Subject: THE BROKEN COLUMN UNBROKEN
Date: Sun, 28 Jun 1998 15:50:50 GMT
From: george helmer <ghelmer@planet.eon.net>
Organization: Chiok.detour.net
Newsgroups: soc.org.freemasonry
And it is because this Anti-masonic warfare of 1826 to 1836 was the experimentum crucis of the system that we write so much concerning it. When by the approbation of the ancient fraternity we were first encouraged to turn our pen to Freemasonry, and seek from its inexhaustible fields subjects for Essay and Sketch, we discovered how available was this department of the great subject to our purpose. We saw that as the Revolution of 1776 was to the United States, as the Exodus to the Israelites, as the Hegira, to the Moslem, so was this era to Freemasonry - a date from which future historians will reckon, and a treasury from which will be drawn proofs of its adamantine powers of resistance, the invincibility of its inertia, the undying nature of its principles, the genial character of its attachment in the soul of its votaries, and its perfect adaptedness as well to the citizens of a free country, in an enlightened age, as to the subjects of despots in the days of darkness.
Among the incidents of this gloomy yet triumphant period, we transcribe from our memorandum book the following, furnished us by one of the actors, who yet lives to tell it with an enjoyment that age seems never to lessen.
In Eastern Ohio there are places where, to this day (1854), a man can not be popular if he is a Freemason. The circuit rider, sent by his bishop to his twelve months' work in that "neck of woods," must say nothing of his Masonry, if per adventure, like the rest of his enterprising company, he is a Brother among us. * Two to one, the petition will go up to "Annual Conference" for a preacher "who is not connected with any of the secret societies;" and unless they get him, they grumble.
Lest our readers may, think we exaggerate, read what "the Committee on Secret Societies" reported, June 13, 1854 (not 1654, as a person would suppose, from the bigoted, behind-the-age tone of the recommendation), to the "Joint Evangelical Lutheran Synod of Ohio and adjacent States," which met in Thompson's township, Seneca county, Ohio. The committee reported as follows: "The Synod regards as unchurchly all societies out of the church, and particularly secret societies, whenever they aim to accomplish those objects which the Christian Church, according to the Word of God, has and ever must have in view; because they are not only rendered unnecessary by the establishment of the church, but because they are calculated to produce indifference toward the kingdom of Christ, and, in many cases, entire estrangement from Christianity, and even gross infidelity. In future, we will admit no one into our connection who belongs to said societies." This report was adopted, only two members, to their honor
* We have some curious statistics on this subject, furnished us by a bishop of the Methodist Episcopal Church. In certain conferences, the non-masonic preachers compare in numbers with the Masonic as the "number of them that lapped" (Judg vii: 6) did to the bulk of Gideon's army.
be it recorded, the Revs. Henkel and H. Heincke, entering a protest, particularly against the last clause. We should think the citizens of Seneca county, Ohio, would think twice before they would invite Joint Evangelical" to sit among them a second time.
But to the story. In one of the villages of Eastern Ohio, there was a peculiarly malignant spirit of Antimasonry manifested, and about the year 1830 it gained its height. It amounted to as much votaries dared to do. To deface the outside lodge hall with obscene emblems (the symbology of Antimasonry - foul as Baal-peor's, and very much the same figures, too); to blacken the character of Masons; to buy up Giddings' Almanacs by the cart-load, and give them away to all who would read them; to vote against all. "who had the mark of the beast in their foreheads" (as the Rev. Mr. Slidel elegantly expressed it, in his memorable sermon from Rev. xix: 20); to separate father and pastor and people, husband and wife, partner senior and partner junior, the upper and lower millstone, the antagonistic blades of scissors, and all other separable things, upon this important question; and similar acts were the fitting works of the crew that ruled, and the sheep that were ruled, in _____ county, Eastern Ohio, about the year of grace 1830.
A few years before that period, about the time that Lafayette visited the United States, and the Masonic Fraternity generally were roused up to extraordinary feeling by his sentiments of approval and attachment to Masonry, one of the, most zealous and enlightened members of the Institution (there was but one secret society in the United States at that time, so that the adjective Masonic was seldom used and never necessary) died suddenly, and under circumstances that awakened the profoundest sensations of the Brethren, his co-members. They built a costly monument to his memory, and selected the highest knoll in the burial ground as its site. It was the broken column upon a platform of three steps; in fact, the same figure that is given in the Monitor in the third degree.
There the beautiful monument stood, undisturbed, for several years, and glittered in the sunlight, or glowed under moonbeams, to the eye of every traveler, early or late, who journeyed from the south-west toward the county seat of ____ county. It became the center of various other Masonic graves. Death is ever at work; and as his work thinned out the ranks of the lodge to which the deceased had belonged, processions were seen to wind slowly thitherward with melancholy loads, and around "the weeping Virgin" stout-hearted men were seen to weep, and by the side of the broken column they laid other columns, broken in like manner, until a group, silent but suggestive, was formed of the Fraternal dead.
This elegant monument became the. scene of the incident we are describing. During the crisis of the fever so often referred to, it was a standing eyesore, a stench in the pure nostrils of Antimasonry. To tower so high, to glare so brightly, to cry out its lessons so loudly, that every beholder was in a manner compelled to hear them, and all this, too, in a time when their honest, disinterested efforts had almost rendered Freemasonry a broken column - the thought was insupportable. An order of court was petitioned for to remove it, but the presiding judicial was too conscientious to grant that, though he had been elected as an Anti-mason. Then the parties consulted a lawyer, to know the damage of openly tearing it down; but that proving several figures too high for their pecuniary ability, they decided at last upon convening under the shadow of night for the purpose. The plot came to the ears of, a Brother Mason through the instrumentality of an old lady, who, though she had been in the chimney corner too deaf for twenty years to hear much, had her auditory nerves wonderfully keen when anything was stirring in regard to a society to which all three of her deceased husbands had belonged. The Brother Mason, of course, communicated it to the rest, and a counter-plot was devised, as ingenious as anything in the strategy of Brother N. Bonaparte, of Corsica.
The malignant Anti-masons met, to the number of three, one wet, dark, cold night, and, with Masons' tools, went together to the graveyard. The very nature of their errand demanded silence, and a silent party in a dark night is necessarily a. superstitions one. By the time they got half-way from the graveyard gate to the doomed monument, every grave had its ghost perched upon it, and every puff of wind emitted its sigh. If the reader will try the plan of entering a well-peopled graveyard, after midnight, upon an unholy errand, be will exactly realize the pleasant feelings of these three ruffians. They soon found themselves walking so close together as actually to impede one another's steps, whereupon one of them fell headlong, and screamed as his hand came in contact with something cold as a dead man's forehead. It was no fancy, as the result proved, that made the other two hear a subdued chuckle, in response, from behind a gallows-looking oak hard by.
The party had barely arrived at the broken monument, and settled their hats upon their heads, which had been pushed off by their electrified hair, when blankets were thrown over them; and, in spite of their agonizing attempts to scream, they were silenced, thrown down, gagged, and bound, in a space of time quite miraculous in its brevity.
Who committed the act was not known for ten years afterward; but those three night-walkers were found by their anxious friends, next morning, in the court-house, with corncobs arranged horizontally in their open jaws; their hands and feet tied with their own suspenders; and their bodies completely tattooed with all the emblems of seven degrees of Masonry, done in monochromatic - that is, in lunar caustic. The color came out by a few weeks' vigorous rubbing, but no second attempt was ever made upon the integrity of the monument, and the BROKEN COLUMN stands UNBROKEN yet.
George Helmer FPS
PM Norwood #90
H. Norwood Chapter #18