ALDWORTH eraile Court, and it was during one of these meetings that the occurrence took place which is thus related: "It happened on this particular occasion that the Lodge was held in a room separated from another, as is often the case, by stud and brickwork. The young lady, being giddy and thoughtless, and determined to gratify her curiosity, made her arrangements accordingly, and, with a pair of scissors, (as she herself related to the mother of our informant,) removed a portion of a brick from the wall, and placed herself so as to command a full view of everything which occurred in the next room; so placed, she witnessed the two first degrees in Masonry, which was the extent of the proceedings of the Lodge on that night. Becoming aware, from what she heard, that the brethren were about to separate, for the first time she felt tremblingly alive to the awkwardness and danger of her situation, and began to consider how she could retire without observation. She became nervous and agitated, and nearly fainted, but so far recovered herself as to be fully aware of the necessity of withdrawing as quickly as possible; in the act of doing so, being in the dark, she stumbled against and overthrew something, said to be a chair or some ornamental piece of furniture. The crash was loud; and the Tiler, who was on the lobby or landing on which the doors both of the Lodge room and that where the Honorable Miss St. Leger was, opened, gave the alarm, burst open the door and, with a light in one hand and a drawn sword in the other, appeared to the now terrified and fainting lady. He was soon joined by the members of the Lodge present, and luckily; for it is asserted that but for the prompt appearance of her brother, Lord Doneraile, and other steady members, her life would have fallen a sacrifice to what was then esteemed her crime. The first care of his Lordship was to resuscitate the unfortunate lady without alarming the house, and endeavor to learn from her an explanation of what had occurred; having done so, many of the members being furious at the transaction, she was placed under guard of the Tiler and a member, in the room where she The members reassembled and was found. deliberated as to what, under the circumstances, was to be done, and over two long hours she could hear the angry discussion and her death deliberately proposed and seconded. At length the good sense of the majority succeeded in calming, in some measure, the angry and irritated feelings of the rest of the members, when, after much had been said and many things proposed, it was resolved to give her the option of submitting to the Masonic ordeal to the extent she had witnessed, (Fellow Craft,) and if she refused, the brethren were again to consult. Being waited on to decide, Miss St. Leger, exhausted and terrified by the storminess of the debate, which she could not avoid *This is a mistake; her father, the first Lord Doneraile, did not die until 1727, when his daughter had been married for fourteen years. partially hearing, and yet, notwithstanding A very different account is given in the According to this story Mrs. Aldworth was seized with curiosity about the mysteries of Freemasonry and set herself to discover them; so she made friends with the landlady of an inn in Cork in which a Lodge used to meet, and with her connivance was concealed in a clockcase which was placed in the Lodge room; however, she was unable to endure the discomfort of her confinement in such narrow quarters and betrayed herself by a scream, on which she was discovered by the members of the Lodge and then and there initiated. It will be observed that according to this version the lady was already married before she was initiated. The story is said to be supported by the testimony of two members of Lodge 71, at Cork, in which Lodge the initiation is said to have taken place; this, however, can hardly be correct, for that Lodge did not meet at Cork until 1777, whereas, Mrs. Aldworth died in 1773. If, however, the commoner version of the story is preferred, according to which Miss St. Leger was initiated as a young girl, then the occurrence must have taken place before her marriage in 1713, and therefore before the establishment of Grand Lodges and the introduction of warranted and numbered Lodges, and it is therefore a proof of the existence of at least one Lodge of Speculative Masons in Ireland at an early period. After her marriage Mrs. Aldworth seems to have kept up her connection with the Craft, for her portrait in Masonic clothing, her apron and jewels, are still in existence, and her name occurs among the subscribers to Dassigny's Enquiry of 1744; and it has even been stated that she presided as Master of her Lodge. The story has been fully discussed by Bros. Conder, Crawley, and others in the eighth volume (1895) of the Transactions of the Quatuor Coronati Lodge of London, to which the curi[E. L. H.] ous are referred for further information. Alethophilote, Lover of Truth. Given by Thory as the Fifth Degree of the Order of African Architects. (Acta Latomorum, i., 292.) Alexander I., Emperor of Russia. Alexander I. succeeded Paul I. in the year 1801, and immediately after his accession renewed the severe prohibitions of his predecessor In 1803, M. Boeber, counselor against all secret