Arthur Emlyn 9742

In the year 2001, Arthur Emlyn Lodge No 9742 was chartered and consecrated. It had

been nineteen years since an English Lodge, Daniel Hart No 9028, was consecrated.

In 1981.RWBro. Peter Knaggs first proposed the consecration of a new Lodge some years previously. W Bro E. Medina supported this. Over the years the idea began to attract support and eventually became an idea which time had come.

There were a few who did not support the formation of a new English Lodge. They were of the view that the English Constitution in Trinidad and Tobago did not need another Lodge and that assistance instead should be given to Lodges which were having difficulty in maintaining their membership. They felt that Arthur Emlyn would perhaps “take away” potential members of other Lodges. Some members of the District felt that it would be yet another Lodge to be visited in the course of District Duties, it would mean that they would have to attend another Installation and another annual visitation.

Regardless of these misgivings the organizing committee for the new Lodge proceeded

with their petition. As word spread that a new Lodge was to be formed it attracted great attention and support. Brethren drawn from nearly all of the other English Lodges

became founding members together with a strong contingent of English based

Freemasons who heard of the upcoming formation of Arthur Emlyn.

Valuable connections were made and among these English Freemasons was W Bro Derek Hugh through whose subsequent encouragement, guidance and support, we now have a Royal Prince of Wales Lodge of Mark Master Masons as well a Royal Prince of Wales Lodge of Royal Ark Mariners Masons. The event was further enriched by the fact the Pro Grand Master, The Marques of Northampton consecrated the new lodge. It was learnt that he planned to visit the Caribbean in October 2001. The Organizing Committee grasped the opportunity and requested the then District Grand Master RW Bro. John Graham to invite the Pro Grand Master to visit Trinidad and consecrate the new Lodge. The Pro Grand Master agreed and attended with an entourage. For the first time in many years English Freemasons were treated to a demonstration of English freemasonry workings as practiced at the very top as the consecration of Arthur Emlyn was followed by the installation of the first Master RW. Bro. Peter Lawford Knaggs.

What kind of Lodge had the Pro Grand Master consecrated?

The organizing committee had discussed at great length, the type of Lodge that the

foundation members wanted Arthur Emlyn to be.

They Organizing Committee did not want to recreate another Royal Philanthropic, Royal Prince of Wales orDaniel Hart. They wanted something different and discussions focused on four main points.

First: – The name of the Lodge. Names such as “Friendship” were advanced, but these

were in the end rejected in favor of Arthur Emlyn as it was felt that there should be some form of commemoration of the first District Grand Master for the then District Grand Lodge of Trinidad.

Secondly: – The number of meetings. It was 9 agreed to omit meetings in the usually poorly attended vacation months of July and August as well as the crowded Christmas

months of November and December. January was also omitted at first but was afterwards included as a meeting month. The Lodge now meets eight times a year.

Thirdly: – The Festive Board. Members agreed that they would like a change from the all too common experience of dressing up in their very best and sitting down at the Festive Board to a generally poorly prepared and usually cold meal. The dining fee was therefore set at a level which could support a good quality meal with a buffet service and to make sure that hot meals was served. I believe that the meals so far provided have lived up to the expectations of the brethren.

Fourthly: – The Ritual. The Organizing Committee agreed that Arthur Emlyn would use The Emulation Ritual. This was not an earth-shaking decision. The Emulation ritual book is used by all of the English Lodges and each Lodge has determined how closely they should work to the “Emulation” standard. In fact, the expression “strict emulation” was coined to differentiate between the workings of say, St Andrew Lodge which works

closely to the emulation style and others such as Royal Prince of Wales Lodge, which use the same ritual book but pride themselves on the “long form”. This means that they include as part of the ritual, all of the non emulation work listed in the appendix. There is nothing wrong with this, however, the organizing Committee of Arthur Emlyn felt that with a choice of adopting a version of several local versions of emulation workings, they would prefer to work as closely to the standard as they could.

Arthur Emlyn Ritual Working

The founding members agreed that the Lodge would work as closely to the ‘Emulation Ritual” as possible, bearing in mind the following.

1. The floor work, including that of the Master, must be adjusted to allow for the arrangement of the furnishings of the Temple.

2. While emulation ritual called on the Master to do all of the work, in keeping with

the advice of the Consecrating Officer, The Pro Grand Master, on the occasion of the Consecration of the Lodge, that the work be shared amongst members of the Lodge in order to keep them interested in the Ritual. It was agreed that the Master would delegate portions of the degree workings as well as, in the opening, ask the Junior Officers directly what their duties were.

