ENCYCLOPEDIA OF FREEMASONRY AND ITS KINDRED SCIENCES
by ALBERT C. MACKEY M. D.

B

BAREFEET

See Discalceation

BARNEY, COMMODORE JOSHUA

Distinguished American naval officer. Prominent for services rendered his country in the Wars of 1776 and 1812; wounded in land attack at Bladensberg.

Said to have attended, about 1779, the Lodge of Nine Sisters at Paris, but his name does not appear in records of that Lodge published by Louis Amiable.

His name appears on the roster of Lodge No. 3, Philadelphia, May 1, 1777 (see New Age, May, 1925). Born 1759, at Baltimore, Maryland, Brother Barney died 1818, at Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania.

BARNEY, JOHN

Masonic ritualist, born at Canaan, Connecticut, October, 1780. Made a Freemason in Friendship Lodge No. 20, at Charlotte, Vermont, in 1810. He was deeply interested in all that pertained to the work and purposes of the Institution, and in August, 1817, he went to Boston for the express purpose of receiving instruction directly from Thomas Smith Webb, which he succeeded in doing, with the assistance of Benjamin Gleason, then Grand Lecturer of Massachusetts.

He attended the Grand Lodge of Vermont on October 6, 1817, and was registered as a visiting Brother. At this meeting a request was presented on behalf of Brother Barney for the approbation of this Grand Lodge, as a Lecturing Master. A committee was appointed to investigate the certificates and documents respecting Barney’s qualifications and the report was as follows:

That they had examined Brother Barney on the first Degrees of Masonry, and find him to be well acquainted with the Lectures, according to the most approved method of work in the United States, and believe that he may be advantageously employed by the Lodges and Brethren who may wish for his services; but as many of the Lodges in this State are already well acquainted with the several Masonic Lectures, we do not believe it would be consistent to appoint a Grand Lecturer to go through the State, as the several Lodges have to pay the District Deputy Grand Masters for their attendance. We therefore propose to the Grand Lodge that they give Brother Barney letters of recommendation to all Lodges and Brethren wherever he may wish to travel, as an unfortunate brother deprived of his health, and unable to procure a living by the common avocations of life, but who is well qualified to give useful Masonic information to any who wish for his services.
A. Robbins, For committee.

His first work after being authorized by his Grand Lodge was in Dorchester Lodge, at Vergennes, Vermont. He was employed by twelve members to , instruct them in the work and lectures. He continued lecturing in that State for several years. Brother Barney moved West in 1826, settling at Harpersfield, Ashtabula County, Ohio. In 1832 he assisted in establishing a Royal Arch Chapter in Cleveland, Ohio. He moved to Worthington, Ohio, in 1834, and became a member of New England Lodge No. 4 in that city.

Elected Grand Lecturer of the Grand Lodge of Ohio in January, 1836, Which office he held until 1843. In 1841 the Grand Master said of him: “The duties of Grand Lecturer of the Grand Lodge of Ohio, for the last two years especially, have been laborious and almost incessant. It were unnecessary for me to state to you a fact, which you are all so well apprised of, that his untiring and able exertions have essentially conduced to the prosperity which is now so apparent among our Lodges.

The labors of that officer are, however, now becoming burdensome, and the calls for his services will be more frequent as the wants of the fraternity increase.” Brother Barney was a delegate to the Baltimore Convention in 1843. At the meeting of his Grand Lodge in that year the question of recognition of the Grand Lodge of Michigan was considered and he was appointed one of the committee to whom the matter was referred, but at his request was excused from such service, and this is the last record we have of him in connection with the Grand Lodge of Ohio. About this time he settled in Chicago, Illinois, becoming a member of Apollo Lodge No. 32 in that city.

He was appointed Grand Lecturer of the Grand Lodge of Illinois in October, 1845, holding the office for one year. Part of the years 1844 and 1845 were spent lecturing in Michigan, and his labors during these two years gave to that State the system which has been the authorized work for many years. Undoubtedly several states owe much to this worthy Brother for their close connection with the ceremonial work of Thomas Smith Webb. Brother Barney died on June 22, 1847, at Peoria, Illinois (see Freemasonry in Michigan, J. S. Conover, 1896, page 249; the Barney work is discussed in American Tyler, volume iii, No. 6, page 5, and No. 17, page 2, and vo1ume v, No 18, page 4, and No. 28, page10)

BARRUEL, ABBE

Augustin Barruel, generally known as the Abbé Barruel, who was born, October 2, 1741, at Villeneuve de Berg in France, and who died October 5, 1820, was an implacable enemy of Freemasonry. He was a prolific writer, but owes his reputation principally to the work entitled Mémoires pour servir à l’Histoire du Jacobinisme, or Recollections to serve for a History of Jacobinism, in four volumes, octavo, published in London in 1797. In this work he charges the Freemasons with revolutionary principles in politics and with infidelity in religion. He seeks to trace the origin of the Institution first to those ancient heretics, the Manicheans, and through them to the Templars, against whom he revives the old accusations of Philip the Fair and Clement V. His theory of the Templar origin of Freemasonry is thus expressed (11, 382):

“Your whole school and all your Lodges are derived from the Templars. After the extinction of their Order, a certain number of guilty knights, having escaped the prosecution, united for the preservation of their horrid mysteries. To their impious code they added the vow of vengeance against the kings and priests who destroyed their Order, and against all religion which anathematized their dogmas.

They made adepts, who should transmit from generation to generation the same mysteries of iniquity, the same oaths, and the same hatred of the God of the Christians, and of kings, and of priests. These mysteries have descended to you, and you continue to perpetuate their impiety, their vows, and their oaths. Such is your origin. The lapse of time and the change of manners have varied a part of your symbols and your frightful systems; but the essence of them remains, the vows, the oaths, the hatred, and the conspiracies are the same.”

It is not astonishing that Lawrie (History of Freemasonry, page 50) should have said of the writer of such statements, that:

“That charity and forbearance which distinguish the Christian character are never exemplified in the work of Barruel, and the hypocrisy of his pretensions is often betrayed by the fury of his zeal. The tattered veil behind which he attempts to cloak his inclinations often discloses to the reader the motives of the man and the wishes of his party.”

Although the attractions of his style and the boldness of his declamation gave Barruel at one time a prominent place among anti-masonic writers, his work is now seldom read and never cited in Masonic controversies, for the progress of truth has assigned their just value to its extravagant assertions.

BARTOLOZZI, FRANCESCO

A famous engraver who lived for some time in London and engraved the frontispiece of the 1784 edition of the Book of Constitutions. He was initiated in the Lodge of the Nine Muses in London on February 13, 1777.

