A Short Masonic History. By Frederick Armitage. Audiobook

A short Masonic history by Frederick Armitage forward there is probably no topic of more elusive nature to discourse upon than that of the secret societies which were the ancestors of modern Freemasonry for the early ones are enshrouded in mystery and their records have to be dug up from various writers and pieced

Together like a mosaic while with later ones there has always been a striving to find an early original amongst their historians who frequently gave free reign to their fancy succeeding authors awed by the glamour of their topic have Gravely repeated in solemn tones the lighter fancies of their predecessors and thus the ultimate

Harvest has been one of Mixed Grain and corn flowers from such stories it is the duty of the present day writer to try to pick out the real from the fanciful and to tell the tale as it should be told whether the author has succeeded or not

Must be left to his readers to judge but here he desires to acknowledge the valuable Aid he has obtained from the trans actions of the quatu corona Lodge which is now well known as the Learned Society of Freemasonry and whose Endeavors it is hoped May in course of

Time throw light on many of the present obscure pages of the history of the craft and of other secret societies Fred Armitage PM July 1909 how do you find this book any thoughts about the book or the author any suggestion for improvement please take a moment to share your

Thoughts in a comment if you like it share it with your friends who might enjoy it as well subscribe to keep in touch visit complete audiobooks.com for more quality content I the origins of secret societies in those early days of which Virgil sings When arms and the prowess

Of manly exploits were considered far greater than all the acquirements of the mind it is not surprising surprising to find that whenever a man of Genius arose among the people he at once gathered around him a circle small but faithful of followers like-minded with himself such a gathering either became a

School in which the Master’s philosophy was taught such were the pythagoreans a sect wherein the Master’s religious ideas were expounded as instance the Jesuits a club where political ends were propagated such as the orange Society or a guild wherein the interests of a particular craft or

Trade were sought to be Advanced such as that of the operative masons in England workmen in trades at all times have found it necessary to follow and find their work in such places as they could and thus became Wanderers from town to town and City to City a stranger

Arriving at a place and professing to be a skilled Workman had to be scrutinized and to give proofs not only of his skill but also of his apprenticeship and proper entry into the trade or craft what was better than to turn the guild into a secret society with a system of

Signs and passwords which when duly given would be the Hallmark of the genuine member of a society to belong to which boken both experience and skill the history of civilization is permeated with such societies which have sprung up from time to time have lived their life

And died out till in later days another Society has risen and used the ashes of a former body to light its own fire of existence in this way it is probable that although such societies had different objects they frequently had similarities of ideas and similarities of ritual which were originated by if

Not lavishly copied from their predecessors one point of resemblance runs through all of them and that is the use of symbols or a picture language from which moral lessons were drawn and enshrined in a ritual of a more or less religious character which formed a fitting frame for the sanction of a

Solemn Oath by the members not improperly to divulge the sign and passwords to Outsiders the idea of symbols was doubtless drawn from the religion they professed the rights of the ancient Egyptians the Heathen worship of the Greeks and the ritual of the Christians teamed with pictorial and other illustrations of their

Truths the figures of the lamb and the eagle were familiar to all as symbols while the key the anchor and the ship form another class and each had their own moral lesson to convey in the same way the co of arms worn by knights in medieval days were all symbolic of The

Virtue supposed to be possessed by Those Who Bore them the characteristics of all secret societies from the earliest ages are twofold first an initiation ceremony for the candidate prior to which he had to give proofs of his character and adaptability to the fraternity and during which he swore an oath to keep

The secrets entrusted to him secondly in order to guard the true brother from the rash Intruder or the spous Coen or Cowen who tried to be a Workman without proper apprenticeship there were signs and passwords which could only be given by those who had been properly initiated it is a generally accepted

Opinion that when two bodies are found to have similar rules the one has been copied from the other unless both have a common ancestor in this way the historical continuity of modern secret societies from ancient ones has been preserved though there are not wanting those critics who say that the likeness

Admits of explanation by the general doctrine of psychical identity a high sounding phrase by which is meant that by a coincidence two minds may arrive at the same Truth at the same time by two independent trains of thought the explanation of two copyists from one original derived from the example of

School boys seems however the easier and more probable two the Persians among ancient races the worship of the sun was one of the most obvious and most most generally practiced of religious rights to the agricultural mind the question of the raising of seral crops both for human food and

Pasture for cattle was the Prime necessity of life and as both these primarily depended on the sun it was accordingly considered the most powerful of the forces of nature and as such a deity to be worshiped it had also to be propitiated for it could be a bane as