societies, and especially Freemasonry. of state and director of the military school at St. Petersburg, resolved to remove, if possible, from the mind of the Emperor the prejudices which he had conceived against the Order. Accordingly, in an audience which he had solicited and obtained, he described the object of the Institution and the doctrine of its mysteries in such a way as to lead the Emperor to rescind the obnoxious decrees, and to add these words: "What you have told me of the Institution not only induces me to grant it my protection and patronage, but even to ask for initiation into its mysteries. Is this possible to be obtained?" M. Boeber replied: "Sire, I cannot myself reply to the question. But I will call together the Masons of your capital, and make your Majesty's desire known; and I have no doubt that they will be eager to comply with your wishes." Accordingly Alexander was soon after initiated, and the Grand Orient of all the Russias was in consequence established, of which M. Boeber was elected Grand Master. (Acta Latomorum, i., 218.) Alexandria, School of. When Alexander built the city of Alexandria in Egypt, with the intention of making it the seat of his empire, he invited thither learned men from all nations, who brought with them their peculiar notions. The Alexandria School of Philosophy which was thus established, by the commingling of Orientalists, Jews, Egyptians, and Greeks, became eclectic in character, and exhibited a heterogeneous mixture of the opinions of the Egyptian priests, of the Jewish Rabbis, of Arabic teachers, and of the disciples of Plato and Pythagoras. From this school we derive Gnosticism and the Kabbala, and, above all, the system of symbolism and allegory which lay at the foundation of the Masonic philosophy. To no ancient sect, indeed, except perhaps the Pythagoreans, have the Masonic teachers been so much indebted for the substance of their doctrines, as well as the esoteric method of communicating them, as to that of the School of Alexandria. Both Aristobulus and Philo, the two most celebrated chiefs of this school, taught, although a century intervened between their births, the same theory, that the sacred writings of the Hebrews were, by their system of allegories, the true source of all religious and philosophic doctrine, the literal meaning of which alone was for the common people, the esoteric or hidden meaning being kept for the initiated. Freemasonry still carries into practise the same theory. Alincourt, Françols d'. A French gentleman, who, in the year 1776, was sent with Don Oyres de Ornellas Praça, a Portuguese nobleman, to prison, by the governor of the island of Madeira, for being Freemasons. They were afterward sent to Lisbon, and confined in a common jail for fourteen months, where they would have perished had not the Masons of Lisbon supported them, through whose intercession with Don Martinio de Mello they were at last released. (Smith, Use and Abuse of Freemasonry, p. 206.) Allah. (Assyrian (Fig. 1), ilu; Aramaic, , elah; Hebrew,, loah.) The Arabic name of God, derived from (Fig. 2) ilah, god, and the article (Fig. 3) al, expressing the God by way of eminence. In the great profession of the Unity, on which is founded the religion of Islam, both terms are used, as, pronounced "La ilaha ill' Alláh," there is no god but God, the real meaning of the expression being, "There is only one God." Mohammed relates Allegiance. Every Mason owes allegiance to the Lodge, Chapter, or other body of which he is a member, and also to the Grand Lodge, Grand Chapter or other supreme authority from which that body has received its charter. But this is not a divided allegiance. If, for instance, the edicts of a Grand and a Subor dinate Lodge conflict, there is no question which is to be obeyed. Supreme or governing bodies in Masonry claim and must receive a paramount allegiance. Allegory. A discourse or narrative in which there is a literal and a figurative sense, a patent and a concealed meaning; the literal or patent sense being intended, by analogy or comparison, to indicate the figurative or concealed one." Its derivation from the Greek, λλos and ¿yopevew, to say something different, that is, to say something where the language is one thing and the true meaning another, exactly expresses the character of an allegory. It has been said that there is no essential difference between an allegory and a symbol. There is not in design, but there is in their character. An allegory may be interpreted without any previous conventional agreement, but a symbol cannot. Thus, the legend of the Third Degree is an allegory, evidently to be interpreted as teaching a restoration to life; and this we learn from the legend itself, without any previous understanding. The sprig of acacia is a symbol of the immortality of the soul. But this we know only because such meaning had been conventionally determined when the symbol was first established. It is evident, then, that an allegory whose meaning is ob scure is imperfect. The enigmatical meaning should be easy of interpretation; and hence ALLIANCE ALL-SEEING 47 Lemière, a French poet, has said: "L'alle-officer of a Supreme Council of the Ancient gorie habite un palais diaphane"-Allegory and Accepted Scottish Rite is sometimes so lives