Albert Gallatin MacKey
Published: 2013-09
Total Pages: 152
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This historic book may have numerous typos and missing text. Purchasers can usually download a free scanned copy of the original book (without typos) from the publisher. Not indexed. Not illustrated. 1860 edition. Excerpt: ... Saint John's Masonry. -- A term used like "Ancient Craft Masonry," to designate the three primitive degrees. They are so styled by the Grand Lodge of Scotland. "The Grand Lodge of Scotland practises no degrees of masonry but those of Apprentice, Fellow-Craft, and Master Mason, denominated St. John's Masonry."* Saint John the Almoner.--The saint to whom Encampments of Knights Templars are dedicated. He was the son of the King of Cyprus, and was born in that island in the sixth century. He was elected Patriarch of Alexandria, and has been canonized by both the Greek and Roman Churches, --his festival among the former occurring on the 11th of November, and among the latter on the 23d of January. Bazot, who published a Manual of Freemasonry in 1811, at Paris, thinks that it is this saint, and not St. John the Evangelist, or St. John the Baptist, who is meant as the true patron of our order. "He quitted his country and the hope of a throne," says this author, "to go to Jerusalem, that he might generously aid and assist the knights and pilgrims. He founded an hospital and organized a fraternity to attend upon sick and wounded Christians, and to bestow pecuniary aid upon the pilgrims who visited the Holy Sepulchre. St. John, who was worthy to become the patron of a society whose only object is charity, exposed his life a thousand times in the cause of virtue. Neither war, nor pestilence, nor the fury of the infidels, could deter him from pursuits of benevolence. But death, at length, arrested him in the midst of his labours. Yet he left the example of his virtues to the brethren, who have made it their duty to endeavour to imitate them. Rome canonized him un%er the name of St. John the Almoner, or St. John of Jerusalem; and the Masons, whose...