Born at Florence in Italy, he studied in Venice, and then at Rome and Mi1an, practiced his art most successfully, settling at London in 1764.After forty years in Eng1and he went to Portugal and died in Lisbon. Brother Hawkins gives the year of his birth as 1728, and that of his death as 1813. Others give the dates as from 1725 to 1830, and 1813 to 1815.

But all authorities agree in their high estimate of his ability.

BARTON, CLARA

American philanthropist. Born at Oxford, Massachusetts, December 25, 1821; died at Glen Echo, Maryland, April 12, 1912. During Civil War distributed large quantities of supplies for the relief of wounded soldiers and later organized at Washington a Bureau of Records to aid in the search of missing men. She identified and marked the graves of more than twelve thousand soldiers at Andersonville, Georgia. She took part in the International Committee of the Red Cross in Franco-Prussian War, and was first president of the American Red Cross until 1904. She was the author of the American Amendment providing that the Red Cross shall distribute relief not only in war but in times of other calamities.

She later incorporated and became president of the National First Aid of America for rendering first aid to the injured. There is a reference to her in Masonic Tidings, Milwaukee, December 1927, page 19, entitled Son of founder of Eastern Star tells of beginnings of Order, in the course of which he says: “Yes, it is true that my father gave the beloved Clara Barton the degree.

He was making a tour of Massachusetts, lecturing. When he reached Oxford he found a message from Clara Barton, expressing a desire to receive the degree. In the parlor of her home, father communicated to her the Order of the Eastern Star. From this Clara Barton created the great American Red Cross, and cheerfully gave her services to the heroes of the Civil War.”

There is also another reference in the New Age (March, 1924, page 178), where Clara Barton is said to have observed when becoming a member of the Order of the Eastern Star, “My father was a Mason; to him it was a religion, and for the love and honor I bear him, I am glad to be connected with anything like this,” However, Mrs. Minnie E. Keyes, Grand secretary, Order of the Eastern Star, letter of May 2g, 1928, informs us that “The Chapter in Oxford, Massachusetts, was named for her and With her permission in 1898, but she herself did not join until June, 1906.

The Secretary tells me the Minutes of the meeting of June 29, 1906, show. After a short intermission this Chapter received the great honor of being allowed to confer the degrees of this Order upon our illustrious namesake, Miss Clara Barton. It was an occasion long to be remembered as with feelings of pride and pleasure we witnessed the work so impressively and gracefully rendered and received.

It was with quite reverential feeling that at its close we were privileged to take her by the hand as our sister.

BASILICA

Literally and originally a royal palace. A Roman pagan basilica was a rectangular hall whose length was two or three times its breadth, divided by two or more lines of columns, bearing entablatures, into a broad central nave and side aisles.

It was generally roofed with wood, sometimes vaulted. At one end was the entrance. From the center of the opposite end opened a semicircular recess as broad as the nave, called in Latin the Tribuna and in Greek the Apsis. The uses of the basilica were variotts and of a public character, courts of justice being held in them. Only a few ruins remain.

The significance of the basilica to Freemasons is that it was the form adopted for early Christian churches, and for its influence on the building gilds.

For the beginning of Christian architecture, which is practically the beginning of Operative Freemasonry, we must seek very near the beginning of the Christian religion. For three centuries the only places in pagan Rome where Christians could meet with safety were in the catacombs, long underground galleries. When Constantine adopted Christianity in 324, the Christians were no longer forced to worship in the catacombs. They were permitted to worship in the basilica and chose days for special worship of the Saints on or near days of pagan celebrations or feast days, so as not to attract the attention or draw the contempt of the Romans not Christians.

Examples of this have come down to us, as, Christmas, St. John the Baptist’s Day, St. John the Evangelist’s Day, etc.

The Christian basilicas spread over the Roman Empire, but in Rome applied specially to the seven principal churches founded’ by Constantine, and it was their plan that gave Christian churches this name. The first builders were the Roman Artificers, and after the fall of the Western Empire, we find a decadent branch at Como that developed into the Comacine Masters, who evolved, aided by Byzantine workmen and influence Lombardian architecture (see Como).

BASKET

The basket or fan was among the Egyptians a symbol of the purification of souls. The idea seems to have been adopted by other nations, and hence, “initiations in the Ancient Mysteries,” says Rolle (Culte de Bacchus,1, 30), “being the commencement of a better life and the perfection of it, could not take place till the soul was purified.

The fan had been accepted as the symbol of that purification because the mysteries purged the soul of sin, as the fan cleanses the grain.” John the Baptist conveys the same idea of purification when he says of the Messiah, “His fan is in his hand, and he will thoroughly purge his floor” (Matthew iii, 12; Luke iii, 17).

The sacred basket in the Ancient Mysteries was called the xikvov, and the one who carried it was termed the xwv or basket-bearer. Indeed, the sacred basket, containing the first fruits and offerings, was as essential in all solemn processions of the mysteries of Bacchus and other divinities as the Bible is in the Masonic procession. As lustration was the symbol of purification by water, so the mystical fan or winnowing-basket was, according to Sainte Croix (Mystéres du Paganisme, tome ii, page 81), the symbol in the Bacchic rites of a purification by air.

BASLE, CONGRESS OF

A Masonic Congress was held September 24, 1848, at Basle, in Switzerland, consisting of one hundred and six members, representing eleven Lodges under the patronage of the Swiss Grand Lodge Alpina. The Congress was principally engaged upon the discussion of the question, “What can and what ought Freemasonry to contribute towards the welfare of mankind locally, nationally, and internationally?” The conclusion to which the Congress appeared to arrive upon this question was briefly this:

“Locally, Freemasonry ought to strive to make every Brother a good citizen, a good father, and a good neighbor; whilst it ought to teach him to perform every duty of life faithfully. Nationally, a Freemason ought to strive to promote and to maintain the welfare and the honor of his native land, to love and to honor it himself, and, if necessary, to place his life and fortune at its disposal; Internationally, a Freemason is bound to go still further:

he must consider himself as a member of that one great family,-the whole human race,-who are all children of one and the same Father, and that it is in this sense, and with this spirit, that the Freemason ought to work if he would appear worthily before the throne of Eternal Truth and Justice.”

The Congress of Basle appears to have accomplished no practical result.

BASTARD

The question of the ineligibility of bastards to be made Freemasons was first brought to the attention of the Craft by Brother Chalmers I.

Paton, who, in several articles in The London Freemason, in 1869, contended that they were excluded from initiation by the Ancient Regulations.

Subsequently, in his compilation entitled Freemasonry and its Jurisprudence, published in 1872, he cites several of the 0ld Constitutions as explicitly declaring that the men made Freemasons shall be “no bastards.” This is a most unwarrantable interpolation not to be justified in any writer on jurisprudence; for on a careful examination of all the old manuscript copies which have been published, no such words are to be found in any one of them.