Well as a blessing as in the absence of water it created families and in the deserts it was the cause of those common eastern complaints sunstroke and athalia caused by the glare of light upon the head or eyes Sun worship was therefore almost universally practiced by Eastern Nations the Persians Assyrians and all

The tribes whose borders were adjacent to the Hebrew nations in Old Testament times over and over again the Israelites are recorded to have copied the habits of their neighbors indeed Solomon after the building of the temple practiced the old Heathen worship and no deity was better

Known to the people of Palestine than b who was the son God it was obvious that it Rose in the east at midday attained its Meridian in the South and at the close of day set in the West after that it was out of sight and what became of

It during that time the gods were supposed to take it in hand place it in a Golden Goblet and navigate it through an ocean on a Northerly course until it reached the East again next morning Aristotle while rejecting the theory of the ocean Voyage believed that the sun

Was conveyed somehow By Night across the northern regions and that Darkness was due to lofty mountains which screened off the sunbeams during the voyage it is not therefore surprising to find that the idea of the Daily Progress of the sun through the heavens was easily seized upon and taken up by the

Societies which within closed doors practiced their secret rights or Mysteries as they preferred to call them and transmitted to their successors portions of rich ritual in which this Daily Progress from North to East and from east to west was copied and the East made the post of Honor in their

Meetings the oldest of these societies was probably founded in that land of locked Secrets thibet where the sacred llamas if we are to credit modern exponents of their methods had a body of secret doctrines now known as esoteric or Hidden Mysteries which may or may not be correctly interpreted by the

Theosophists of today nearly adjoining their territory came the Persians whose religion was founded on the God of Light and fire fire worshippers is a familiar phrase and the high priest of the order was Zoro Aster who is represented in sculptured figures with a blazing sun round his head he certainly practiced

Within the recesses of caverns and labyrinths Mysteries the knowledge of which he is said to have obtained from Upper Egypt fire and light were only the children of the sun which was the deity they all looked up to for they always wor worshiped at their fire altars with

Their faces to the sun when a higher Cult of the priests arose and some knowledge was gained of chemistry what was more natural than for these priests to arrogate to themselves Supernatural powers and to practice the Arts and experiments of those who in later days were called

Alchemists magic was an earlier word for the same thing and accordingly the persan priests became Magi or magicians Persia’s power was at its height in the age of us who overcame the armies of Babylon in 538 BC and Persia’s hosts overan Egypt and Greece until under Darius they were defeated by the

Greeks on land at the Battle of Marathon in 490 BC and by sea at salamis in 480 BC it is probable that in this way Persia acquired a knowledge of some of the Egyptian magic Arts one name of great note in connection with the subject of secret societies is that of

The Greek scholar Pythagoras to to whom we shall refer later and who undoubtedly learned and practiced some of the Egyptian rights there is a story in some writers that whilst in Egypt he was carried away by the Persian king cises and in this way became acquainted at

Firsthand with the Magi from whom he learned some of their secrets the story however lacks confirmation and it is improbable that these secret Arts should have been taught to a foreigner the Persian Magi are supposed to be the originals of the wise men from the East who visited our Lord after his birth

Matt 2 one though some commentators prefer to think that these wise men from the East came from the country of the caldan these Persian philosophers are also supposed to be referred to in the Old Testament where it is stated that Solomon’s wisdom excelled that of all

The children of the East Country and all the wisdom of Egypt First Kings 43 there seems little doubt that in common with the Jews and all other Eastern Nations much much of the learning of these Magi was expended on the interpretation of Dreams the Eastern mind being filled with picturesque ideas

Which were repeated in their sleep and had to them varied and strange significance to be able to coin a new word which has been adopted in the vocabularies of the world bespeaks greatness in the man or in the country which gives it birth such an honor if it

Be one for the coining of a word which has not the most pleasantest Association is possessed by Persia to which country belonged the Society of the Assassins whose history is associated with the names of their antagonists the Knights Templars the Assassins derived their name either from the Oriental drug

Hashish an extract of opium with which the members of the society used to excite their imagination or from the name of their founder Hassen babal the muhammadans after the death of Muhammad in 632 ad split into two sections over the question of who was his legitimate successor as cff one body

Were called the tanit or Orthodox Muslims who were found in turkey and the other was a heterodox one known as the Shiites who were the members of the Muslims in Persia the Shiites later on split into two sections on a similar question that of the proper Imam or high