3. The additional explanations offered in the Appendix of the Emulation ritual ie: – the “First degree Tracing Board”: additional explanation of the Second Degree Tracing Board”, the “Long explanation of the Working tools of the Second degree”,  “Charge after Passing”,  “Charge after Raising”, “Additional explanations of the EA and MM aprons” as well as the “Charge After the Charge” to be given only on special occasions when the candidate or candidates are more receptive than during a long ceremony.

The Opening

The D Of Cs calls on the members of the Lodge to stand and sing the Opening ode as The Master, Wardens, and Deacons enter in procession. In opening the lodge, WM

directs the questions “The Master’s place?” and. “Why is he placed there?” to the SW.

The Closing

After the Lodge is closed, the D Of Cs calls on the members of the Lodge to stand and sing the closing Ode as the Master. Wardens, and Deacons leave in procession.

The National Anthem is sung at the Festive Board immediately prior to the toast ” The President of the Republic of T&T”.

Installation

The installed Master remains seated at all times, except when being addressed by the DGM and invests his Officers from the Chair. Past Masters being presented for investiture being brought to his left and those below the rank of Master, to his right.

A word on Emulation Ritual.

The word emulation, according to the Britannica World Language Dictionary means

“effort or ambition to equal or excel another in any act of quality”. It can be used in a

phrase such as “emulation of excellence”.

The Emulation Ritual is the only ritual approved by the United Grand Lodge of England. It was brought into being soon after the Union of the “Moderns and the Ancients” on December 27th 1813, though the Lodge of Reconciliation brought into existence by the “Articles of Union” to:

 “Promulgate and enjoin the pure and unsullied system, that perfect reconciliation, unity of obligation, Law, working, language and dress, may be happily restored to the English Craft”.

The Lodge of Reconciliation remained in existence until 1816 and duly carried out the work it had been given, including revising all the Degrees and Ceremonies in a spirit of reconciliation and carried out a vast amount of instructional work. It was decided, for

example, that Lodges should send a Master and Warden to attend a meeting of the Lodge of Reconciliation, to learn the agreed ritual and instruct their lodges on their return.

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However, in keeping with the Obligation of the First Degree,

“I will not write those secrets, indite, mark, carve, engrave, or otherwise them delineate”

the Lodge of Reconciliation did not allow its members, or anyone present to make a note of its proceedings and dealt promptly with any offender.

As a result it was inevitable that the Brethren would go from the final rehearsal back into their various lodges, where they would teach the new form, and every one of them would have a slightly different idea as to the workings and wording of some of the details. This explains how it was that, in 1819, certain Brethren brought complaints before the Board of General Purposes that lectures were being worked contrary to the Stipulation of the Act of Union. The Grand Master stated “As long as the Master of the lodge observed exactly the Land Marks of the Craft he was at liberty to give the lectures in the language best suited to the character of the lodge over which he presides” This opinion holds good to this today.

Emulation Ritual therefore follows that spoken ritual first approved by Grand Lodge in

June 1816 and demonstrated by the Emulation Lodge of Improvement since 1823. Many

unauthorized printed versions of that ritual were published over the years but it was not until 1969 that the Emulation Lodge of Improvement, with the approval of the United Grand Lodge of England, first published it’s own official version. This ritual can only be changed with the approval of the United Grand Lodge of England as was done in the removal of the “penalties” some years ago.

The existence of a standard ritual approved by United Grand Lodge of England does not mean that the United Grand Lodge of England disagrees with other versions, of which they are many. As the Grand Master intimated in 1819, Lodges are free to use any version that they think suits them.

To sum it all up the “Freemasons Guide and Compendium” says: –

“The variations in Masonic ritual are a never ending subject of discussion among

Brethren, some few of whom may be tempted to regard their doxy as orthodoxy and the

other mans doxy as heterodoxy, if one thing above all others is clear, it is that the Lodge

of Reconciliation agreed on certain essentials, its compelling motive being nothing more

than the necessity of adjusting differences existing between the Moderns and the Antients but it did not lay down a cast iron ritual, word for word” “A simple view, is that the ritual approved by United Grand Lodge of England in 1816 is actually an authorized ritual for the use of English Lodges, any variations practiced in various lodges being non essentials and limited to matters of detail”.

