it the admission of one
whose maim or defect was not of such a nature as to prevent his learning
the art of Masonry. But I would respectfully suggest that a criticism of
this kind is based upon a mistaken view of the import of the words. The
sentence is not that the candidate must have no such maim or defect as
might, by possibility, prevent him from learning the art; though this is
the interpretation given by those who are in favor of admitting slightly
maimed candidates. It is, on the contrary, so worded as to give a
consequential meaning to the word "_that_." He must have no maim or defect
_that_ may render him incapable; that is, _because_, by having such maim
or defect, he would be rendered incapable of acquiring our art.

In the Ahiman Rezon published by Laurence Dermott in 1764, and adopted for
the government of the Grand Lodge of Ancient York Masons in England, and
many of the Provincial Grand and subordinate lodges of America, the
regulation is laid down that candidates must be "men of good report,
free-born, of mature age, not deformed nor dismembered at the time of
their making, and no woman or eunuch." It is true that at the present day
this book possesses no legal authority among the craft; but I quote it, to
show what was the interpretation given to the ancient law by a large
portion, perhaps a majority, of the English and American Masons in the
middle of the eighteenth century.

A similar interpretation seems at all times to have been given by the
Grand Lodges of the United States, with the exception of some, who, within
a few years past, have begun to adopt a more latitudinarian construction.

In Pennsylvania it was declared, in 1783, that candidates are not to be
"deformed or dismembered at the time of their making."

In South Carolina the book of Constitutions, first published in 1807,
requires that "every person desiring admission must be upright in body,
not deformed or dismembered at the time of making, but of hale and entire
limbs, as a man ought to be."

In the "Ahiman Rezon and Masonic Ritual," published by order of the Grand
Lodge of North Carolina and Tennessee, in the year 1805, candidates are
required to be "hale and sound, not deformed or dismembered at the time of
their making."[62]

Maryland, in 1826, sanctioned the Ahiman Rezon of Cole, which declares
the law in precisely the words of South Carolina, already quoted.

In 1823, the Grand Lodge of Missouri unanimously adopted a report,