THE PLUMBLINE By Matthew G. Copple Thus he showed me: and, behold, the Lord stood upon a wall made by a plumbline, with a plumbline in his hand. And the Lord said unto me, Amos, what seest thou? And I said, a plumbline. Then said the Lord, Behold, “I will set a plumbline in the midst of my people Israel: I will not pass by them any more; Amos 7:7-8 The words of the Prophet Amos create a solemn and somewhat frightening entry point for the Entered Apprentice seeking passage to Fellow Craft. When spoken in the 8th Century B.C., they served as an ominous warning to the people of the Northern Kingdom that their iniquities and wickedness would soon be punished. It serves as a similar warning to the Fellow Craft. As an Entered Apprentice, the Mason is but a child; his purpose, as is the purpose of all children, is to prepare for adulthood. Apprentices are expected to make errors, and it is the responsibility of older Masons to teach them through their mistakes. The first degree is a time of formation, of intellectual and spiritual birth.
The Entered Apprentice is like the People of Israel in the Desert of Sinai. The Chosen People relied on the Great Architect for bread and manna, and looked to the column of smoke and fire for direction. So the Entered Apprentice looks to his Fellow Crafts and his Master Mason for spiritual sustenance and Masonic direction. He is the ward of the Lodge; all Masons are responsible for his growth. The Fellow Craft is no longer a child. He is a now a man, capable of making his own decisions. He may not yet design the work upon the Trestleboard as the Master does, but armed with an education in geometry and the liberal arts and sciences, and informed by his obligation, he can now read the designs upon it and turn those drawings into useful labor on the Temple. With understanding comes responsibility. Once settled in the Holy Land, the People of Israel were free to seek their own destiny, to choose to accept or reject the Law, and accept the consequences of their actions. So the Fellow Craft is now his own man, a journeyman who is no longer bound by the contract of the Apprentice, free to walk the path to
Continued from page 91 not known in 1959, when Wm. R. Denslow’s 10,000 Famous Freemans was published. Anti-Masonic writers, conjuring up the worst accusation they could imagine, called him “a high degree mason.” Francis Scott Key was a member of Concordia Lodge No. 13, which still exists in Towson, Maryland. Last fall, the Grand Commanders of both Scottish Rite Jurisdictions had a celebratory luncheon with special guest, Brother Francis Scott Key III, great-greatgrandson of the author (The Northern Light 2/09, p. 31). Francis Scott Key (1779-1843) was a poet, an author, and a highly successful attorney in Baltimore and Georgetown, and was a U.S. District Attorney. He defended Sam Houston for assaulting another Congressman and prosecuted Richard Lawrence for attempting to assassinate President Andrew Jackson. He later published a treatise on The Power of Literature and Its Connection with Religion (1834). In the War of 1812, the British had burned the Capitol and White House, and were preparing an assault on Fort McHenry and Baltimore. A friend of Francis, Dr. William Beanes, had been captured by the British and was being held on the ship HMS Tonnant. Accompanied by Colonel John Stuart Skinner, he received permission to come aboard to negotiate the release of Dr. Beanes. After dining as guests of the British officers, Beanes, Skinner, and Key were detained until the attack on Fort McHenry was over. They could do nothing but watch the bombardment of the American forces. During the long nights of Sept. 12 and 13, 1814, they could only catch glimpses of the star-shaped fort with its huge flag (42 ft.. long, with 8 red stripes, 7 white stripes, and 15 white stars), which had been specially commissioned to be big enough that the British could not fail to see it from a distance. The shelling stopped suddenly in the middle of the night of the 13th; the darkness prevented them from learning which side had won the battle. As the sun began to rise and the smoke cleared, Francis and his friends caught a glimpse of a flag, but in the mist could not determine which flag was still flying. Finally,
the magnificant flag was recognizable as American. In his excitement, Francis started scribbling the words of a poem, which he called “The Defence of Fort McHenry.” On his way home he completed all four verses, which were printed as a handbill, which indicated the well-known tune to which the poem could be sung: John Stafford Smith’s “Anacreon in Heaven.” Although popular as a patriotic song, it was not until 1916 that President Woodrow Wilson ordered it to be played by military and naval services on patriotic occasions. It was officially adopted as the National Anthem of the United States by an act of Congress on March 3, 1931. An original copy written by Key was purchased by the Maryland Historical Society in 1953 for $26,400. The actual flag that Francis Scott Key and his friends saw that September morning is preserved in the Smithsonian Institution. P.S. This has become the official story of the song’s origin and was so proclaimed in 116 closely printed pages in 1914 by Oscar George Theodore Sonneck, music librarian at the Library of Congress. However, there is another story. In the 1940’s a manuscript music book was found in the California State Library, in which the tune of the Star Spangled Banner was found under the title, “The Royal Iniskillings.” The book was owned by William Brown, an officer in the 6th battalion of the Iniskillings Fusiliers from Mullaghdun in County Fermanagh, in the province of Ulster, in Ireland. The song was known as “the tune the Americans pinched for their national anthem.” The melody was traced to Iniskillings bandman, William M’Keag, who wrote it as a march for his 8th battalion. After a scandal, this 8th battalion was dismissed from the royal army and the members emigrated to Boston, taking their marching song with them. There the tune was converted into another song,, “Adams and Liberty,” to celebrate President John Adams’ defiance of France’s in The Pirate Wars of 1798-1800. It was first published in American Vocal Companion in 1798, 16 years before Francis Scott Key wrote new verses for it.
74 Summer 2009
THE MISSOURI FREEMASON