As an instance of this literary disingenuousness, to use no harsher term, we quote the following from his work (page 60). ‘The charge in this second edition [of Anderson’s Constitutions is in the following unmistakable words: ‘The men made Masons must be freeborn, no bastard (or no bondmen), of mature age and of good report, hale and wund, not deformed or dismembered at the time of their making.’

Now, with a copy of this second edition lying open before him, Brother Mackey found the passage thus printed: “The men made Masons must be freeborn (or no bondmen), of mature age and of good report, hale and sound, not deformed or dismembered at the time of their making.” The words “no bastard” are Patos’s interpolation.

Again, Patos quotes from Preston the Ancient . Charges at makings, in these words: “That he that be made be able in all degrees; that is, freeborn, of a good kindred, true, and no bondsman or bastard, and that he have his right limbs as a man ought to have.”

But on referring to Preston (edition of 1775, and all subsequent editions) we find the passage to be correctly thus: “That he that be made be able in all degrees; that is, freeborn, of a good kindred, true, and no bondsman, and that he have his limbs as a man ought to have.” Positive law authorities should not be thus cited, not merely carelessly, but with designed inaccuracy to support a theory.

But although there is no regulation in the Old Constitutions which explicitly prohibits the initiation of bastards, it may be implied from their language that such prohibition did exist. Thus, in all the old manuscripts, we find such expressions as these : he that shall be made a Freemason “must be freeborn and of good kindred” Sloane Manuscript (No. 3323), or ”come of good kindred” Edinburgh Kilwinning Manuscript, or, as the Roberts Print more definitely has it”of honest parentage.”

It is not, we therefore think, to be doubted that formerly bastards were considered as ineligible for initiation, on the same principle that they were, as a degraded class, excluded from the priesthood in the Jewish and the primitive Christian church. But the more liberal spirit of modem times has long since made the law obsolete, because it is contrary to the principles of justice to punish a misfortune as if it was a crime.

The reader should note in addition to what Brother Mackey has said in the above article that the Illustrations of freemasonry, by William Preston, edition of 1812 (page 82), reprints a series of charges said to be contained in a manuscript in the possession of the Lodge of Antiquity at London, and to have been written in the reign of James the Second- The third charge says in part:

“And no master nor fellow shall take no apprentice for less than seven years. And that the apprentice be free-born, and of limbs whole as a man ought to be, and no bastard. And that no master nor fellow take no allowance to be made Mason without the assent of his fellows, at the least six or seven.”

The fourth charge now goes on to say:

“That he that be made be able in all degrees; that is, free-born, of a good kindred, true, and no bondsman, and that he have his right -limbs as a man ought to have.” These charges may well be studied in connection with what Brothers Paton and Mackey have discussed in the foregoing.

BATCHELOR, JAMES CUNNINGHAM

Born of English parents in Quebec, Canada, July 10, 1818. His parents removed during his infancy to New York. Then he received a high school education in Saint Louis, studied medicine in New Orleans, and especially distinguished himself during the yellow fever epidemic there. He received his First Degree in Freemasonry at Montgomery, Alabama, on April 11, 1846, the Honorary Thirty-third in 1857, Ancient and Accepted Scottish Rite, and became an Active in 1859. For twenty-four years he was Secretary of the Grand Lodge of Louisiana. He succeeded General AIbert Pike, who died April 2, 1891, as Grand Commander, the Southern Jurisdiction, Ancient and Accepted Scottish Rite. Brother Batchelor died on July 28, 1893.

BATON

The truncheon or staff of a Grand Marshal, and always carried by him in processions as the ensign of his office. It is a wooden rod about eighteen inches long. In the military usage of England, the baton of the Earl Marshal was originally of wood, but in the reign of Richard II it was made of gold, and delivered to him at his creation, a custom which has been continued. In the patent or commission granted by that monarch to the Duke of Surrey the baton is minutely described as baculum aureum circa utramque finem de nigro annulatum, meaning a golden wand, having black rings around each end- a description that wil1 very well serve for a Masonic baton.

BATS, PARLIAMENT OF

The Parliament which assembled in England in the year 1426, during the minority of Henry VI, to settle the disputes between the Duke of Gloucester, the Regent, and the Bishop of Winchester, tbe guardian of the young king’s person, and which was so called because the members, being forbidden by the Duke of Gloucester to wear swords, armed themselves with clubs or bats.

It has been stated by Preston (Illustrations of Masonry, edition of 1812, page 165), that it was in this Parliament that the Act forbidding Freemasons to meet in Chapters or Congregations was passed; but this is erroneous, for that act was passed in 1425 by the Parliament at Westminster, while the Parliament of Bats met at Leicester in 1426 (see Laborers, Statutes of).

BATTERY

A given number of blows by the gavels of the officers, or by the hands of the Brethren, as a mark of approbation, admiration, or reverence, and at times accompanied by the acclamation.

BAVARIA

Freemasonry was introduced into Bavaria, from France, in 1737. However, the Handbuch of Schletter and Zille declares that 1777 was the beginning of Freemasonry in Bavaria proper. The meetings of the Lodges were suspended in 1784 by the reigning duke Charles Theodore, and the act of suspension was renewed in 1799 and 1804 by Maximilian Joseph, the King of Bavaria.

The Order was subsequently revived in 1812 and in 1817. The Grand Lodge of Bayreuth was constituted in 1811 under the appellation of the Grossloge zur Sonne. In 1868 a Masonic conference took place of the Lodges under its jurisdiction, and a constitution was adopted, which guarantees to every confederated Lodge perfect freedom of ritual and government, provided the Grand Lodge finds these to be Masonic.

BAY-TREE

An evergreen plant, and a symbol in Freemasonry of the immortal nature of Truth. By the bay-tree thus referred to in the old instructions of the Knight of the Red Cross, is meant the laurel, which, as an evergreen, was among the ancients a symbol of immortality. It is, therefore, properly compared with Truth, which Josephus makes Zerubbabel say is “immortal and eternal. ”

BAZOT, ETIENNE FRANÇOIS

A French Masonic writer, born at Nievre, March 31, 1782. He published at Paris a Vocabulaire des Francs-Maçons in 1810. This Freemasons’ Dictionary was translated into Italian. In 1811 he published a Manuel du Franc-maçon, or Freemason’s Manual, one of the most judicious works of the kind published in France.

He was also the author of Morale de la Franc-maçonnerie, or Masonic Ethics, and the Tuileur Expert des 33 degrés, or Tiling for Thirty-three Degrees, which is a complement to his Manuel. Bazot was distinguished for other literary writings on subjects of general literature, such as two volumes of Tales and Poems, A Eulogy on the Abbé de l’Epée, and as the editor of the Biographic Nouvelle des Contemporaries, in twenty volumes.

