Ashley a petition to initiate into our Order a gentleman of high respectability, who, unfortunately, has been maimed. I refused my assent.... I have also refused a similar request from the lodge of which I am a member. The fact that the most distinguished masonic body on earth has recently removed one of the landmarks, should teach us to be careful how we touch those ancient boundaries."—Address of the Grand Master of New Jersey in 1849.
"The Grand Lodge of Florida adopted such a provision in her constitution, [the qualifying clause permitting the initiation of a maimed person, if his deformity was not such as to prevent his instruction], but more mature reflection, and more light reflected from our sister Grand Lodges, caused it to be stricken from our constitution."—Address of Gov. Tho. Brown, Grand Master of Florida in 1849.
"As to the physical qualifications, the Ahiman Rezon leaves no doubt on the subject, but expressly declares, that every applicant for initiation must be a man, free-born, of lawful age, in the perfect enjoyment of his senses, hale, and sound, and not deformed or dismembered; this is one of the ancient landmarks of the Order, which it is in the power of no body of men to change. A man having but one arm, or one leg, or who is in anyway deprived of his due proportion of limbs and members, is as incapable of initiation as a woman."—Encyclical Letter of the Grand Lodge of South Carolina to its subordinates in 1849.
Impressed, then, by the weight of these authorities, which it would be easy, but is unnecessary, to multiply—guided by a reference to the symbolic and speculative (not operative) reason of the law—and governed by the express words of the regulation of 1683—I am constrained to believe that the spirit as well as the letter of our ancient landmarks require that a candidate for admission should be perfect in all his parts, that is, neither redundant nor deficient, neither deformed nor dismembered, but of hale and entire limbs, as a man ought to be.
Section III.
Of the Intellectual Qualifications of Candidates.
The Old Charges and Ancient Constitutions are not as explicit in relation to the intellectual as to the moral and physical qualifications of candidates, and, therefore, in coming to a decision on this subject, we are compelled to draw our conclusions from analogy, from common sense, and from the peculiar character of the institution. The question that here suggests itself on this subject is, what particular amount of human learning is required as a constitutional qualification for initiation?
During a careful examination of every ancient document to which I have had access, I have met with no positive enactment forbidding the admission of uneducated persons, even of those who can neither read nor write. The unwritten, as well as the written laws of the Order, require that the candidate shall be neither a fool nor an idiot, but that he shall possess a discreet judgment, and be in the enjoyment of all the senses of a man. But one who is unable to subscribe his name, or to read it when written, might still very easily prove himself to be within the requirements of this regulation. The Constitutions of England, formed since the union of the two Grand Lodges in 1813, are certainly explicit enough on this subject. They require even more than a bare knowledge of reading and writing, for, in describing the qualifications of a candidate, they