's general antiquarian accuracy—Doctor Anderson is incorrect in making him a Grand Master in 1685, six years before he was initiated as a Freemason. The true version of the story probably is this: Wren was a great architect—the greatest at the time in England. As such he received the appointment of Deputy Surveyor-General under Denham, and subsequently, on :Ocnham's death, of Surveyor-General. He thus became invested, by virtue of his office, with the duty of superintending the construction of public buildings.
The most important of these was Saint Paul's Cathedral, the building of which he directed in person, and with so much energy that the parsimonious Duchess of Marlborough, when contrasting the charges of her own architeet with the seantr remuneration of Wren, observed that "he was content to be dragged up in a basket three or four times a week to the top of Saint Paul's, and at great hazard, for £200 a year."
All this brought him into close connection with the Gild of Freemasons, of which he naturally became the patron, and subsequently he was by initiation adopted into the modality Wren was, in fact, what the Medieval Masons called Magister Operis, or Master of the Work. Doctor James Anderson, writing for a purpose naturally transformed this title into that of Grand Master—an office supposed to be unknown until the year 1717. Aubrey's authority, in Doctor Maelsey's opinion, sufficiently establishes the fact that Wren lvas a Freemason, and the events of his life prove his attachment to the profession.
Whether Sir Christopher Wren was or not a member of the Fraternity has long been debated with lively interest. The foregoing statement by Doctor Mackey gives the principal facts and we may note that two newspapers announced his funeral, I'ostboy (No. 5245, March 2-5, 1793) and the British Journal (No. 25, March 9, 1723).
Both of them allude to Wren as "that worthy Freemason." Brother Christopher Wren, Jr., the son of Sir Christopher Wren, was Master of the famous Lodge of Antiquity in 1729. The subject is discussed in Doctor Mackey's revised History of Freemasonrg; also by Sir John S. Cockburn, Masonic Record, March, 1923, in Square and Compass, September, 1923, and many other journals, as well as in Records of Antiquity Lodge, volume i, by Brother W. H. Rylands, and volume ii, by Captain C. W. Firebrace, there is much additional and valuable firsthand information favoring Wren's active connection with the Fraternity, some items personally checked by us at the Lodge itself.
Brother K. R. H. Mackenzie in the Royal Masonic Cyclopaedia says,
There can be little doubt that Wren took a deep interest in speculative as well as operative Masonry (see Book of Constitutions) and that he was an eminent Member of the Craft eannot be doubted, but the dates respecting Wren's initiation are vague and unsatisfaetory, none of the authorities agreeing. It would seem certain, however, that for many years he was a member of the old Lodge of Saint Paul's, meeting at the (Bose and gridiron, in Saint Paul's Churchyard.
Brother Robert F. Gould (History of Freemasonry, me ii, page 55) says,
The popular belief that Wren was a Freemason, though hitherto unchallenged, and supported by a great weight of authority, is, in my judgment, unsustained by any basis of well-attested fact. The admission of the great architect—at any period of his life—into the Masonic fraternity, seems to me a mere figment of the imagination, but it may at least he confidently asserted, that it cannot be proved to be a reality.
Rev. A. F. A. Woodford, Renning's Cyclopedia of Freemasonry, says,
In Freemasonry it has been general for many years to credit Sir Christopher Wren with every thing great and good before the " Revival," but on very slender evidence. He is said to have been a member of the Lodge of Antiquity for many years; "and the maul and trowel used at the laving of the stone of Saint Paul's, mith a pair of carved mahogany candlesticks, were presented " by hind and are in the possession of the Lodge.
Doctor Anderson chronicles hinl as Grand Master in 16S5; but according to a manuscript of Aubrey's in the Royal Society, he was not admitted a Brother Freemason until 1691. Unfortunately, the early records of the celebrated Lodge of—Antiquity have been lost or destroyed, so there is lid lly nothing certain as to Wren's Masonic career, alwhat little has been circulated is contradictory. It is, of course, more than likely he took an active part in Freemasonry, though he was not a member of the Masons Company; but as the records are wanting, it is idle to speculate, and absurd to credit to his labors on behalf of our Society what there is not a tittle of evidence to prove.
