W.S.Rockwell, of Georgia,[60] "that its constituent portions, its living stones, should be less perfect or less a type of their great original, than the immaculate material which formed the earthly dwelling place of the God of their adoration." If, then, as I presume it will be readily conceded, by all except those who erroneously suppose the institution to have been once wholly operative and afterwards wholly speculative, perfection is required in a candidate, not for the physical reason that he may be enabled to give the necessary signs of recognition, but because the defect would destroy the symbolism of that perfect stone which every Mason is supposed to represent in the spiritual temple, we thus arrive at a knowledge of the causes which moved the legislators of Masonry to enact the law, and we see at once, and without doubt, that the words _perfect youth_ are to be taken in an unqualified sense, as signifying one who has "his right limbs as a man ought to have."[61] It is, however, but fair to state that the remaining clause of the old charge, which asserts that the candidate must have no maim or defect that may render him incapable of learning the art, has been supposed to intend a modification of the word "perfect," and to permit 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, which declared that all were to be refused admission who were not "sound in mind and _all their members_," and she adopted a resolution asserting that "the Grand Lodge cannot grant a letter or dispensation to a subordinate lodge working under its jurisdiction, to initiate any person maimed, disabled, or wanting the qualifications establishing by ancient usage."[63] But it is unnecessary to multiply instances.

There never seems to have been any deviation from the principle that required absolute physical perfection, until, within a few years, the spirit of expediency[64] has induced some Grand Lodges to propose a modified construction of the law, and to admit those whose maims or deformities were not such as to prevent them from complying with the ceremonial of initiation.