Grand Lodge
Free & Accepted Masons
Of California
Grand Oration 1879
Grand Orator
Lorenzo Sawyer
MOST WORSHIPFUL GRAND MASTER AND BRETHREN OF THE GRAND LODGE
My remarks on this occasion will be of an historical character, relating mainly to the rise, progress, and vicissitudes of our Craft, especially during the middle ages and more recent times: together with some reflections on its present condition and its relation to other organizations and to the general interests of mankind.
Masons need not be told that tradition carries the origin of our fraternity back to very early times, as early at least as the building of King SOLOMON'S Temple, and, as some maintain, to a much earlier period. Like that of other ancient human institutions its early history is, necessarily, obscure. That it is ancient none can doubt, and there is much to confirm the views of those who give it its earliest origin; and that there were associations of operative Masons at a very early period is clear.
Man is pre-eminently a social being. He craves companionship. He is endowed with affections and sensibilities, with emotional faculties, with a sense of the beautiful and sublime, with reasoning powers, with constructive and organizing capacities; all which are capable of unlimited expansion and development. He is also, naturally, an eminently religious being. There is implanted in his nature an innate sense of some superior, overruling power, which demands and receives his adoration; and to which, whether known or unknown, he bows with reverential awe. Man's social instincts find their first gratification and development in the family circle. The social field then becomes enlarged by the union of contiguous families into neighborhoods, hamlets, villages, towns, cities, and still larger aggregations of people of similar origin, language, tastes, and habits. Upon coming into these social relations with his fellows, man soon perceives his dependence; that he has occasion for assistance, for companionship, for sympathy; that to obtain these he must in turn yield aid, companionship, and sympathy; that there must be mutual forbearance and concession. He soon learns to recognize the principles of meum and tuum; to perceive the distinction between right and wrong; to appreciate the necessity of obedience to some fixed rule of action that shall equally protect and secure the interests of all, and the propriety of having some arbiter to ultimately determine disputed points and enforce the rights of &11 when duly ascertained. The result is that his organizing capacity is brought into exercise, and the people, thus aggregated in obedience to their social instincts, are moulded into civil and political communities governed by laws established by some authority recognized as entrusted with the duty, with something in the nature of a judiciary to ascertain the rights and duties of each individual, and an executive to enforce those rights and duties when thus ascertained. Society, thus organized, by combining the efforts of its individual members and systematically directing them to the accomplishment of some common object, produces vast results utterly unattainable by unorganized individual exertion.
One of the first wants of man, after food and clothing, is shelter—some protection against the heat of midday or midsummer sun, or the cold of midnight and mid-winter; or-against the piercing winds and the rains and snows of changing seasons. In his primitive state indifferent shelter is found in rude booths and huts constructed of the branches, leaves, and bark of trees; afterwards, as he progresses a step in information and experience, in tents woven of twigs and vines or constructed of poles covered with the skins of animals, and finally in tents of cloth woven from fibrous material which has come to his advancing knowledge. But, as he advances in civilization and, in obedience to his social instincts, congregates in hamlets, towns, and cities, something more substantial and permanent than tents is required; and he commences to build his more commodious and pretentious habitation of unburnt bricks, of wood, of stone, and finally of burnt bricks. The first object suggested in his building is utility, and this requires but the simplest and plainest structure, involving nothing beyond the mere exercise of his constructive faculties, and little skill or other aid than that which is afforded by his own hands and the hands of members of his own family. As he progresses in civilization and refinement his aesthetical faculties come into action, and he begins to perceive that certain forms and proportions are more pleasing to his senses than others; that symmetry, variety, and ornamentation are more grateful to his sense of the beautiful than mere plain naked walls; that large and massive structures produce grander effects; and he begins to study how to enlarge his structure, how to so proportion and adorn it as to pro-duce the most striking and most agreeable results. Thus architecture, as distinguished from mere construction, originates, and afterwards becomes gradually developed into an art, which, in its highest achievements, requires associated and organized effort, as well as a more remarkable combination of individual talents and more extensive and varied individual knowledge than any other human pursuit, and in which are found exemplified some of the grandest triumphs of genius.
I have referred to man as being not only asocial, but also, naturally, an eminently religious being. To his religious instincts, doubtless, is due much of his progress in architectural science. All the grandest achievements in architecture in all the earlier ages have been attained in the erection of temples for the worship of the Deity, palaces for kings, and mausoleums, memorials, and tombs for the dead. The religious and reverential tendencies constitute the basis of the sentiment which prompts the erection of all these classes of edifices; and their construction in all the earlier ages has been mainly under the inspiration and supervision of the priesthood.
The stimulus afforded by the desire to erect to the Deity some grand token of homage and appreciation doubtless contributed more than all other influences combined to the development and advancement of architecture as a science. We know very little of the domestic or private architecture of ancient times, even down to and including the earlier history of Greece and Rome; and what little we do know leads us to suppose that private buildings were comparatively mean. No vestige of any domestic or private structure of ancient Egypt, Nineveh, Babylon, or even of ancient Greece or Rome has come down to our times. To all ancient private, as well as to most public structures of these countries, the lines of SPENCEB forcibly apply:
High towers, faire temples, goodly theatres,
Strong walls, rich porches, princelie pallaces,
Largo streets, bravo houses, sacred sepulchres,
Sure gates, sweet gardens, stately galleries,
Wrought with faire pillowes and fine imageries,
All these (0 pitie!) now are turned to dust,
And overgrown with black oblivious rust.