Brother Hawkins, an editor of this work, also prepared for the Concise Cyclopedia of freemasonry, the following summary of the arguments on both sides of the question at issue:
Those who contend that he was not a Freemason reply as follows:
1. No reference to the convention mentioned by Aubrey has yet been discovered elsewhere, and it remains uncertain whether it ever was held and whether the proposed adoption of the illustrious architect took place or not; also it is inconsistent with the dates given in the 1738 Constitutions;
2. In the Constitutions of 1723, he is only described as lithe ingenious architect," without any hint of his being a Freemason;
3. It is incredible that Doctor Anderson, when compiling the 1723 Constitutions, should have been ignorant of the details of Wren's Masonic career which he gave so from in 1735; moreover, he has claimed as Grand Masters are most all distinguished men from Adam downwards, though there was no such office as Grand Master until 1117, and his dates are inconsistent with that given by Aubrey,
4. Subsequent writers all quoted from the 1738 Constitutions and therefore their evidence is worth no more than Doctor Anderson's, and no such records as Preston refers to can now be found, nor can the legendary history of the candlesticks and the mallet be authenticated. Such are the arguments for and against Wren's connection with the Craft; those who claim him as a Freemason must reconcile as best they ean the conflictingg dates given by Aubrey and Anderson: and those who regard his membership as equally a fable with his Grand Mastership must somehow explain away the contemporary evidence of the two newspapers that in the year of his death called him ' ' that worthy Freemason."
WREN'S MANUSCRIPT.
On the Brotttne's Manuscript, owned by Brother W. J. Hughan, there is an endorsement stating that the original was found amongst the papers of Sir Christopher \Ntren. Brother Hughan has tried to trace this further through the relatives of Brother S. Browne but was unsuccessful.
WRESTLE.
A Degree sometimes called the Mark a Link, or Wrestle. It was formerly connected with the Mark Degree in England. Its ceremonies were founded on the passage in Genesis xxxii,
WRIGHT, REV. JAMES, D.D.
Grand Chaplain of ,Scotland, author of 21 Recommendation of Brotherly Love, 1786.
WRITING.
The law Which forbids a Freemason to commit to writing the esoteric parts of the ritual has been exemplified in some English and American Lodges by a peculiar ceremony; but the usage is not universal. The Druids had a similar rule; and we are told that they, in keeping their records, used the letters of the Greek alphabet, so that they might be unintelligible to those not authorized to read them.
WYKEHAM, WILLIAM OF.
Bishop of Winchester. Born at Wykeham, in Hampshire, in 1324, and died in 1404. He was eminent both as an ecelesiastic and statesman. In 1359, before he reached the episcopate, Edward III appointed him Surveyor of the Works at Windsor, which Castle he rebuilt. In his Warrant or Commission, he was invested with power "to appoint a11 workmen, to provide materials, and to order everything relating to building and repairs."
He was, in fact, what the old manuscript Constitutions call the Lord, under whom were thc Master Masons. Doctor Anderson says that he was at the head of four hundred Freemasons (Constitutions, 1738, page 70) was Master of Work under Edward III, and Grand Master under Richard II (Constitutions, page 72). And the freemasons Magazine (August, 1796) styles him "one of the brightest ornaments that Freemasonry has ever boasted." In this there is, of course, a mixture of myth and history. Wylseham was an architect as well as a bisllop, and superintended the building of many public edifices in England in the fourteenth century, being a distinguished example of the connection so common in Medieval times between the eccelesiasties and the Freemasons.
WYCLIF AS ANTI-MASON.
John Wyclif was born in 132U, and died in 1384. IlIis name is spelled in a score of forrns; the one here used was adopted by the Wyelif Soeiety.) He was a power in his own day and has been famous since, because he was the great English scholar of his period; because he opposed the financial rapacity of the Chureh; because he sent out "humble men" to preach to the rank and file not in Latin but in their own language; because he made two translations of the Bible in English, the "literal" one (from the Latin Vulgate) in 1382 (circa), the "free" translation in a version published after his death in 1395; because his example inspired John Hus of Bohemia; and because he stood up manfully against the wrath of the Pope for having made "the Bible available for the vulgar"—that is, common people.
But Wyclif held as tenaciously as any other Fourteenth Century theologian to the notion that work is a curse and that workmen belong to the lower orders, are less than men, and have no rights as compared with "the gentry," therefore it infuriated him when Freemasons "congregated" to demand better wages and against them he let loose with the counterblast quoted below. Other clergymen afterwards were to follow him; indeed, clerical antipathy to Freemasonry has never ceased in some quarters. The fact that Wyclif and his Lollard movement ("the reformation before the Reformation") were contemporary with the first permanent Lodges of Freemasons is of signifieanee in the history of the Craft. The paragraph herewith is from page 332, in Cap. XXVIII, entitled "The Grete Sentens of Curs," in Vol. III, of Selected English Works, edited by T. Arnold; 1871.