Priest and the members of the new Branch were called The isites Who contended that the Imam ship should go to Ismael the eldest son of Ali the deceased priest it is not surprising to find that the result of these divisions was that the new body of the Israelites developed

New ideas of their faith and departing from the strictness of the Quran formed a secret doctrine that all religions were the invention of man that good and evil were not fixed qualities and that expediency was to be sole test of what was right or wrong they therefore Allied

Themselves to the freeth thinkers of their country who were found in the Magi of Persia and they placed themselves under one of the Magi named Abdullah who professed to hate the Arabs and their religion and who is said to have formed a secret society of his own the isites

Afterwards went into Egypt where they succeeded in placing a descendant of Ismael on the throne and a lodge of the secret society was founded at Cairo while its members spread over Asia their objects being to establish their own cffs as head of the muhammadan religion and to replace what they regarded as the

Spous one at Baghdad it was at this time that Hassan babah journeyed to Egypt and became a zealous member of the isite lodge he afterwards went to alyut in Persia and there in 1090 he founded the order of the Assassins with himself as the master or skat Jebel which meant Master of the

Mountain the town of alyut being situated on a lofty Hill though in Europe he became popularly known as The Old Man of the Mountain there were seven degrees in the order the first being that of the master the second were or three grand priors third the initiated

Masters or deis fourth the companions or reiks fifth the devoted or fetes sixth the novices or leex and seventh the profane or common members for the initiated there was a ritual with seven precepts implicit obedience to the master secrecy and a direction that the interpretation of the Sacred

Book of the Quran was to be allegorical and not literal so that any meaning might be given to it which suited the purpose of the moment this secret interpretation was however only communicated to the initiated and the rest of the members had to wait till the meaning was given to them the fifth

Class or fed of e were the working members and were usually clothed in white garments with a Red Fez and girdle though when sent on any Duty they could disguise themselves in any costume they thought proper the fedie when required to work was stupified with hashish which

Caused him to dream fanciful visions and he was made to believe he was in the paradise of the prophet and that death if it came to him was the entrance to the most delicious afterlife the society was attacked by the Sultan of turkey but the fives carried out their missions of

Assassination when and wherever they were ordered the Assassins spread into Syria and Tripoli where they acquired much power and Hassen the master died in 1124 he left as his successor buor who afterwards came into touch with Baldwin 2 the Crusader king of Jerusalem through Hugh the pagans the grandm of the

Temples and they agreed to join forces against the sarasin the Assassins seem to have been freelances in their Warfare a caleff of Baghdad and a sultan of Cairo falling victims to their society the Templars however found themselves the stronger and the Assassins had to submit to a yearly

Tribute of 40,000 gold duck buets which the latter tried to have remitted by an offer made to them to Almer king of Jerusalem to become Christians the envoy who made the offer was however killed by the Templars as he returned when the Assassins again resumed their deadly work and in 1192

They murdered Conrad of Ty at the instigation it is said of Richard ker Deion the Assassins Levy tribute on the Christians of Tripoli and other places though they unsuccessfully demanded it of King Lewis of France when he passed through acre the assassins in Persia were defeated by the Mongols in

1256 and the Syrian Branch was exterminated in 1270 though traces of them are still said to exist in Persia three the Egyptians the worship of the Egyptians was a many-sided one and their deities were not only numerous but of many descriptions in this respect closely bordering on a

Pantheism which accounted many of of the living things of the universe as gods in this way many animals figured as deities such as the bull the ram the hawk the crocodile The Serpent and the cat Sun worship held also a foremost place that body being known under the names of AR

Aan and some others AR was the subject of worship at that city which afterwards took the Greek name of heliopoulos or city of the sun Seb was the god personifying the Earth who brought to the agriculturist her fruits in due season aided by the God happy the sacred River Nile whose overflowing irrigated

The lands of the farmers the Temple of the Sun or ar was a familiar feature of most of the towns of Egypt and the mysteries of sun worship occupied the army of priests who as Herodotus tells us in a word used a number of Ceremonies the rising and setting of the

Sun naturally formed an allegory of life with its periods of birth and death and one is not surprised to find growing up alongside the worship of the son that of the two well-known Egyptian gods Osiris and Isis Osiris was reputed to have been a king who ruled in the south of Egypt

Who had a wife named Isis and a jealous brother named set the latter by a stratagy drowned Osiris in the nle and the body was carried by the waters to the swamps of the Delta where it became deposited on the lower branches of an acacia tree which grew up and concealed