B. D. S. P. H. G. F.

In the French instructions of the Knights of the East and West, these letters are the initials of Beauté, Divinité, Sagesse, Puissance, Honneur, Gloire, Force, which correspond to the letters of the English monitors B. D. W.P.H.G.S., which are the initials of equivalent words, Beauty, Divinity, Wisdom, Power, Honor, Glory, Strength.

BEADLE

An officer in a Council of Knights of the Holy Sepulcher, corresponding to the Junior Deacon of a Symbolic Lodge. The Beadle is one, say‚ Junius, who proclaims and executes the will of superior powers. The word is similar to the old French bedel, the Latin bedellus, and is perhaps a corrupted form of the Anglo-Saxon bydel, all of which have the meaning of messenger.

BEATON, MRS

One of those fortunate female‚ who are said to have obtained possession of the Freemasons’ secrets. The following account of her is given in A General History of the County of Norfolk, published in 1829 (see volume ii, page 1304):

“Died in St. John’s, Maddermarket, Norwich, July, 1802, aged 85, Mrs. Beaton, a native of Wales. She was commonly called the Freemason, from the circumstance of her having contrived to conceal herself one evening, in the wainscoting of a Lodge-room where she learned the secret-at the knowledge of which thousands of her sex have in vain attempted to arrive. She was, in many respects, a very singular character, of which one proof adduced is that the secret of the Freemasons died with her.”

There is no official confirmation of this story.

BEAUCENIFER

From Beauseant, and fero meaning to carry. The officer among the old Knight Templar whose duty it was to carry the Beausean in battle. The office is still retained in some of the high Degrees which are founded on Templarism.

BEAUCHAINE

The Chevalier Beauchaine was one of the most fanatical of the irremovable Masters of the Ancient Grand Lodge of France. He has established his Lodge at the Golden Sun, an inn in the Rue St. Victor, Paris, where he slept, and for six francs conferred all the Degrees of Freemasonry. On August 17, 1747, he organized the Order of Fendeurs or Woodcutters, at Paris.

BEAUSEANT

The vexillum belli, or war-banner of the ancient Templars, which is also used by the modem Masonic Order. The upper half of the banner was black, and the lower half white: black, to typify terror to foes, and white, fairness to friends. It bore the pious inscription, Non nobis, Domine, non nobis sed nomini tuo da gloriam. This is the beginning of the first verse of Psalm cxv, “Not unto us, O Lord, not unto us, but unto Thy name give glory.”

The Beauseant is frequently, says Barrington in his Introduction to Heraldry (page 121), introduced among the decorations in the Temple Church, and on one of the paintings on the wall, Henry I is represented with this banner in his hand.

As to the derivation of the word, there is some doubt among writers. Bauseant or bausant was, in old French, a piebald or party-colored horse; and the word bawseant is used in the Scottish dialect with similar reference to two colors. Thus, Burns says:

His honest, sonsie, baws’nt face, where Doctor Currie, in his Glossary of Burns, explans bawsent as meaning “having a white stripe down the face.” It is also supposed by some that the word bauseant may be only a form, in the older language, of the modern French word bienséant, which signifies something decorous or becoming; but the former derivation is preferable, in which bealmeant would signify simply a party-colored banner.

With regard to the double signification of the white and black banner, the Orientalists have a legend of Alexander the Great, which may be appropriately quoted on the present occasion, as given by Weil in his Biblical Legends ( page 70).

“Alexander was the lord of light and darkness, when he went out with his army the light was before him, and behind him was the darkness, so that he was secure against all ambuscades; and by means of a miraculous white and black standard he had also the power to transform the clearest day into midnight and darkness, or black night into noonday, just as he unfurled the one or the other. Thus he was unconquerable, since he rendered his troops invisible at his pleasure, and came down suddenly upon his foes. Might there not have been some connection between the mythical white and black standard of Alexander and the Beauseant of the Templars? We know that the latter were familiar with Oriental symbolism.”

Beauseant was also the war-cry of the ancient Templars and is pronounced bo-say-ong.

BEAUTY

Said to be symbolically one of the three supports of a Lodge. It is represented by the Corinthian column, because the Corinthian is the most beautiful of the ancient orders of architecture; and by the Junior Warden, because he symbolizes the meridian sun-the most beautiful object in the heavens. Hiram Abif is also said to be represented by the Column of Beauty, because the Temple was indebted to his skill for its splendid decorations. The idea of Beauty as one of the supports of the Lodge is found in the earliest rituals of the eighteenth century, as well as the symbolism which refers it to the Corinthian column and the Junior Warden. Preston first introduced the reference to the Corinthian column and to Hiram Abif.

Beauty, in the Hebrew, n~x~n, pronounced tif-eh-reth, was the sixth of the Cabalistic Sephiroth, and, with Justice and Mercy, formed the second Sephirotic triad; and from the Cabalists the Freemasons most probably derived the symbol (see Supports of the Lodge).

BEAUTY AND BANDS

The names of the two rods spoken of by the prophet Zechariah ( xi, 7, 10, 14), as symbolic of his pastoral office. This expression was in use in portions of the old Masonic ritual in England; but in the system of Doctor Hemming, which was adopted at the union of the two Grand Lodges in 1813, this symbol, with all reference to it, was ex-punged. As Doctor Oliver says in his Dictionary of symbolic Masonry, “it is nearly forgotten, except by a few old Masons, who may perhaps recollect the illustration as an incidental subject of remark among the Fraternity of that period.”

BECKER

See Johnson

BECKER, RUDOLPH ZACHARIAS

A very zealous Freemason of Gotha, who published, in 1786, a historical essay on the Bavarian Illuminati, under the title of Grundsatze Verfassung und Schicksale in Illulninatens Order in Baiern. He was a very popular writer on educational subjects; his Instructive Tales of Joy and Sorrow was so highly esteemed, that a half million copies were printed in German and other languages. He died in 1802.

BEDARRIDE, THE BROTHERS

Mackey was convinced that the Brothers Marc, Michel, and Joseph Bédarride were Masonic charlatans, notorious for their propagation of the Rite of Mizraim, having established in 1813, at Paris, under the partly real and partly pretended authority of Lechangeur, the inventor of the Rite, a Supreme Puissance for France, and organized a large number of Lodges.

In this opinion Brother Mackey is supported by Clavel who says the founders, including Marc Bédarride, were not of high character. This is repeated by Brother Woodford in the Cyclopedia of Freemasonry. But Brother Mackenzie, Royal Masonic Cyclopedia, says the evidence is insufficient to prove them charlatans. He further asserts:

“There is nothing to distinguish in point of verity between the founder or introducer of one rite above another. It must depend upon the coherence and intellectual value of the rite, which becomes quite superfluous where there is no substantial advantage gained for the true archeological and scientific value of Freemasonry, under whatever name the rite may be formulated. It is in this sense that the authorities of the Grand Lodge of England–ever the honorable custodians of Freemasonry-have most properly resisted innovations. But there are several quasi-Masonic bodies in this country, England, let in as it were by a side door. Hence the brethren Bédarride had as much right to carry their false ware to market as these.”