With respect to the variations to the Emulation workings in our English Lodges in

Trinidad and Tobago, these were inevitable when one considers that since 1831, when

Royal Philanthropic Lodge was formed, English and Scottish Freemasons have lived in

close association with each other in this country. This is not so in most of the rest of the

world. In the UK a Scottish Freemason is a rare bird as is an English Freemason in

Scotland. In Trinidad and Tobago however, eminent English freemasons have always

belonged to Scottish Lodges and Vice Versa. With the best of will it was inevitable that

Scottish practices creep into English workings as well as English into the Scottish. As an

example, the recital of The Ecclesiastes in some workings of the third degree in the English Constitution Lodges in Trinidad is not to be found in the emulation ritual and is probably of Scottish origin.

There have been other influences as well. That distinguished Freemason James Henry

Jeffrey Johnson, known affectionately to the brethren of his time as “Sonny” introduced

the “Charge after the Charge” after having heard it during a visit to a Lodge in the United States. It is now a regular feature of the first degree working in Royal Prince of Wales Lodge and there are suggestions that it be made an official part of the ritual. Sonny would be very pleased, he loved to visit when he traveled abroad and never failed to bring back some new suggestion of a variation of the ritual of whichever Lodge he was a strong member of at the time. Another case, visitors to Daniel Hart Lodge for an initiation ceremony will notice that the bag of benevolence is taken not at the end of the meeting but shortly before the JW asks the candidate whether he has aught to give for charity. It is very effective but it is all Sonny Johnson.

Having decided to do “Emulation” it was agreed that we should do it as accurately as

possible. No easy task when the furnishings of the Lodge do not conform to the

requirements of the perambulations and obligations in Emulation Ritual. In addition, the founding members of Arthur Emlyn Lodge are drawn from nearly all of the other English Lodges and each one of them has a favorite of work, perhaps the long form of the second degree working tools, or the 2 degree lecture, which they believe is essential to any proper working, but which are not included in emulation working. Further, many of these brethren are good ritualists and have invested great deal of time in memorizing long bits of work and would like an opportunity to perform that work.

Indeed, so attached are brethren to their customary ritual that I remember clearly the first time that we did a third degree and of course omitted Ecclesiastes, which is not in the ritual. You could feel the shock amongst the brethren present. W. Bro John De Freitas, DDGM, our then D of Cs handled the matter in his usual unflappable way by inviting any brother to point out to him the prayer in the ritual book. No one was able to do so since itis not there.

We all agreed that we must remain on the course set by the founding members,

indeed, we have no choice because there is no more reason for us to work the Prince of

Wales way than there is for us to work the Daniel Hart way or the Royal Philanthropic

way. They are all variations on the emulation workings.

How do we go about working closer to the Emulation standard set by United Grand Lodge of England?

First, a careful reading of the Ritual by all members, particularly those engaged in floor

and ceremonial work. The D Of Cs has done this, but his work will be made a lot easier if other brethren understood what we were about. A good way to start is to read closely the Preface and Notes to be found in the front of recent editions of the Emulation Ritual book the advice and information given, if heeded, will make the work of the D of Cs much easier. It will also clear up a lot of misunderstandings. For instance, I have often heard that so and so Lodge does not do emulation Ritual because in Emulation the Master does all the work. There was no comment on this in a 1976 publication of the ritual, but in an 1986 version there is the following instruction, “when work is undertaken by brethren other than the Master or Wardens, it is considered that all the officers should follow the usual procedure as if the WM were doing the work”.

Second. Adjustments to the furnishings of the Lodge. We have already started on this by building a higher kneeling stool to allow the candidate to kneel directly in front of the Masters pedestal. Also needed is a temporary extension of the Masters chair into the body of the Lodge allowing the Candidate and his conductor to stand in the North facing south towards the Master as described in the ritual. Bro Mendes, who built our kneeling stool, has assured me that this will not be difficult to do. These two adjustments should take care of the furnishing problems. Certainly, the instructions given in red print for the ii), after the candidate has taken the obligation in the first degree, to “take the candidate’s right hand, turn left and conduct him to the North side of the WMs pedestal so that both are in a position parallel to the pedestal, and about two feet from it, facing south towards WM,” will at last make sense.

Brethren have already accepted that our ritual will not include the extensions to the ritual given in the back of the book, and provision has been made for these pieces of work to be demonstrated at meetings when no ritual work is done. With respect, to the installation ritual, there is a serious decision to be made. The very short ceremony used by St Andrew and Royal Philanthropic Lodge is in fact the Emulation ceremony. . I have downloaded the ceremony from the Internet and will now band a copy to the WM and the D of Cs. The SW and JW are members of Royal Philanthropic and that ritual is the one that their Lodge uses. They will have no conflict of loyalties.