It Isis discovered by magical means where the body was and hid it in a secret place there it was found by set who cut it into 14 pieces which he scattered in different places but the devoted Isis discovered and buried them she then instructed her son Horus

Assisted by his followers to perform the proper burial ceremonies which had the effect of raising Osiris from the dead and establishing him as a God and King of the Hidden World the story is told in full by Plutarch in his work the iside E IDE and there are many Illusions to it

In Egyptian inscriptions it is matter of remark that in some secret societies of afterday the Egyptian Legends of the progress of the sun through the heavens of the murder of Osiris and the finding of his remains became embodied in the mysteries of such societies it is certain from the

Evidence of the relics of ancient Egypt from the pictures carved upon its tombs and from its Mortuary Chambers the pyramid that death was the main subject of the rights once every year the death of Osiris was commemorated and A procession was formed in which an ark or

Boat often figured on Egyptian tombs was born on the priest’s shoulders the ark was supposed to contain a dead body in memory of the boat which floating on the Nile bore the severed remains of Osiris down the river and told again the story of a daughter

Of the Pharaohs finding a human body in this case a dead one floating in an ark on the sacred River the temples of Egypt have one feature which distinguished them from those of any other Nation the erection of obelisks outside and numerous pillars within as witnessed those of Thieves and

Carac these obelisks and pillars also became the originals of similar features found within The Lodges of the later societies Herodotus in the division of his book called uty which deals with Egypt describes some of the ceremonies of the Egyptian priest PR s and also talks of the huge labyrinths which the

Priests showed him constructed on the shore of Lake moeris this large piece of water having been in part artificially made these labyrinths if we may believe the glowing accounts of French and other writers formed a temple for the magical and mystical ceremonies of the Egyptians the writes being accompanied by theatrical

Effects of lightning and thunder and by startling appearances of a blazing sun shining through the darkness Thomas Moore the poet has given a glowing account of some of these ceremonies in his Pros work the Epicurean published in 1839 which he accompanies by notes from many learned writers the work also contains

Illustrations of some of these scenes from the pencil of the artist jmw Turner R for the pythagoreans there is one man whose name is always associated with matters of scientific or Mystic lore in past ages and that is the Greek Pythagoras who lived between 580 and 500 BC born in the

Island of seas his mind inclined to Greek philosophy in which he became proficient Greece was at this time much influenced by Egyptian learning and it is not surprising to find that Pythagoras journeyed to Egypt to study the learning of that country at its Fountain Head the priests were the

Depositaries of learning and if we are to believe tradition Pythagoras was instructed in their Mysteries as as well as in their hieroglyphical writings the mind of man ever credulous and ready to imagine that The Marvelous is enshrouded in the unknown readily thought that the hieroglyphs which covered the temples

And ancient tombs of Egypt had dark secrets to unfold of Mystic rights and ceremonies and this was well enough while the secrets of those curious writings remained locked up modern research has however found the key to decipher them and while they are found to contain matters of history of the

Greatest interest and importance they do not reveal any of those Mysteries said to have been communicated to Pythagoras the story however goes one step further for our Travelers Journeys were said to be contemporaneous with the Persian invasion of Egypt under cises the son of that cus King of Persia who

Assisted in the return of the Jews from their babylonish captivity cises it is said took Pythagoras with him on his return to Persia where the hidden learning of the Magi of that country was revealed to him thus armed with the ancient lore of two kingdoms Pythagoras then aged 40

Returned first to his native land and then to the Greek colony of Crona on the Gulf of Tarentum in the south of Italy where he set up a school of thought of his own and an army of Scholars known as pythagoreans his researches took him foremost to the fields of astronomy and

He first taught that the planets moved in regular succession round the Sun a Doctrine which was derided for many years till Galileo proved it correct in the 16th century these movements he deemed to be such that musical sounds were evolved by them in their motion hence called The Music of the

Spheres directly flowing from Egyptian modes of thought the doctrine of the transmigration of the Soul became also one of the branches of his philosophy G lwis in his history of philosophy has summarized these teachings of Pythagoras and those of his followers in mathematics he was a discoverer and the glory of the

Well-known 47th Problem of uid as to the properties of the square of the hypotenuse of a right angled triangle is credited to him and not to euklid in three other points Pythagoras followed the Egyptians the first was in the inclusion of women among his disciples amongst whom he numbered his own wife