"Able false eonspiratours ben cursed of God and man. Conspiratours ben tho that by eomyn assent don wrong or ony falsenesse to here neighboris. Here it semeth openly that able freris, worldly elerkis, and possessioneris, ben openly cursed; for thei eonspiren falsely aghenst the gospel and Christis pore prestis . . .
"Also alle newe fraternytes or gildis maad of men semen openly to renne in in this curs. For thei conspiren many false errours aghenst the comyn fratero nyte of Crist, that alle Cristene men token in here cristendom, and aghenst eomyn eharite and comyn profit of Cristene men. And thereto thei conspiren to bere up eche other, ye, in wrong, and oppresse othere men in here right bi here witt and power. And alle the goodnes that is in these gildes eche man owith for to do bi corny fraternyte of Cristendom, bi Goddis eomaundement . . . Also men of sutel craft, as fre masons and othere, semen openly cursed bi this sentence. For thei conspiren togidere that no man of here craft what take lesse on a day than thei setten though he schulde bi good conscience take moche lesse, and that noon of hem schal make sade trewe werk to
lette othere mennus wynnyng of the craft, and that non of hem schal do ought but only hewe stone, though he myght profit his maistir twenti pound bit o daies werk bi leggyng on a wal without en harm of penyng
himself. See how this wickid peple conspireth aghenst treuthe and charity and comyn profit of the lond
and ponyschith hem that helpen frely here neigheboris!"
WYOMING.
The first Masonic meeting held in Wyoming was of an informal nature and took place on the top of Independenee Roek, Natrona County, on July 4,1862, at sunset. Several trains of immigrants had arrived and it was decided by about twenty Brethren to hold a celebration to commemorate the day and event. On Deeember 15, 1874, the Masters and Wardens of Cheyenne, No. 16; Wyoming, No. 28; Laramie, No. 18, and Evanston, No. 24, adopted a Constitution and Grand Offieers were elected and installed. On October 12, 1875, the first Annual Grand Communication of the Grand Lodge of Wyoming lvas held at Laramie. The Grand Lodge of Colorado chartered Cheyenne Lodge, No. 1G, of Cheyenne, October 7, 1868. Wyoming Lodge, No. 28, at South Pass City, was chartered by the Grand Lodge of Nebraska, June 23, 1870. Lararnie Lodge No. 18, Laramie City, was granted a Charter on September 28, 1870, by the Grand Lodge of Colorado wlliell also issued a Charter on September 30, 1874, to Evanston Lodge No. 24, at Evanston.
In his report to the Triennial Convocation of the General Grand Chapter held on September 19, 1871, the General Grand High Priest, Companion Joseph E. Dyas, stated that he had issued a Dispensation to Wyoming Chapter, No. 1. A Dispensation for the formation of a Grand Chapter of Wyoming was signed on April 6, 1909, by Companion Dyas who also approved the Constitution and By-laws on April 19. Eight Chapters with Charters and two worlsing under Dispensations existed in Wyoming at the time.
The officers of the General Grand Chapter gave a Dispensation to a Couneil at Cheyenne on June 24, 1895, but it was annulled Oetober 11, 1897. Other Dispensations were granted and after a time annulled and not until 1918 was a Charter issued, when Wyoming, No. 1, at Casper, having a Dispensation dated May 1, 1918, was chartered five months later on September 30. Laramie, No. 2, at Laramie City, received a Dispensation, November 1, 1920, and a Charter September 27, 1921. Sheridan, No. 3, at Sheridan received a Dispensation, December 16, 1922, and a Charter September 9, 1924.
Wyoming Commandery, No. 1, worked under Dispensation issued March 15, 1873, until it was given a Charter on Deeember 3, 1874. Three subordinate Commanderies, Wyoming, No. 1; Ivanhoe, No. 2, and Immanuel, No. 3, were in existence when the Grand Commandery of Wisconsin was organized by authority of the Grand Encampment on September 23, 1886. It was instituted on Mareh 8, 1888.
On October 24, 1901, four Bodies of the Aneient and Accepted Scottish Rite, Southern Jurisdietion, were chartered at Cheyenne, namely, Wyoming Consistory, No. 1; Cheyenne Council of Kadoshj No. 1; Albert Pike Chapter of Rose Croix, No. 2, and Rocky Mountain Lodge of Perfection, No. 3.
WYSEACRE.
TheLeland Manuscript, referring to Pythagoras, says that "wynnynge entraunee yn al Lodges of Maconnes, he lerned muche and retournedde and woned yn Grecia Magna wachsynge, and beeommynge a mightye wyseaere." The word wiseaere, which now means a dunce or a silly person, who may pretend to great wisdom, is a corruption of the German wetssager, and originally signified a wise sayer or philosopher, in which sense it is used in the passage cited.
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