An able writer upon the subject observes that "Although it is very probable that men built houses to shelter themselves from the inclemencies of the weather before they constructed temples to the divinity, yet it must be obvious to all who have studied the early history of the human race in connection with its antiquities, and have considered the analogies afforded by the rude and simple nations of the world at the present time, and particularly by those who occupied the Western side of the Americas on the discovery of those continents, that, though the art of building may have originated in the personal wants of man, the science of architecture was the result of his devotional feelings and tendencies. In Egypt and in India, in Greece and in Italy, in Gaul and Britain, in Mexico and Peru, structures connected with the worship of the divinity existed and still exist, of the earliest date, or rather of dates beyond the range of positive chronological information—some evincing a greater and others a less advance in taste and refinement; but all retaining some analogy, bearing upon the same point, and tending to what may be called architectural arrangement. None of these countries, however, nor any other with which we are acquainted, present anything intended for the personal accommodation of man in the early ages; nor is there anything in the sacred structures that could fur a moment induce the idea that the dispositions of architecture arose in the construction and composition of domestic buildings. Everything lends to the belief that devotion and superstition were the originators, carriers-on, and, it may almost be said, perfectors of the science." The same writer, speaking of the ruins of Thebes, the most ancient city of Egypt, says: "It is strange indeed, that a people who displayed such energies in the construction of tombs, pyramids, and temples, should have left no work of any description that could be applied to any useful purpose." DENON, one of the French commission sent to explore the antiquities of Egypt, says of Thebes: " Still temples—nothing but temples—not a vestige of the hundred gates so celebrated in history; no walls, quays, bridges, baths, theatres: not a single edifice of public utility or convenience. Not with standing all the pains I took in the research I could find nothing but temples; walls covered with obscure emblems and hieroglyphics, which attested the ascendancy of the priesthood who still seemed to rule over the mighty ruins, and whose empire constantly haunted my imagination."
DIDORUS SICULES, a Roman historian of the century before the Christian era, speaking of the comparative meanness of the houses of the Egyptians, as they then appeared, accounts for it by saying—" They call the houses of the living inns, because they stay in them but a little while, but the sepulchres of the dead they call everlasting habitations, because they abide in the grave to infinite generations. Therefore they are not very curious in the building of their houses, but in beautifying their sepulchers they leave nothing undone that can be thought of.'” These facts tend strongly to show that the development and perfection of the science of architecture in ancient times originated in, and was almost wholly dependent upon, the religious instincts implanted in our nature. Among the Hebrews the science of architecture does not seem to have made much progress till the time of the building of Solomon’s Temple. Indeed, it could hardly be expected, under the circumstances, that it would. Although the Egyptians had reached a high point of their great proficiency in the science at the time of the exodus, and MOSES, the Hebrew leader, was learned in all the wisdom of the Egyptians, yet, the children of Israel themselves had long been oppressed and little better than slaves, engaged in the lowest employments, of which making unburnt brick was one ; and they were not likely to have been in a position to acquire much practical knowledge of or skill in the science of architecture. So, also, their long sojourn and extensive wanderings in the wilderness, and their un-settled condition during the 480 years from the exodus till the time of SOLOMON, afforded no opportunity for developing a taste for architecture. Their habitations must necessarily have been rude and of a temporary character—probably to a great extent tents. There does not appear to have been any stable resting place, even for the Ark of the Covenant, until the building of SOLOMON'S Temple. Altars of stones were set up at various places during their wanderings, but these could make no pretension to architectural design. Even SAUL does not appear to have had any settled residence. Nor did the Hebrews, during his time, seem to have had a settled permanent capital. DAVID built himself a house of cedars, but in consequence of his wars he was unable to erect a temple, and that work was left to his son, SOLOMON. God directed the prophet NATHAN, to " go and tell DAVID, my servant, thus saith the Lord, thou shall not build me a house to dwell in, for I have not dwelt in an house since the day I brought up Israel unto this day, bat I have gone from tent to tent, and from tabernacle to tabernacle." When SOLOMON entered upon his work of building the temple he had no architect capable of erecting the structure, or even men competent to hew timber, at least, to his satisfaction, for, when he sent to HIBAM, King of Tyre, requesting him to furnish men " to hew him cedar trees out of Lebanon," he gave as a reason for the request—"for thou knowest that there is not among us any that can skill to hew timber like unto the Sidonians." He obtained from Tyre his chief architect, HIRAM, the widow's son, a man who " was filled with wisdom and under-standing, and cunning to work all works in brass. And he came to King SOLOMON and wrought all his work." So, also, after the building of the temple, HIRAM furnished SOLOMON with cedar and fir timber to build his own house. He had before performed the same service for SOLOMON'S father. "Now HIRAM, King of Tyre, sent messengers unto DAVID, and timber of cedar, with masons and carpenters to build him a house." That tents were still used to a considerable extent, at least by the common people, is evident from the quotation already made and from the fact that, after the dedication of the temple and the conclusion of the attending festivities, SOLOMON sent the people away, '' and they went unto their tents joyful and glad of heart."
Whatever may have been the state of the science of architecture among SOLOMON'S subjects, there can be no doubt that architects and artificers of the highest eminence in their profession were furnished by HIRAM, King of Tyre; and the result was the erection of a temple of unprecedented magnificence, though small in dimensions, compared with many other religious edifices, both ancient and modern.