Post by Tamrin on Sept 5, 2008 15:39:01 GMT 10
Address by R.W. BROTHER HON. F. L. BAILLIEU
Assistant Grand Master, United Grand Lodge of England,
to the United Grand Lodge of New South Wales March 1979
Official opening of the Masonic Centre in Sydney, New South Wales.
From the Grand Lodge of Scotland's site
(Excerpts)
Assistant Grand Master, United Grand Lodge of England,
to the United Grand Lodge of New South Wales March 1979
Official opening of the Masonic Centre in Sydney, New South Wales.
From the Grand Lodge of Scotland's site
(Excerpts)
The critical year for the whole revolution of modern, organised Masonry as we know it throughout the world is 1717. It is instructive to look at the historical background of this period to try to deduce exactly why Masonry became formalised when it did, and then developed so rapidly. Britain at that time presented a picture of enormous contrasts. The Hanoverian dynasty was safely ensconced on the throne. The succession was secure; Marlborough's successive battles had reduced the France of Louis XIV to a point where it could no longer menace the stability of Britain, or keep her out of the trade routes of the world. British civilisation was entering a period when it reached its artistic peak. The physical evidence of the time, in palaces and country houses, furniture and magnificent paintings, shows that we were approaching a period of elegance and world-wide renown seldom equalled in any country before or since. Political peace and stability were entering a phase unknown to previous history since the fall of Rome, and the modern machinery of popular, elected parliamentary government was just beginning to be worked out by agreement rather than by violence. One of the greatest pioneers of modern Masonry -and least reliable of historians - James Anderson, a Presbyterian clergyman in London, could write in 1723, "the freeborn British Mason, disentangled from foreign and civil wars, can enjoy the good fruits of peace and liberty", and went on to compile the first Book of Constitutions of Freemasonry. Against this background the life of the vast mass of the ordinary people was poor, nasty, brutish and short. The merciless satires which have come down to us from Hogarth and the authors of the "Beggar's Opera" illustrate life as it was known to the majority of ordinary people. It was thus an age of savage contrasts. Moreover, in an age which
saw the dawn of elegance, and entitled itself "The Age of Reason", religion and morals were generally at a low ebb. But there were men of morals and ideals in many walks of life who were inspired by the grandeur, challenged by the sordidness, and for the first time allowed, by the absence of tyrannical government, to concentrate their minds on endeavouring to improve the lot of their fellow men. This may seem to us now just a commonplace, but in fact before the early Georgian period in England it was an idea that had rarely occurred to anyone and, even when it had, few had been in a position to do anything constructive about it.
saw the dawn of elegance, and entitled itself "The Age of Reason", religion and morals were generally at a low ebb. But there were men of morals and ideals in many walks of life who were inspired by the grandeur, challenged by the sordidness, and for the first time allowed, by the absence of tyrannical government, to concentrate their minds on endeavouring to improve the lot of their fellow men. This may seem to us now just a commonplace, but in fact before the early Georgian period in England it was an idea that had rarely occurred to anyone and, even when it had, few had been in a position to do anything constructive about it.
The two most important administrators and organisers of early Grand Lodge days in England were James Anderson, whom I have already mentioned, and John Desaguliers. Desaguliers was born Jean Theo Desaguliers at La Rochelle and was brought to England as an infant of two years by his father, a Huguenot pastor, in 1685. He graduated from Christ Church, Oxford, in 1710, was made a Fellow of the Royal Society in 1714, and was for many years the Minister of the French Protestant Church in London. He was the instigator and a member of the original committee appointed in 1725 to organise the General Charity, and five years later initiated the Standing Committee to regulate and dispose of charitable funds which is the direct ancestor of all present Boards of Benevolence throughout the Craft. He designed the first distinctive clothing and jewels of Grand Officers from which our modern ones have developed.
