Evans Lodge #524 History, An Article from Masonic Light - April 1949

Evans Lodge #524 History, An Article from Masonic Light - April 1949

Way back in AD 1911 the Worshipful Master of Evans Lodge #524 of Evanston, Illinois found it difficult to get the Junior Deacon to learn the Senior Deacon's Lecture.  Hoping to get results by putting the Junior Deacon "on the spot", he wrote to him as follows:

Chicago, July 19, 1911

Mr. James T. Wray, Evanston, Illinois,

Dear Brother Wray: 

Tuesday next, July 25th, you will be expected to give the lecture about which I have spoken to you.

Fraternally,

Asahel W. Gage, Worshipful Master

The Junior Deacon Replied as follows:

I am just a Junior Deacon,

and my name is Jimmy Wray

I haven't got that lecture learned,

and there's the deuce to pay.

I've promised and I've promised

and then some more, I guess

Now they say it's up to me

and right here I will confess.

I haven't learned that lecture,

and there's no one you can blame.

I'll just own up truth

and say with face of shame.

I haven't learned that lecture,

and next Tuesday's drawing nearer.

If I could hear it just once more,

It's meaning would be clearer.

So please, kind sir, be merciful

and don't ask me to give

a lecture that goes through my mind

like water through a sieve.

Evans Lodge then had a good working library which was open for use by its officers and members, not only on the nights of its communications, but on every week day.  This source of information contained materials not only as to the history and meanings of Masonry but also as to its useful application. 

Jim Wray learned "what Masonry is all about".  He applied what he learned and in 1915 he had a most outstandingly year as Worshipful Master of Evans Lodge. 

His useful and beneficial Masonic work did not end with his year as Worshipful Master.  It has continued ever since and it is hoped that it will long continue.

"I am just a Junior Deacon" was published in the Evans Lodge notice for September 1911.  In that same 1911 notice was was the following, which hints of what was being done way-back-then in Evans Lodge, to assist members and candidates in their search for Masonic Light.

BUILDING DESIGNS:  No man should ever enter upon Masonry without some Understanding of the nature of the society.  That it has secrets he must know.  That it is the truest type of fraternity of brotherhood, he will soon learn.  Its members he will find to be of the substance of the community.  A society of reformers who have confined their reforming largely to themselves.  The applicant must understand that Masonry means the building of character and ability as well as mere physical building.  How and why he can only learn by becoming a Mason.   The landmarks, fixed and plain, are there for guides.  No one should ever be allowed to conceive Masonry to be an institution of light or trifling character. 

In order that each candidate may better appreciate the beauties and the benefits of the work the Worshipful Master endeavors to press upon each before initiation, that the degrees contain a secret system of moral instruction by the ancient method of symbol and allegory.  That the teachings unfold as pondered and that pleasure and profit will always be found in them. 

The co-operation of the brethren in developing this conviction will be appreciated, and of lasting benefit to the craft. 

It should be always remembered that the letter “G” does not stand for goat, and that nothing should ever be said that may by any possibility mislead a candidate into thinking there is anything frivolous in the work.

Before the first degree and after each degree as taken, the Worshipful Master suggested to the candidate that he read specific verses from I Kings V, VI & VII; II Chronicles II & III and Ezekiel XLI. 

When the candidate presented himself for the first degree, after the Secretary’s monitorial lecture, and before any ceremonial preparation, he was courteously requested to remove his left shoe and hand it to the one in charge of his preparation, who then placed it on the floor by the candidate and informed him that this has a symbolic meaning, that all of his preparation had symbolic meanings and that the ceremonies in which he was about to take part had meanings that he could better understand by paying close and sincere attention to them as they were unfolded. 

After each degree there was communicated to the candidate something of the meanings and applications of the degree that he had just been through.  In those old-time days, evans Lodge was not only building close fraternal relations between its members individually but it was as a body doing practical and helpful work assisting its members to do the same. 

In the Evans Lodge December 1911 notice, the following was published. 

    

BUILDING DESIGNS:  The designs in which all are interested are those for that spiritual building, that house not made with hands, eternal in the heavens.  What that house is, St. Paul clearly indicated when he said:  “Know ye not that ye are the Temple of God?”

How to plan the erection of this Temple, the Bible teaches in its historical account of the erection of the material Temple.  Life is grouped into three divisions:  Youth, manhood and old age.  The development of humanity may also be divided into symbolic epochs.  These divisions are typified by the three groups of laborers employed in building Solomon’s Temple.

The Apprentices, or bearers of the burdens, correspond to youth and symbolize man before he became the predominant creature.  His whole existence was a struggle against the inclemency of the elements and the ferocity of the wild beasts.  When he worked with and developed strength, symbolized by Thor’s Hammer, his mind was not the highly developed, complex intelligence that it now is.  He knew only simple and direct effort, symbolized by the straight line of the twenty four inch gauge.  The working tools of the Apprentice teach the necessity of  directness of thought and strength of character. 