Of these three brothers, Bédarride, who were Jews, Michel, who assailed the most prominent position in the numerous controversies which arose in French Freemasonry on account of their Rite, died February 16, 1856. Marc died ten years before, in April, 1846.

Of Joseph, who was never very prominent, we have no record as to the time of his death (see Mizraim Rite of).

BEEHIVE

The bee was among the Egyptians the symbol of an obedient people, because, says Horapollo, “of all insects, the bee alone had a king. ” Hence looking at the regulated labor of these insects when congregated in their hive, it is not surprising that a beehive should have been deemed an appropriate emblem of systematized industry. Freemasonry has therefore adopted the beehive as a symbol of industry, a virtue taught in the instructions, which says that a Master Mason “works that he may receive wages, the better to support himself and family, and contribute to the relief of a worthy, distressed brother, his widow and orphans” ; and in the Old Charges, which tell us that “all Masons shall work honestly on working days, that they may live creditably on holidays.”

There seems, however, to be a more recondite meaning connected with this symbol. The ark has already been shown to have been an emblem common to Freemasonry and the Ancient Mysteries, as a symbol of regeneration–of the second birth from death to life. Now, in the Mysteries, a hive was the type of the ark. “Hence,” says Faber (Origin of Pagan Idolatry, volume ii, page 133), “both the diluvian priestesses and the regenerated souls were called bees; hence, bees were feigned to be produced from the carcass of a cow, which also symbolized the ark; and hence, as the great father was esteemed an infernal god, honey was much used both in funeral rites and in the Mysteries.” This extract is from the article on the bee in Evans’ Animl Symbolism in Ecclesiastical Architecture.

BEGTASCHI

See Turkey

BEHAVIOR

The subject of a Freemason’s behavior is one that occupies much attention in both the ritualistic and the monitorial instructions of the Order. In the Charges of a Freemason, extracted from the ancient records, and first published in the Constitutions of 1723, the sixth article is exclusively appropriated to the subject of Behavior. It is divided into six sections, as follows:

1. Behavior in the Lodge while constituted.
2. Behavior after the Lodge is over and the Brethren not gone.
3. Behavior when Brethren meet without strangers, but not in a Lodge formed.
4. Behavior in presence of strangers not Freemasons.
5. Behavior at home and in your neighborhood.
6. Behavior toward a strange brother.

The whole article constitutes a code of moral ethics remarkable for the purity of the principles it inculcates, and is well worthy of the close attention of every Freemason.

It is a complete refutation of the slanders of anti-Masonic revilers. As these charges are to be found in all the editions of the Book of Constitutions, and in many Masonic works, they are readily accessible to everyone who desires to read them.

BEHOLD YOUR MASTER

When, in the instal1ation services, the formula is used, “Brethren, behold your Master,” the expression is not simply exclamatory, but is intends as the original use of the word behold implies, to invite the members of the Lodge to fix their attention upon the new relations which have sprung up between them and him who has just been elevated to the Oriental Chair, and to impress upon their minds the duties which they owe to him and which he owes to them. In like manner, when the formula is continued, “Master, behold your brethren, ” the Master’s attention is impressively directed to the same change of re1ations and duties.

These are not mere idle words, but convey an important lesson, and should never be omitted in the ceremony of installation.

BEL

spelled Bel, is usually pronounced bell but both Strong in his Hebrew Dictionary, and Feyerabend in his, prefer to say bale. The word is probably the contracted form of v, commonly pronounced bay-ahl and spelled Baal, and he was worshiped by the Babylonians as their chief deity. The Greeks and Romans so considered the meaning and translated the word by Zeus and Jupiter.

Bel was one of the chief gods of the Babylonians perhaps their supreme deity, and the word has been deemed a Chaldaic form of Baal. Note Isaiah, xlvi, 1, “Bel boweth down, Nebo stoopeth, their idols were upon the beasts, and upon the cattle. ” Baal signifies Lord or Master and occurs several times in the Bible as a part of the names of various gods. Alone, the word applies to the sun-god, the supreme male deity of the Syro-Phoenician nations.

For an account of his worship read First Kings xviii.

With Jah and On, it has been introduced into the Royal Arch system as a representative of the Tetragrammaton, which it and the accompanying words have sometimes ignorantly been made to displace. At the session of the General Grand Chapter of the United States, in 1871, this error was corrected; and while the Tetragrammaton was declared to be the true omnific word, the other three were permitted to be retained as merely explanatory.

BELCHER, JONATHAN

American Colonist, born January 8, 1681; graduated from Harvard University, 1699; died August 31, 1757. He was made a Freemason at London in 1704, according to a letter he wrote to the First Lodge in Boston on September 25, 1741, and therefore Brother M. M. Johnson names him the Senior Freemason of America.

Brother Belcher served as Colonial Governor of Massachusetts, New Hampshire and New Jersey (see New Age, August,1925; Beginnings of Freemasonry in America, Melvin M. Johnson, 1924, page 49 ; History of Freemasonry in the State of New York, Ossian Lang, page 6 ; Builder, volume x, page 312).

BELENUS

Belenus, the Baal of the Scripture, was identified with Mithras and with Apollo, the god of the sun. A forest in the neighborhood of Lausanne is still known as Sauvebelin, or the retreat or abiding place of Belenus, and traces of this name are to be found in many parts of England. The custom of kindling fires about midnight on the eve of the festival of St. John the Baptist, at the moment of the summer solstice, which was considered by the ancients a season of rejoicing and of divination, is a vestige of Druidism in honor of this deity.

It is a curious coincidence that the numerical value of the letters of the word Belenus, like those of Abrazas and Mithras, all representatives of the sun, amounts to 365, the exact number of the days in a solar year. But before ascribing great importance to this coincidence, it may be well to read what the mathematician Augustus De Morgan has said upon the subject of such comparisons in his Budget of Paraclozes (see Abrazas).

BELGIAN CONGO

The Grand Orient of Belgium has constituted three Lodges in this Colony-Ere Nouvelle, Daennen and Labor et Libertas, the first two at Stanleyville and the third at Elizabethville. L’Aurore de Congo Lodge at Brazzaville is controlled by the Grand Lodge of France.

BELGIUM

Tradition states that the Craft flourished in Belgium at Mons as early as 1721 but the first authentic Lodge, Unity, existed at Brussels in 1757 and continued work until 1794. A Provincial Grand Master Francis B.J. Dumont, the Marquis de Sages, was appointed by the Moderns Grand Lodge in 1769. For some years, however, opposition from the Emperor hiudered the expansion of the Craft.