In conclusion, The Emulation Ritual does not require from those who work the degrees

the prodigious displays of recollection that other rituals do. It does require however, a

careful and meticulous attention to detail in the performance of the ritual. Fortunately,

while not everyone can aspire to memorize pages of ritual, everybody engaged in the ritual workings can learn the little details that distinguish, as we say, real Emulation from the many workings using the Ritual Book.

Brethren, let us do it and do it well.

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Procedure for Arthur Emlyn Lodge # 9742 E.C.

Circa January 2002.

Opening Ceremony & closing.

All Brethren enter the Lodge and take their seats with exception of the senior officers as follows:

Director of Ceremonies announces at Door” To Order brethren, to receive the W. Master and his officers, Brethren will sing the opening ode”.

W.M., Wardens, D of C. and deacons then enter in procession with the Deacons leading, J.D. to the north. They proceed up the North side of the Lodge, halt at the W. Masters chair, and form an arch with their wands and the W. M. passes through to take his seat. The Deacons then continue the perambulation to the J. Warden’s chair, form the arch for the J.W. to take his seat, and continue for the S.W. to do the same. D. Of C’s escorts the W. Master only and drops off at his place at the South East corner during the perambulation.

During the opening ceremony each officer answers as to the duties of his office during the opening.

The S. Warden answers the reply to “The master’s place”, and at the end only the 1PM should answer S. M.I.B.

VSL should face W.M., with square & compasses on north side facing the W.M., and the angle of the square at the foot of the page.

Reports given by I.G. and the J. Warden when brethren seek admission are to be the knocks of the degree. In opening of a higher degree, when a candidate is outside being prepared to be advanced, the Master and Wardens should gavel quietly so as not to be heard outside, as well as the I.G. who gives the knocks on his apron and NOT on the door.

Exit from lodge: continue with the exit procedure as was done at the opening in the reverse order.

The J. Deacon starts to perambulate during the singing of the closing ode, timing his movements so that the deacons can complete the perambulations at the end of the three verses, at which time the procession should be out the door of the lodge.

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OTHER PROCEDURES.

Due to the actual positions of the W.M.’s pedestal in this Lodge, some parts of the ritual MAY require the W.M. to come around from his seat, as in the case of raising the candidate after his obligation as well as the entrustment of the Signs, T. and word(s) in the various degrees.

In each case the officiating Deacon should position the Candidate as per the ritual to receive the entrustment once the W. Master has raised him. In this respect the officiating Deacon should take the Candidate back just far enough to allow the W.M. to pass between the K. stool and the Candidate to re-enter his seat from the North side, before repositioning himself and the Candidate to continue the ceremony as required. This position during the Initiation ceremony should be just west of the Masters pedestal, on the Northern side with sufficient room for the (small) steps to be taken.

All brethren cut sign after the repeating phase is complete.

On completion of the charge in the N. E. during the First-degree ceremony, the J.D. should turn the Candidate around to face the Master’s pedestal in preparation for the W. Tools to be presented.

If this is to be done by the W.Master, then the Candidate should be brought forward enough to enable him to view the tools as they are presented on the pedestal. If however another Brother is doing the presentation, then the presentation should take place in the N. East of the lodge with both the Candidate and his conductor facing east. In either case, it will be necessary for the Candidate to be brought forward at the end of the presentation to receive the Book of constitution and By-Laws.

Only in the 3 degree ceremony does the second Deacon perambulate throughout the ceremony, except when there is a second candidate being advanced.

During the entrance of Candidate for initiation at door of L, the C.Tow hangs to the front and is held by the I.G. with his left hand while the Poniard is presented as required.

All pieces of ritual are performed in the abbreviated form as shown, and no extended pieces are done.

The explanation of the First Degree Tracing board could be presented once a year, or “The Charge after the charge” at a regular meeting when no degree work is scheduled. This is at the discretion of the Master and the Director of Ceremonies and would be particularly for the benefit of all new masons. National anthem to be sung at festive board immediately prior to grace being said.

The Gavel belongs to the Master, and therefore is under his control both during the meeting, and at the Festive board unless the incumbent is a Grand Officer or more senior Mason, when it would be considered more appropriate for another (i.e. Director of Ceremonies) to propose the first set of toasts. This is in accordance with the procedure set out in the format used during the Consecration and erection of the Lodge and should be continued accordingly.

WBro. John  W. De Freitas 

Dist SGW

D of C

Arthur Emlyn Lodge No. 9742 EC