The Fellowcrafts, or hewers, correspond to manhood, and symbolize man in the second stage of development when he notes the orderly or geometric tests, tries and by the aid of his working tools, symbols of his faculties, he learns to use the materials and forces about him.  The ability to work with the Fellowcraft tools makes life easier and more secure and gives opportunity for the development of the higher faculties. 

The Masters, or the chiefs over the work, correspond to the old age, to man developed until he becomes a builder, a designer, a creator, he molds all nature in forms of his own design.  He grows corn of the quality he wants, the orange without seed, and the rose of a color to suit his fancy.  His working tools are all the implements, but more especially the trowel, the symbol of cementing, of uniting, of building. 

The stones of which the Temple is composed are thoughts, words and deeds.  The master with the trowel of constructive thought unites the symbolic stones into a temple of character and ability.  The Bible teaches that these stones must be perfected in the quarries where they are wrought.  There will be no tools to alter them later, neither hammer, nor axe, not any tool of iron, is heard in the temple while it is building.  The necessity for perfection of each thought, word and act is therefore apparent. 

The Biblical account of the building of Solomon’s Temple is most perfect symbolism.  Being Truth, its application is universal and the lessons to be learned from it are limited only by the ability to understand its teachings.  The benefits we receive are limited only by the ability to apply the teachings to the problems of life.

During “Jim Wray’s Year”, way back in 1915, he and the old Past master of 1911 spent a Sunday in the Iowa Grand Lodge library which the then Grand Secretary, Newton Ray Parvin, opened that day for them.  There they visited with several Past Grand masters and other brethren who had attained to Old-Age.  There that day, Jim Wray arranged with our beloved Brother Joseph Fort Newton to come to Evanston  and deliver an address on Masonry to the members of Evans Lodge, their families and their neighbors.  This address was published in pamphlet form.  It has recently been republished in the Masonic News as also as a Craft Fellow’s pamphlet.  Revamped, it has become the title chapter of Newton’s book, “The Men’s House”. 

In addition to Newton’s address, Jim Wray had talks given in the Lodge by members of the Lodge on the first three degrees of ancient symbolic Craft Masonry and other appropriate subjects.  Several of these talks and numerous “Masonic Jingles”, “By Jimminy” were published in Masonic Journals.  Some of the Worshipful Masters “jingles” and the talks on the first degree and on the third degree were that year published in “The Builder”, the Journal of the National masonic Research Society, which evolved into the Masonic Service Association of the United States.  These two talks were published as booklets by the Grand Lodge of Iowa, and ordered to read in every Lodge in Iowa.  They are preserved in Volume 15 of “The Little Masonic Library”, published by the National Masonic Service Association.  The Grand Lodge of Massachusetts in their 1944 “manual” for use in their district lodges of instruction refer to these two talks.  The Grand Lodge of Iowa have a small booklet for each candidate after he has received each degree.  In his remarkable booklet “The Third Degree” he has explained the Word perhaps better than anyone else. 

It is not surprising that in Evans Lodge, more than thirty years after these old-time days a score of old time members of those days have attended their mother lodge.  Results follow causes with geometric certainty. 

Masonry teaches that “Old Age” is the symbol of a Master.

James Thomas Wray who signs himself “By Jimminy”, entered the Masonic Home Family at Sullivan on August 10^th 1948.

Before the end of his first two weeks there he received many letters and post cards from members of his Lodge.  Dr. Dwight F. Clark, and senior and most outstanding MD of Evanston, President of , one might almost say, the Evanston Historical Society, and old time member of Evans Lodge and the physician who made the health certificate for Jim’s admission to the home wrote to him that the Home Family was to be congratulated on having him a member because he would be a valuable  addition to any group.  Not all members of the Home Family are as fortunate as Jim in being remembered by old friends.  Jim’s sympathy inspired the following: 

There are men who are forgotten

When they move into the Home.

They have lost all of their loved ones

And are too old just to roam

If you could see the faces

When the mailman goes his round,

No letter or post card for you today

How simple that all sounds. 

They look forward daily

For a word from you or me

Just a letter or a post card

That is all it has to be.

If you have a relative

Or a friend who is living here

Just send him a card or letter

He will like it, never fear.

Don’t let him think he is forgotten

And has been put upon the shelf.

There is no way of telling now

But you may be here yourself.

By Jimminy, the Old Timer

Evanston, Ill., Oct 29, 1948

NOTE – The author of the above article – and the many others – that have for many years appeared in the American Masonic Press, which were signed “By Jimminy”, was Brother James Thomas Wray, who died at the Illinois Masonic Home on December 21, 1948.  Masonry has lost in him a clever and well-skilled craftsman.