0n January 1, 1814, there were only 27 Lodges in existence in the country.

A Grand Lodge was established by Dutch and Belgian Brethren on June 24, 1817, but it was not successful. Belgium became independent in 1830 and a Grand Orient was formed on May 23, 1833, out of the old Grand Lodge. In 1914 it controlled 24 Lodges in Belgium and one in the Belgian Congo.

King Leopold was himself initiated in 1813 and, although he never took a very active part in the work he always maintained a friendly attitude towards the Craft.

On March 1, 1817, a Supreme Council of the Ancient and Accepted Scottish Rite was established.

BELIEF, RELIGIOUS

The fundamental law of Freemasonry contained in the first of the Old Charges collected in 1723, and inserted in the Book of Constitutions published in that year, sets forth the true doctrine as to what the Institution demands of a Freemason in reference to his religious belief:

“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.

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 it is now thought more expedient only to oblige them to that religion in which all men agree, leaving their particular opinions to themselves.”

Anderson, in his second edition, altered this article, calling a Freemason a true Noachida, and saying that Freemasons “all agree in the three great articles of Noah,” which is incorrect, since the Precepts of Noah were seven (see Religion of Freemasonry).

BELIZE

See British Honduras

BELLS

The use of a bell in the ceremonies of the Third Degree, to denote the hour, is, manifestly, an anachronism, an error in date, for bells were not invented until the fifth century. But Freemasons are not the only people who have imagined the existence of bells at the building of the Temple. Henry Stephen tells us in the Apologie pour Herodote ( chapter 39 ), of a monk who boasted that when he was at Jerusalem he obtained a vial which contained some of the sounds of King Solomon’s bells. The blunders of a ritualist and the pious fraud of a relic-monger have equal claims to authenticity.

The Masonic anachronism, however, is not worth consideration, because it is simply intended for a notation of time–a method of expressing intelligibly the hour at which a supposed event occurred.

Brother Mackey, in writing the foregoing paragraph, had no doubt in mind the kind of bells used in churches of which an early, if indeed not the earliest, application is usually credited to Bishop Paulinus about 400 A.D.

However, in the Quarterly Statement of the Palestine Exploration Fund, 1904, there is a report of the discovery at Gezer of a number of small bronze bells, both of the ordinary shape with clapper and also of the ball-and-slit form. If these bells are of the same date as the city on whose site they were found, then they may have like antiquity of say up to 3000 B.C. Bells are mentioned in the Bible (as in Exodus xxviii 34, and xxxix, 26, and in Zechariah xiv, 20), but the presumption is that these were mainly symbolical or decorative in purpose.

BENAC

A significant word in Symbolic Freemasonry, obsolete in many of the modem systems, whose derivation is uncertain (see Macbenac).

BENAI

See Bonaim

BENAKAIT

The name of a cavern to which certain assassins fled for concealment. The expression may be fanciful but in wund has a curious resemblance to a couple of Hebrew words meaning builder and tarry.

BENDEKAR

A significant word in the advanced degrees. One of the Princes or Intendants of Solomon, in whose quarry some of the traitors spoken of in the Third Degree were found. He is mentioned in the catalogue of Solomon’s princes, given in First Kings (iv, 9). The Hebrew word is, pronounced ben-day-ker, the son of him who divides or pierces. In some old instructions we find a corrupt form, Bendaa.

BENEDICT XIV

A Roman pontiff whose family name was Prosper Lambertini. He was born at Bologna in 1675, succeeded Clement XII as Pope in 1740, and died in 1758. He was distinguished for his learning and was a great encourager of the arts and sciences.

He was, however, an implacable enemy of secret societies, and issued, on the 18th of May, 1751, his celebrated Bull, renewing and perpetuating that of his predecessor which excommunicated the Freemasons (see Bull).

BENEDICTION

The solemn invocation of a blessing in the ceremony of closing a Lodge is called the benediction. The usual formula is as follows:

“May the blessing of Heaven rest upon us, and all regular Masons ; may brotherly love prevail, and every moral and social virtue cement us. ”

The response is, “So mote it be. Amen,” which should always be audibly pronounced by all the Brethren.

BENEFICIARY

One who receives the support or charitable donations of a Lodge. Those who are entitled to these benefits are affiliated Freemasons, their wives or widows, their widowed mothers, and their minor sons and unmarried daughters. Unaffiliated Freemasons cannot become the beneficiaries of a Lodge, but affiliated Freemasons cannot be deprived of its benefits on account of non-payment of dues.

Indeed, as this non-payment often arises from poverty, it thus furnes a stronger claim for fraternal charity.

BENEFIT SOCIETY, MASONIC

In 1798, a society was established in London, under the patronage of the Prince of Wales, the Earl of Moira, and all the other acting officers of the Grand Lodge, whose object was “the relief of sick, aged, and imprisoned Brethren, and for the protection of their widows, children, and orphans.”

The payment of one guinea per annula entitled every member, when sick or destitute, or his widow and orphans in case of his death, to a fixed contribution- After a few years, however, the Society came to an end as it was considered improper to turn Freemasonry into a Benefit Club. Benefit funds of this kind have been generally unknown to the Freemasons of America, although some Lodges have established a fund for the purpose.

The Lodge of Strict Observance in the City of New York, and others in Troy, Ballston, Schenectady, etc., years ago, adopted a system of benefit funds.

In 1844, several members of the Lodges in Louisville, Kentucky, organized a society under the title of the Friendly Sons of St. John. It was constructed after the model of the English society already mentioned. No member was received after forty-five years of age, or who was not a contributing member of a Lodge ; the per diem allowance to sick members was seventy-five cents; fifty dollars were appropriated to pay the funeral expenses of a deceased member, and twenty-five for those of a member’s wife ; on the death of a member a gratuity was given to his family ; ten per cent of all fees and dues was appropriated to an orphan fund; and it was contemplated, if the funds would justify, to pension the widows of deceased members, if their circumstances required it.

Similar organizations are Low Twelve Clubs which have been formed in Lodges and other Masonic bodies and these are usually voluntary, a group of the brethren paying a stipulated sum into a common fund by regular subscriptions or by assessment whenever a member dies; a contribution from this fund being paid to the surviving relatives on the death of any brother affiliated in the undertaking.

But the establishment in Lodges of such benefit funds is by some Brethren held to be in opposition to the pure system of Masonic charity, and they have, therefore, been discouraged by several Grand Lodges, though several have existed in Scotland and elsewhere.

BENEVOLENCE

Cogan, in his work On the Passions, thus defines Benevolence : ”When our love or desire of good goes forth to others, it is termed goodwill or benevolence.

