ROB MORRIS

Robert Morris, who is generally bracketed with Albert Pike as the most distinguished writer and craftsman American Masonry has produced, was born near Boston, Massachusetts, August 31, 1818. He was made a Mason in Mississippi, in 1846, and this was the beginning of a Masonic career almost without parallel in the history of the fraternity. Morris, of course, received all of the higher degrees in Masonry, but the most momentous thing he did as a craftsman was to establish the Order of the Eastern Star in 1850—the year he became a Kentuckian. In September, 1854, while living in southern Kentucky, Morris wrote his most celebrated poem, entitled The Level and the Square, which was first published in his magazine, The American Freemason, of Louisville, Kentucky. Rudyard Kipling lifted a line from it for his equally famous poem, The Mother Lodge. Although Morris revised his lines many times, the original version is far and away the finest. In 1858 he was elected Grand Master of the Grand Lodge of Kentucky; and two years later he removed his residence to La Grange, Kentucky, the little town with which his fame is intertwined. Morris wrote several well-known religious songs, Sweet Galilee, being the best of them. He was the author of many books upon Masonry, his Lights and Shadows of Freemasonry (Louisville, 1852), being the first work in Masonic belles-lettres. This was followed by his History of the Morgan Affair (New York, 1852); Life in the Triangle (1853); The Two Saints John (1854); Code of Masonic Law (Louisville, 1855), the pioneer work on Masonic jurisprudence; Masonic Book of American Adoptive Rights (1855); History of Freemasonry in Kentucky (Frankfort, 1859), his most important historical work; Synopsis of Masonic Laws (1859); Tales of Masonic Life (1860); Masonic Odes and Poems (New York, 1864); Biography of Eli Bruce (1867); Dictionary of Freemasonry (1872); Manual of the Queen of the South (1876); Knights Templar's Trumpet (1880); Freemasonry in the Holy Land (New York, 1882), an excellent work; The Poetry of Freemasonry (New York, 1884), upon the publication of which, the author was invited to New York City and crowned "The Poet Laureate of Freemasonry," December 17, 1884; and, Magnum Opus (1886). Morris was one of the foremost numismatics of his day and generation in America, his works on this science being The Twelve Caesars, and Numismatic Pilot. He was also the author of several works designed especially for the officers of a Masonic lodge; and he edited in thirty volumes The Universal Masonic Library, besides editing from time to time four Masonic magazines. Rob Morris, to give him the name by which he is best known, died at La Grange, Kentucky, July 31, 1888.

Bibliography. History of Kentucky, by R. H. Collins (Covington, Kentucky, 1882); Appletons' Cyclopaedia of American Biography (New York, 1888, v. iv).

THE LEVEL AND THE SQUARE

[From The American Freemason (Louisville, Kentucky, September 15, 1854)]