Most Worshipful Grand Master Ridge, Most worshipful Past Grand Masters, Right Worshipful Grand Wardens, Worshipful Grand Lodge Officers, Worshipful Masters, Wardens, Brethren, and Ladies. My talk this evening is entitled Loyd’s Commentary on Masonic Landmarks. You might imagine that one of the more difficult tasks of a Grand Orator is to select subjects for his orations. To that end I have been talking to Masons and others about appropriate topics. Past Grand Master David Barron loaned me a couple of his favorite Masonic books to assistm me in my quest. The book “Masonic Trivia and Facts“ by Allen E. Roberts proved to be a gold mine of information. In the first chapter he talks about the Landmarks of Masonry. He states that “To be safe, they are what one’s Grand Lodge says they are! To be truthful, no one can honestly enumerate them!” He goes on to point out that Masonic scholar Albert Mackey “ claimed: ‘. . . the unwritten laws or customs of Masonry constitute its Landmarks . . . ‘” and that “. . .a Landmark is something that can’t be written.” However Albert Mackey lists 25 landmarks in his “Encyclopedia of Masonry.” Thirteen Grand Lodges have adopted this list, eight use them by custom, 20 have adopted none, including Utah, and 10 have developed their own. According to Brother Roberts, the great English historian Robert Freke Gold searched in vain for a list of Landmarks and concluded that “Nobody knows what they comprise or omit; they are of no earthly authority, because everything is a landmark when an opponent desires to silence you; but nothing is a landmark that stands in his own way.”

I purchased a copys of “Mackey’s Revised Encyclopedia of Freemasonry” a year or so ago and decided to look up Landmarks and see what it contains. First, its exlplanation covers four pages. It begins by tracing the history of the word Landmark thusly: “In ancient times it was the custom to mark the boundaries of lands by means of stone pillars, the removal of which, by malicious persons, would be the occasion of much confusion, men having no other guide than those pillars by which to distiguish the limits of their property. To remove them, therefore, was considered a heinous crime.” There also runs around in my head a snippet of ritual that I haven’t located but goes something like this: “Finally Brethren, keep sacred and inviolate the Landmarks of our order . . . “ So for the sake of tonight’s discussion, I am going to assume that you might be curious to learn what some consider to be these precious landmarks since ” . . .nobody know what they comprise or omit.”

Mackey’s 25 Landmarks are as follows:

1. The modes of recognition are, of all the Landmarks, the most legitimate. and unquestioned
2. The division of Symbolic Freemasonry into Three Degrees is a Landmark that has been better preserved than almost any other . . .
3. The Legend of the Third Degree is an importan Landmark,the integrity of which has been well preserved.
4. The government of the Fraternity by a presiding officer called a Grand Master, who is elected from the body of the craft, is a fourth Landmark of the order.
5. The prerogative of the Grand Master to preside over every assembly of the craft, wheresoever and whensoever held, is a fifth Landmark.
6. The prerogative of the Grand Master to grant Dispensations for conferring Degrees at irregular times is another and a very important Landmark.
7. The prerogative of the Grand Master to give Dispensations for opening and holding Lodges is another Landmark.
8. The prerogative of the Grand Master to make Freemasons at sight is a Landmark which is closely connected with the proceeding one.
9. The necessity for Masons to congregate in Lodges is another Landmark.
10. The government of the Craft, when so congregated in a Lodge, by a Master and two Wardens, is also a Landmark.
11. The necessity that every Lodge, when congregated, should be duly tiles, is an important Landmark of the Institution which is never neglected.
12. The right of every Freemason to be represented in all general meetings of the Craft, and to instruct his representatives, is a twelfth Landmark.
13. The right of every Freemason to appeal from the decision of his Brethren, in lodge convened, to the Grand Lodge or General Assembly of Freemasons, is a Landmark essential to the preservation of justice.
14. The right of every Freemason to visit and sit in every Regular lodge is an unquestionable Landmark of the Order.
15. It is a Landmark of the Order, that no visitor, unknown to the Brethren present, or to some one of them, as a Freemason, can enter a Lodge without first passing an examination according to ancinet usage.
16. No Lodge can interfere in the business of another Lodge, nor give Degrees to Brethren who are members of other Lodges.
17. It is a Landmark that every Freemason is amenable to the laws and regulations of the Masonic jurisdiction in which he resides, and this although he may not be a member of any Lodge.
18. Certain qualifications of candidates for initiation are derived from a Landmark of the Order. These qualifications are that he be a man – unmutilated, free born, and of mature age.
19. A belief in the existence of God as the Supreme Architect of the Universe, is one of the most important Landmarks of the Order.
20. Subsidirary to this belief in God, as a Landmark, is the belief in a resurrection to a future life.
21. It is a Landmark that a Book of the Law shall constitute an indispensible part of the furniture of every Lodge.
22. The equalilty of all Freemason is another Landmark of the Order.
23. The secrecy of the nstitution is another and most important Landmarki
24. The foundation of a Speculative Science upon an Operative Art, and the symbolic use and explanation of the terms of that art, for the purposes of religious or moral teaching, constitute another Landmark of the Order.
25. The last and crowning Landmark of all is, that these Landmarks can never be changed.

So there you have the list of Mackey’s ancient Masonic Landmarks. You might notice at least one with which the Most Worshipful Grand Lodge of Utah does not agree; number 14, the absolute right of visitation. Our Utah Code, TITLE III - REGULATIONS RELATIVE TO LODGES, CHAPTER IX VISITORS, states that A Master Mason in good standing may be extended the privilege to visit any Lodge in this Jurisdiction, subject to the right of any member thereof to object to his admission as a visitor. That difference of opinion may tell you why there is no universal set of Landmarks upon which all Grand Lodges can agree. I do beliver, however, that notwithstanding the fact that there is no general agreement on Masonic Landmarks, we are better served to be exposed to serious Masonic thinking on the subject than to be told that “Nobody knows what they comprise or omit; they are of no earthly authority, . . .” I hope that you will agree.