Benevolence embraces all beings capable of enjoying any portion of good; and thus it becomes universal benevolence, which manifests itself by being pleased with the share of good every creature enjoys in a disposition to increase it, in feeling an uneasiness at their sufferings, and in the abhorrence of cruelty under every disguise or pretext.”

This spirit should pervade the hearts of all Freemasons, who are taught to look upon mankind as formed by the Great Architect of the Universe for the mutual assistance, instruction, and support of each other.

BENEVOLENCE, FUND OF

This Fund was established in 1727 by the Grand Lodge of England under the management of a Committee of seven members, to whom twelve more were added in 1730.

It was originally supported by voluntary contributions from the various Lodges, and intended for the relief of distressed Brethren recommended by the contributing Lodges. The Committee was called the Committee of Charity.

The Fund is now derived partly from the fees of honor payable by Grand Officers, and the fees for dispensations, and partly from an annual payment of four shillings from each London Freemason and of two shillings from each country Freemason; it is administered by the Board of Benevolence, which consists of all the present and past Grand Officers, all actual Masters of Lodges and twelve Past Masters.

The Fund is solely devoted to charity,, and large sums of money are every year voted and paid to petitioners. In the United States of America there are several similar organizations known as Boards of Relief (see Relief, Board of).

BENEVOLENT INSTITUTIONS, UNITED STATES

There have been several institutions in the United States of an educational and benevolent character, deriving their existence in whole or in part from Masonic beneficence, and among these may be mentioned the following:

• Girard College, Philadelphia, Pennsylvania.
• Masonic Widows and Orphans Home, Louisville, Kentucky.
• Oxford Orphan Asylum, Oxford, North Carolina.
• Saint John’s Masonic College, Little Rock, Arkansas.
• Masonic Female College, Covington, Georgia.

Besides the Stephen Girard Charity Fund, founded in Philadelphia, the capital investment of which is 562,000, the annual interest being devoted “to relieve all Master Masons in good standing,” there is a Charity Fund for the relief of the widows and orphans of deceased Master Masons, and an incorporated Masonic Home. The District of Columbia has an organized Masonic charity, entitled Saint John’s Mite Association. Idaho has an Orphan Fund, to which every Master Mason pays annually one dollar.

Indiana has organized the Masonic Widows’ and Orphans’ Home Society. Maine has done likewise; and Nebraska has an Orphans’ School Fund (see Charity).

BENGABEE

Found in some old rituals of the high degrees for Bendekar, as the name of an Intendant of Solomon. It is Bengeber in the catalogue of Solomon’s officers (First Kings iv, 13), meaning the son of Geber, or the son of the strong man.

BENGAL

In 1728 a Deputation was granted by Lord Kingston, Grand Master of England, to Brother George Pomfret to constitute a Lodge at Bengal in East India, that had been requested by some Brethren residing there ; and in the following year a Deputation was granted to Captain Ralph Far Winter, to be Provincial Grand Master of East India at Bengal (see Constitutions, 1738, page 194) ; and in 1730 a Lodge was established at the “East India Arms, Fort William, Calcutta, Bengal,” and numbered 72. There is a District Grand Lodge of Bengal with 74 subordinate Lodges, and also a District Grand Chapter with 21 subordinate Chapters.

BIBLE

The Bible is properly called a greater light of Freemasonry, for from the center of the Lodge it pours forth upon the East, the West, and the South its refulgent rays of Divine truth. The Bible is used among Freemasons as a symbol of the will of God, however it may be expressed.

Therefore, whatever to any people expresses that will may be used as a substitute for the Bible in a Masonic Lodge. Thus, in a Lodge consisting entirely of Jews, the Old Testament alone may be placed upon the altar, and Turkish Freemasons make use of the Koran. Whether it be the Gospels to the Christian, the Pentateuch to the Israelite, the Koran to the Mussulman, or the Vedas to the Brahman, it everywhere Masonically conveys the same idea-that of the symbolism of the Divine Will revealed to man.

The history of the Masonic symbolism of the Bible is interesting. It is referred to in the manuscripts before the revival as the book upon which the covenant was taken, but it was never referred to as a great light. In the old ritual, of which a copy from the Royal Library of Berlin is given by Krause (Die drei ältersten Kunsturkunden der Freimaurerbrüderschaft, or The Three Oldest Art Documents of the Masonic Fraternity, 1, 32), there is no mention of the Bible as one of the lights. Preston made it a part of the furniture of the Lodge; but in monitors of about 1760 it is described as one of the three great lights. In the American system, the Bible is both a piece of furniture and a great light.

The above paragraphs by Doctor Mackey may well be extended on account of the peculiar position occupied by the Bible in our Fraternity. No one goes through the ceremonies and participates in Masonic activities uninfluenced by the Bible.

Studies of the Ritual necessarily rest upon the Scriptures and of those inspired by Bible teachings and language. One good Brother earnestly and faithfully labored to have certain ceremonies freely edited but when he, devout Churchman as he was, understood that sundry peculiarities of language followed the example of the Bible, he gladly gave up his purpose to alter that which abides equally typical of age as the Scriptures.

What had seemed to him mere repetition was meant for weighty emphasis, as in James (x, 27) “Pure religion and undefiled;” Hebrews (xii, 28) “with reverence and godly fear;” Colossians (iv, 12) “stand perfect and complete,” and also in the Book of Common Prayer, the word-pairs “dissemble nor cloak,” “perils and dangers,” “acknowledge and confess,” and so on.

These may well be mentioned here as the tendency to change ceremonies is seldom curbed by any consideration of the peculiar merit, other than their quaintness, of the old expressions.

The Scriptures, the Holy Writings, the Volume of the Sacred Law, the Old and New Testaments, the Holy Bible, this word Bible from the Greek, the (sacred) books; the two parts, Old and New Testaments, the former recording the Covenants, attested by the prophets, between the God of Israel and His people, Christ the central figure of the latter work speaks of the new Dispensation, a new Covenant, and the word Covenant in the Latin became Testamentum from which we obtain the word commonly used for the two divisions of the Bible, the Old and New Testaments. These divisions are further separated into the books of the Bible, sixty-six in all, thirty-nine in the Old Testament, twenty-seven in the New.

We must remember that Old and New refer to Covenants, not to age of manuscripts.

Earliest Hebrew writings of, the Old Testament only date back to the ninth century after Christ, several centuries later than the earliest New Testament Scriptures.

There is also another method of division in which the books of the Old Testament are counted but as twenty-four, First and Second Kings, First and Second Samuel, First and Second Chronicles, Ezra, Nehemiah, and then the minor prophets, as they are called, being grouped as one for several hundred years by the Jews and then divided into two in the sixteenth century. Roughly we may divide the books into the law according to Moses; the historical books of Joshua, Samuel, and the anonymous historians; the poetry and philosophy; and the prophecies, of the Old Testament.

