author(s) unknown<\/p>\n
One of the most frequently corrected errors experienced in Lodge is the failure of a Warden to raise or lower his column appropriately.<\/p>\n
Let an absent-minded Junior Warden forget to lower his column when the lodge is called from refreshment to labour, and many a frantic gesture from the side lines will remind him of his dereliction!<\/p>\n
Almost every Brother sitting in the lodge room knows the proper position of the Wardens\u2019 columns during labour or at refreshment, and will hasten to signal a Warden if the emblem of his office is awry.
\n\u201dUp in the West during labor; down in the West at refreshment. Down in the South during labor; up in the South at refreshment.\u201d
\nEvery Brother knows that simple rule for positioning the Wardens\u2019 columns.<\/p>\n
It is generally believed, as stated in Mackey\u2019s Encyclopedia, that the Senior Warden\u2019s column represents the pillar Jachin, while the Junior Warden\u2019s column represents the pillar Boaz, those having been impressive
\nadornments on the Porch of King Solomon\u2019s Temple.
\nTheir names signify Establishment and Strength.<\/p>\n
If asked for a symbolic explanation of these pieces of furniture, the average Craftsman will reply that the Junior Warden\u2019s column represents the pillar of beauty& the Senior Warden\u2019s, the pillar of strength. But what has become of the Worshipful Master\u2019s column???
\nHe represents the pillar of wisdom,
\n\u201cbecause it is necessary that there should be wisdom to contrive, strength to support, and beauty to adorn all great and important undertakings.\u201d<\/p>\n
Some Brethren will explain further that the Wardens\u2019 columns are miniature
\nrepresentations of the pillars usually stationed in the West, where at one time both Wardens sat, one in the shade of Boaz, the other in the shade of Jachin. Such an arrangement of the Wardens\u2019 positions may still be found in some European lodges whose rituals have come from Continental sources.<\/p>\n
There is no simple explanation of the origin of the Wardens\u2019 columns nor of what they represent. Like much in Masonic ritual, they are the result of some interesting changes; yet all well-informed Brethren will agree that today they are emblematical of the offices of the two Wardens, and represent the authority, of the Senior during labour, and of the Junior while the lodge is at refreshment.<\/p>\n
As a matter of fact, the raising and lowering of the Wardens\u2019 columns made their first appearance in Masonic ritual as late as 1760, (well into the period known as Speculative Masonry). The \u201cThree Distinct Knocks\u201d , a well-known expose of Masonic ritual published in London that year, contains the first description of the Wardens\u2019 use of their columns.
\nUnfortunately, there has been comparatively little written about the Wardens\u2019 columns and their uses to show when they were allocated to those officers, or how and when the raising and lowering of these miniature pillars became a part of the proper procedure in Masonic lodges. It is only from such exposes as those noted above that one can assign an approximate date to the beginning
\nof the practice.<\/p>\n
Curiously, William Preston in various editions of his Illustrations of Freemasonry (1792 – 1804), in the section dealing with Installation, assigns the columns to the Deacons. Since the columns had belonged to the Wardens for at least thirty years earlier, and since many of the Craft lodges in England did not appoint Deacons at all,
\nPreston must have been in error, or was introducing an innovation, which the passage of time has shown to have failed. Preston also taught that the Senior Deacon\u2019s column was to be raised during labour, and the Junior Deacon\u2019s at refreshment.<\/p>\n
To those who like Masonic traditions neat and historically logical, it may be disconcerting to learn that in some lodges the Wardens did not have columns on their pedestals. They had truncheons, whose modern function is to serve
\nas billy clubs for policemen.
\nAn Irish lodge in the 18th century had a by-law reading:
\n\u201dthere is to be silence at the first chap of the Master\u2019s hammer, and likewise at the first stroke of each Trenchen struck by the Senr and Junr Wardens.\u201d
\nThe Rev. George Oliver
\n(1782-1867), a prolific writer about Freemasonry, quotes an inventory of a lodge
\nat Chester, England, in 1761, which includes \u201dtwo truncheons for the Wardens.\u201d There are still lodges today which denominate the Wardens\u2019 emblems of authority as truncheons, not columns.<\/p>\n
There can be no doubt that the Wardens\u2019 columns are the result of Freemasonry\u2019s
\ninterest in the art of building & of architecture and its allied skills and sciences. The operative masons devoted much time and thought to the design, construction,
\nand ornamentation of columns and pillars. The orders of architecture were an important body of knowledge with which they were continuously concerned.<\/p>\n
The mediaeval cathedral builders, however, attached greater significance to the ancient pillars erected by the children of Lamech than to those on the porch of King Solomon\u2019s Temple. On these ancient pillars were engraved all the then known sciences to preserve them from destruction by fire or inundation. As such, they symbolized the esoteric importance of the knowledge of the builder\u2019s art to be guarded and preserved by faithful craftsmen.<\/p>\n
In many of the earliest documents of the Craft, the so-called \u201cOld Charges\u201d or
\n\u201dmanuscript constitutions\u201d, some of which antedate the period. of Speculative
\nFreemasonry by at least 300 years, those primitive pillars of the sons of Lamech are a part of the \u201chistory\u201d of the operative Craft. The Temple of Solomon is inconspicuously mentioned, but the two pillars on the porch of that temple do not appear at all.<\/p>\n
