CHAP. III.

OF THE BACILLUS.

THE bacillus was a love-token entirely resembling the tessera hospitalis. It is thus described by Olaus Wormius: "Bacillus est quadratus trium pollicum longitudine; latitudine tertia parte pollicis; latera quatuor. characteribus insignita habens; expruno sylvestri, ut videtur, fabricatus.”*

in

A FIGURE of one he has given may be seen in the plate, F, f. He supposes the letters to be amatorial, and so written as to convey an intricate, or anagrammatic, manner the name of the lover, in a sentiment of attachment intelligible to all.

THE words on the tessera amatoria or bacillus, which he has described are:

Bynaffa vuet kierestæ mina aff

Thenkestol inde Landum.

"Nomen meum novit amicissima mea

Ex amoris hac tessera Landum."

* Monumenta Danicorum lib. xvii.

"Blest be the pledge, whose kind enchantment gives
To wounded love the food on which it lives!
Rich in this gift, though cruel ocean bear
The youth to exile from his faithful fair,

He in fond dreams hangs o'er her glowing cheek,
Still owns her present, and still hears her speak."

HAYLEY.

2 R

CONSTITUTIONS.

CHAPTER I.

Of those who would be Free and Accepted
Masons.

BEFORE we enter upon the duties of the operative Mason, in the various offices to which he may be called in the lodge, it is proper to give some account of what is absolutely requisite in all who aspire to partake of the sublime honours of those who are duly initiated into the mysteries, and instructed in the art of ancient masonry.

SECTION I.

Of God and Religion.

WHOEVER, from love of knowledge, interest, or curiosity, desires to be a mason, is to

know that, as his foundation and great corner stone, he is firmly to believe in the eternal God, and to pay that worship which is due to him, as the great architect and governor of the universe.

A mason must observe the moral law. And if he rightly understand the royal art, he will never be an atheist, or an irreligious libertine; and will never act against the great inward light of his own conscience.

He will likewise shun the errors of bigotry and superstition; making a due use of his own reason, according to that liberty wherewith a mason is made free: for though in ancient times, masons were charged to comply with the religious opinions and usages of the country or nation where they sojourned or worked, yet it is now thought most expedient that the brethren in general should only be charged to adhere to the essentials of religion, in which all men agree; leaving each brother to his own judgment as to particular forms. Whence being good men and true, of unsullied honour and unfailing honesty, the order becomes the centre of union, and the means of conciliating true friendship.*

* "Gude menne and true, hennynge eidher odher to be soche, doe always love the more as they he more gude." Ancient MS. Bodl.