These standards the books contain are known as the canon, originally a measuring rod or rule. The canon to some authorities admits none of the books of the Apocrypha, which are of value for the insight they afford of Jewish religious life. There are the Greek Old Testament, the Septuagint, and the Latin Old Testament, the Vulgate (Septuagint, a translation traditionally made by seventy persons, from the Latin septuaginta; and the Vulgate, another Latin expression, applied to the Saint Jerome version and meaning what is common) which in these works include the Apocrypha, usually held uncanonical by Protestants, and then there are certain other books that both Roman Catholics and Protestants consider as having even less authority. Apocrypha comes from two Greek works krypton, to hide, and apo, meaning away. There is also an Apocrypha of the New Testament. Many Christian writings are of this class. Some add much light upon the early Church.

The New Testament was written at various times, Saint Matthew being followed about 64-70 A.D, by the work of Saint Mark at Rome. Saint Luke treats the subject historically, and claim is made that this writer was also responsible for recording the Acts of the Apostles. Saint John probably wrote his gospel near the close of the first century. His style is distinctive, and his material favored in formulating the Christian Creed.

The early Hebrew text of the Bible was wholly of consonants. Not until the sixth or eighth centuries did the pointed and accented lettering, a vowel system, appear, but before the tenth century much devoted labor was applied upon critical commentaries by Jewish writers to preserve the text from corruption. The Targum is practically a purely Jewish version of the Old Testament dating from soon before the Christian Era. The Septuagint is a Greek version used by the Jews of Alexandria and a Latin translation of the sixth century by’ Jerome is the Vulgate. These three are leading versions.

The history of the several translations is most interesting but deserves more detail than is possible in our limited space. A few comments on various noteworthy editions, arranged alphabetically, are as follows:

Coverdale’s Version. Known as the “Great Bible,” translated by Miles Coverdale, 1488-1568, a York- shireman, educated with the Augustine friars at Cambridge, ordained at Norwich, 1514, becoming a monk.

By 1526 his opinions changed, he left his monastery, preached against confession, and against images in churches as idolatry. He was on the Continent in 1532 and probably assisted Tyndale in his task. His own work, the first complete Bible in English, appeared in 1535, the Psalms are those still used in the Book of Common Prayer. He was at Paris in 1538 printing an edition, when many copies were seized by the Inquisition, but a few got to England where the Great Bible was published in 1539.

Coverdale was Bishop of Exeter in 1551. An exile later, he had part in the Geneva edition, 1557-60.

Douai Version. Sometimes it is spelled Douay. A town in northern France, formerly an important center for exiled Roman Catholics from England.

Here the Douai Bible in English was published anonymously, translated from the Vulgate and doubtless by refugees at the Seminary at Douai and the English College at Rheims, the New Testament first appearing in 1582, the Old Testament in 1609–10.

Sanctioned by the Roman Catholic Church the text has undergone several revisions, notably in 1749–50.

Genevan Bible. Called also the Breeches Bible from its translation of Genesis iii, 7 “They sewed fig leaves together and made themselves breeches.”

Printed in a plainly readable type, this 1560 edition improved the former black-letter printing and was a complete revision of Coverdale’s “Great Bible” in a bandy form.

Following the plan of a New Testament issued at Geneva in 1557, a Greek-Latin one in 1551, and the Hebrew Old Testament, this Bible had the text separated into verses and there were also marginal notes that proved popular.

King James Version. Known also as the Authorized Version, a task begun in 1604, the work was published in 1611, the actual revision requiring two years and nine months with another nine months preparing for the printing. Doctor Miles Smith, Bishop of Gloucester, 1612, tells in the old preface of the style and spirit of his associates.

They went to originals rather than commentaries, they were diligent but not hasty, they labored to improve and (modernizing the good Bishop’s spelling) “lid not disdain to revise that which we had done, and to bring back to the anvil that which we had hammered, but having and using as great helps as were needful, and fearing no reproach for slowness, nor coveting praise for expedition, we have at the length, through the good hand of the Lord upon us, brought the work to that pass that you see.”

Mazarin Bible. Notable as the first book printed from movable metal types, about 1450, probably by Gutenberg in Germany, but this is also credited to other printers, as Peter Schoffer. The name of this Latin reprint of the Vulgate is from that of Cardinal Mazarin, 1602-61, a Frenchman in whose library the first described copy was discovered.

Printers Bible. An early edition having a curious misprint (Psalm cxix, 161), the “Princes have persecuted me without a cause,” reading the word Printers for Princes.

Revised Version. A committee appointed in February, 1870, presented a report to the Convocation of Canterbury, England, in May of that year, that it “should nominate a body of its own members to undertake the work of revision, who shall be at liberty to invite the co-operation of any eminent for scholarship, to whatever nation or religious body they may belong.”

Groups of scholars were formed shortly afterwards and similar co-operating companies organized in the United States, the Roman Catholic Church declining to take part. Ten years were spent revising the New Testament, submitted to the Convocation in 1881, the Old Testament revision in 1884, the revised Apocrypha in 1895. After this conscientious labor had calm, not to say cool, reception, changes were made in favorite texts, alterations upset theories, for some, the revision was too radical and for others too timid, even the familiar swing and sound of the old substantial sentences had less strength in their appeal to the ear and to many the whole effect was weakened. Yet this would naturally be the result of any painstaking revision, especially so with a work of such intimacy and importance.

Later revisions have appeared. One from the University of Chicago is a skillful edition of the New Testament by Professor E. J. Goodspeed, whose attempt to reproduce the spirit today of the conversational style of the old originals is praiseworthy as a purpose, though we shall probably all continue to prefer that best known.

Tyndale’s Version.. William Tyndale, 1490-1536, was born in Gloucestershire, England, on the Welsh border, went to the Continent, first to Hamburg, then to Cologne, to translate and print the Bible. This publication forbidden, he and his secretary escaped to Worms where an edition of the New Testament was completed in 1526. His pamphlets indicting the Roman Church and the divorce of the English king, Henry VIII, were attacks without gloves and powerful influence was exerted in return. His surrender was demanded.

But not until 535 was he seized, imprisoned near Brussels, tried for heresy and on October 6, 1536, strangled to death and his body burnt. His translations are powerful and scholarly, his literary touch certain and apt, experts crediting him with laying the sure foundation of the King James Version of the Bible.

Vinegar Bible. A slip of some one in an edition of 1717 gave the heading to the Gospel of Saint Luke xx, as the “Parable of the Vinegar,” instead of Vineyard.

Wicked Bible. An old edition,1632, which omits by some accident the word not from the seventh commandment (Exodus 14).

Wyclifle’s Version. Spelled in many ways, John of that name, 1320–84, an English reformer, con