It was not until approximately 1700 that King Solomon\u2019s Pillars began to appear in Masonic writing and ritual documents & it also answers two test questions about pillars as follows:
\n\u201cHow many pillars is in your Lodge? Three. What are these? Ye square, the Compas and ye bible.\u201d<\/p>\n
Because of the secrecy maintained by Masons about ritualistic matters, it is on the ritual texts of 18th century exposes that we depend for knowledge of the part played by pillars in the development of the Craft\u2019s rituals and ceremonies.<\/p>\n
The Grand Mystery of Freemasons Discovered, 1724, mentions the pillars of Solomon\u2019s Temple, but gives them this significance:<\/p>\n
they represent the \u201cStrength and Stability of the Church in all ages.\u201d<\/p>\n
Samuel Prichard\u2019s Masonry Dissected, 1730, the first expose to reveal a third degree in Masonic ritual, refers to
\n\u201cThree Pillars\u201d that \u201csupport the Lodge .Wisdom, Strength, and Beauty.\u201d
\nThis seems to be the earliest mention of those three virtues symbolized by pillars, which of course had no reference to those in the \u201cOld Charges\u201d or to
\nthose on the Porch of Solomon\u2019s Temple. They were purely symbolic; they had not yet become a part of the lodge furniture.<\/p>\n
In those early days of Speculative Masonry, the Wardens\u2019 duties were probably different from those they have now. Some writers believe they had duties similar to those of the Deacons today. They had no pedestals or pillars, because the latter were usually drawn on the floor, or \u201cfloor cloth\u201d, to be referred to during ritualistic instruction, but were certainly not then a part of the Wardens\u2019 equipment.<\/p>\n
The other interpretation of the Wardens\u2019 columns as representations of Jachin and
\nBoaz, the two pillars of Solomon\u2019s Temple, was also introduced into Masonic ritual at an early period of Speculative Masonry. Again, it is in the exposes of the early rituals that this development can be traced.<\/p>\n
In A Mason\u2019s Examination, 1723, appears this test question: \u201cWhere was the first Lodge kept? In Solomon\u2019s Porch; the two Pillars were called Jachin and Boaz.\u201d Nothing, however, establishes a connection between the pillars and the Wardens.
\nThe Grand Mystery, etc. mentioned above also names the two pillars Jachin and Boaz. A number of other such publications in the 1720\u2019s and 1730\u2019s
\nalso identify them by those names.<\/p>\n
How miniature representations of Jachin and Boaz came to the pedestals of the Senior and Junior Wardens is still a matter for speculation; obviously it is a part of the variegated development of Masonic ritual in the 18th century.
\nAs symbols of the pillars on the Porch of King Solomon\u2019s Temple, or as
\nrepresentations of the three principal orders of architecture which the three principal officers of a lodge symbolize, they are to be found in the earliest catechisms and lectures of Speculative Freemasonry.<\/p>\n
Undoubtedly, as suggested by contemporary references and illustrations, the pillars soon became artistically designed pieces of furniture to stand in the lodge room as objects for study. There was probably no uniformity of practice in this development. Some lodges had large columns, some small, some drew them on the floor cloth. Some had no pillars at all.<\/p>\n
From the creation of such pillars, and from their association with the three principal officers of the lodge. undoubtedly came the columns of the Wardens. They are relics of those earlier larger pieces of lodge furniture. From the traditions of operative craft lodges had lingered the conception of the Senior Warden as the officer in charge of the workmen; his column naturally represented
\nhis authority and superintendence. To give the Junior Warden some similar authority, an imaginative speculative ritualist probably hit on the idea of putting him in charge of
\nthe Craft during refreshment. That idea had been foreshadowed in Anderson\u2019s 1723 Constitutions, Regulation XXIII put the Grand Wardens in charge of the annual Feast.<\/p>\n
By 1760, as suggested by the publication of Three Distinct Knocks, the Wardens of a lodge had acquired miniature columns representing the pillars, Jachin and Boaz, which they carried in processions and raised or lowered on their pedestals to indicate whether the lodge was at labour or refreshment. That procedure was apparently confirmed by the
\nLodge of Promulgation which paved the way for the union in 1813 of the \u201cModern\u201d and
\n\u201dAncient\u201d Grand Lodges in England.<\/p>\n
Thus the raising and lowering of the Wardens\u2019 columns became sanctioned by custom and Grand Lodge approval. It is not a complicated or mysterious symbolic act; it is a simple means
\nto indicate silently to entering Brethren the status of the lodge.<\/p>\n
Since the Junior Warden\u2019s column is erect during refreshment, logic suggests that it be similarly arranged when the lodge is closed, i.e., not at labour. Generally, however, the Wardens\u2019 columns are left just as they happen
\nto be placed at the time of closing, except in those Jurisdictions whose official ritual has decreed a proper positioning of the Wardens\u2019 columns at closing.<\/p>\n
Comment
\nIt is highly unlikely that this paper will be of any interest to the Non Mason &
\nI am very hopeful that it will be of interest & growth to the Brother who has
\nExperienced the Fellowcraft Degree.
\nI thank, you the reader, for any feedback, be it as it will.
\nHave a wonderful Day & God Bless
\nNorm<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
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