Encyclopedia Masonica

With the publication of the Minutes and histories of early Eighteenth Century Lodges of England, Canada, and the United States the widely discussed question of "making a Mason at Sight" has been set in a new frame-work of facts, and given a new meaning (See page 941.)

More data will be discovered but in the light of present knowledge it appears that while the phrase is apparently of American origin, and perhaps came first into use in Pennsylvania, the conferring of the Three Degrees in a condensed form on a Candidate in one evening (consisting, therefore, of little more than the OB's and the Modes of Recognition) was not only permitted among early English Lodges, but was in universal practice among them, and they considered it a Lodge prerogative. It continued in some American Lodges as late as 1860. A meeting for "making at sight" was called an "Emergency Meeting" (or Communication); during it a Candidate was Entered, Passed, Raised, and elected to membership in about two hound of time. Records of these Emergency Meetings stud the Minutes of at least 200 Eighteenth Century English and American Lodges.

It has been an accepted theory that Making at Sight was a prerogative seized or created by Grand Masters in order to enlarge the powers of their office; it is now plain that the-opposite-occurred; that so many Lodges took to "Emergent Makings" that Grand Masters were forced to reserve the right of such makings to their own office in order to put a stop to what had become an evil. These facts are fraternally called to the attention of those British Brethren who have criticized and even satirized "Making at Sight" as an "Americanism"; except that it is now (fortunately) reserved to Grand Masters it is a Briticism, and one in practice since the first half of the Eighteenth Century among nearly all English Lodges. Moreover, English Masons continue even now a constituted custom of "making at sight" in principle though it refers to Lodges rather than to Masons; for it is considered that to "make" a new Lodge is the Grand Master's prerogative. In the beginning Grand Masters first consented to the forming of a new Lodge and then appeared in person to constitute it, or else sent a personal deputy; what were called Warrants were not legal documents but personal communications which gave Grand Master's consent.

In the United States a Grand Master can issue a temporary Dispensation to form a Lodge, in order that for a period the Lodge can work on probation; a Charter can be issued only by a Grand Lodge at its Regular Annual Communication. In constitutional principle the making of Lodges by the Grand Master's personal act could be identical with making a Mason "at sight" by his own personal act. If English Brethren reply that we are inconsistent in recognizing the Grand Master's prerogative to make Masons while refusing him the prerogatives to make Lodges, many American authorities on jurisprudence will agree with them. Even so, there is something to be said in favor of Making at Sight, regardless of how inconsistent it may be, be cause once in a long while a Petitioner finds himself in circumstances where he must receive in one night the Degrees he has been elected to, or can receive none of them.

Those who have sought in times immemorial for some origin or authorization for the Grand Master's prerogative to Make at Sight need never have looked BO far afield, because it was recognized as legal by the Ancient Grand Lodge of 1751, from which so much of our Work and 80 many of our practices are derived. In the Records of that Grand Lodge, under date of April 16, 1777, a Minute shows that Dermott discussed the subject, admitted the Grand Mashr's right, but expressed it as his opinion that a Grand Masher ought not to Make at Sight except when he can make a sufficient number to form a Lodge. (The Minute is quoted in full in Gould's History of Freemasonry; Scribner's; 1936; page 176.)

A paragraph may be quoted as one specimen from many others in Lodge histories to show that for years after the date of the Dermott Minute the Lodge custom continued; it is from Some Memorials of the Globe Lodge, No. if; by Henry Sadler; London; Spencer & Company; 1904; page 45: "The 3rd of May, 1810, was the last occasion in this Lodge when the three degrees were conferred on candidates on the same evening, but it was only in case of emergency that the three degrees were given ...."

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