in a transparent palace. All the legends called. It was first used by the Council for of Freemasonry are more or less allegorical, the Southern Jurisdiction of the United States, and whatever truth there may be in some of and is derived from the usage of the Roman them in an historical point of view, it is only as Church, where certain addresses of the Pope to allegories or legendary symbols that they are the Cardinals are called allocutions, and this of importance. The English lectures have is to be traced to the customs of Pagan Rome, therefore very properly defined Freemasonry where the harangues of the Generals to their to be a system of morality veiled in allegory soldiers were called allocutions. and illustrated by symbols." Allowed. In the old manuscript Constitutions, this word is found in the now unusual sense of " accepted." Thus, "Every Mason of the Craft that is Mason allowed, ye shall do to him as ye would be done unto yourself." (Lansdowne MS., circa 1600.) Mason allowed means Mason accepted, that is, approved. Phillips, in his New World of Words (1690), defines the verb allow, "to give or grant; to approve of; to permit or suffer." Latimer, in one of his sermons, uses it in this sense of approving or accepting, thus: "St. Peter, in forsakbefore God as if he had forsaken all the riches in the world." In a similar sense is the word used in the Office of Public Baptism of Infants, in the Common Prayer-Book of the Church of England. The allegory was a favorite figure among the ancients, and to the allegorizing spirit are we to trace the construction of the entire Greek and Roman mythology. Not less did it prevail among the older Aryan nations, and its abundant use is exhibited in the religions of Brahma and Zoroaster. The Jewish Rabbis were greatly addicted to it, and carried its employment, as Maimonides intimates (More Nevochim, III., xliii.), sometimes to an excess. Their Midrash, or system of commentaries on the sacred book, is almost altogether allegori-ing his old boat and nets, was allowed as much cal. Aben Ezra, a learned Rabbi of the twelfth century, says, "The Scriptures are like bodies, and allegories are like the garments with which they are clothed. Some are thin like fine silk, and others are coarse and thick like sackcloth." Our Lord, to whom this spirit of the All-Seeing Eye. An important symbol of Jewish teachers in his day was familiar, incul- the Supreme Being, borrowed by the Freecated many truths in parables, all of which masons from the nations of antiquity. Both were allegories. The primitive Fathers of the the Hebrews and the Egyptians appear to Christian Church were thus infected; and have derived its use from that natural inclinaOrigen (Epist. ad Dam.), who was especially tion of figurative minds to select an organ as addicted to the habit, tells us that all the the symbol of the function which it is inPagan philosophers should be read in this tended peculiarly to discharge. Thus, the spirit: hoc facere solemus quando philoso-foot was often adopted as the symbol of swiftphos legimus." Of modern allegorizing writ-ness, the arm of strength, and the hand of ers, the most interesting to Masons are Lee, the author of The Temple of Solomon portrayed by Scripture Light, and John Bunyan, who wrote Solomon's Temple Spiritualized. Alliance, Sacred. An organization of twenty-one brethren possessing the ultimate degree of the Scottish Rite formed in New York, September 19, 1872, who assemble annually on that day. One by one, in the due course of time, this Assembly is to decrease until the sad duty will devolve on some one to banquet alone with twenty draped chairs and covers occupied by the imaginary presence of his fellows. It was instituted to commemorate the breaking of a dead-lock in the close corporation of the Supreme Council by the admission of four very prominent members of the Fraternity. Allied Masonic Degrees. A body has been formed in England called the Grand Council of the Allied Masonic Degrees, in order to govern various Degrees or Orders having no central authority of their own. The principal degrees controlled by it are those of St. Lawrence the Martyr, Knight of Constantinople, Grand Tiler of King Solomon, Secret Monitor, Red Cross of Babylon, and Grand High Priest, besides a large number, perhaps about fifty, of "side degrees," of which some are actively worked and some are not. Allocution. The address of the presiding fidelity. On the same principle, the open eye 66 of In the Apocryphal Book of the Conversation of God with Moses on Mount Sinai, translated by the Rev. W. Cureton from an Arabic MS. of the fifteenth century, and published by the Philobiblon Society of London, the idea of the eternal watchfulness of God is thus beautifully allegorized: "Then Moses said to the Lord, O Lord, dost thou sleep or not? The Lord said unto Moses, I never sleep: but take a cup and fill it with water. Then Moses took a cup and filled it with water, as the Lord commanded him. Then the Lord cast into the heart of Moses the breath of slumber; so he slept, and the cup fell from his hand, and the water which was therein was spilled. Then Moses awoke from his sleep. Then said God to Moses, I declare by my power, and by my glory, that if I were to withdraw my providence from the heavens |