And 15 other ladies the second being abstinence from beans as food for reasons connected with ancient legends while the third was the use by Pythagoras of ciphers and symbols in order to preserve the Hermetic nature of his learning that the body of pythagoreans was an influential one is

Clear from the history of Italy where the pupils took part in political struggles against the Democratic party and eventually had to flee from persecution as to their Mysteries Herodotus tells us that the pythagoreans were worshippers of Orphus and bakus the latter name itself being a keynote to the Mysteries and the same historian

Adds that it was considered profane for one who was initiated in their mystery to be buried in wool and garments and a religious reason is given for this custom Herodotus also has a story of a former slave of Pythagoras who acquired riches and in order to carry on the

Doctrines he learned from his Master Built himself a subterraneous dwelling where he lived 3 years and practiced there the mysteries of the order Pythagoras is said to have clothed himself like an Egyptian priest and to have undergone the right of circumcision which was indispensable to initiation into the sacred mysteries of those days

He also paid his adoration to the Gods in the temples early in the morning and had a great reputation for sanctity those who joined his school were not allowed to speak in his presence till after 5 years of training and he is said to have taught them to

Communicate with one another by means of the symbolic writings he had learned when abroad he died about 500 BC and on his death was venerated as a God and his house was reverenced as a temple the the the elans it has always been the tendency for one nation to copy another in its

Modes of thought architecture and ceremonies and this rule obtained also in the relations of the Egyptians and the Greeks the mysterious rights of the former race in time became the Envy of their neighbors and were consciously or unconsciously copied accordingly we find that in the year 1350 BC the Greeks

Founded certain rights which continued for a space of no less than one ,800 years the ceremonies took place every 5 years in the month of September lasting 9 days and were accompanied by the greatest secrecy and an obligation not to divulge them while he who disobeyed was ostracized from the Society of his

Fellows and was subject to be put to death the festivals were held in honor of siries the goddess of corn and harvest and her daughter prer Pine the initiates were of both sexes and the rights were almost compul pulsory for the persons who refused to undergo the necessary ordeals were looked down upon

And deemed not to be worthy of the Delights of the world Beyond there were two degrees in the order the Lesser and the greater and the first had to be undergone as a Prelude to the second the Lesser Mysteries were practiced at Agri near the alysus and none but persons of

Unblemished character were admitted to them nor then till after purifications prayers and sacrifices and with ceremonial sprinkling of water upon them the initiate in the following year developed by partaking of the second degree into an inspector the ceremony began at night in a building called the mystical Temple

Where the initiates were received by a priest known as Hans who recited to them those Elementary principles of philosophy or morality which pointed out that clean bodies must be the receptacles of clean Minds The hierophant was assisted by three deacons and many other inferior officers certain admonitions were then

Read from inscriptions carved on stones after which a catechism was put to the initiates the mind of the novice was now in that pliable condition in which it was most susceptible of outward influences and here the magic Arts of the Egyptians stepped in and the effects of thunder lightning and earthquake were

In some manner imitated on subsequent days there were sacred processions sacrifices and games as the relations of these Mysteries to those from which they were copied and towards those of other Mysteries which in after years appear to have been copied from them it is significant to note that the officiating priest bore

The types of the Sun and Moon and that on the last day of the rights two Earth and pots were filled with wine one being placed in the East the other in the west the wine being afterwards spilled on the ground as a libation to the accompaniment of a mystical formula of

Words by a natural sequence of events V the Mysteries though originally founded at elus in Greece afterward found a home in Rome much further west and ultimately came to a close in the reign of the Roman Emperor theodosius the great in ad. 450 or thereabouts the example of Egypt was

Also followed in the rejection of beans as food the reason given being that beans were considered as impure by series six the temple Builders Freemasons have always taught that their art was derived from the Jews and that the Builders of the first temple were the original Masons apart from the traditions of the

Old charges of the operative Masons copied by Dr Anderson in that lengthy history of Freemasonry contained in his famous book of the Constitutions there is no historical basis for this story but it is of such interest to all students of the lore of secret societies that to make the subject plain it is

Necessary to give some historical account of this Temple and its Builders the story gets color from the Jewish tradition that King Solomon had the highest skill in magical arts and power over the invisible world and that tadmore in the wilderness had been built by his enchantments the temple was built by

King Solomon on the plateau of Mount Mariah to the east of the city of Jerusalem having been begun bc12 and completed bc5 being built on the top of a hill it was approached by many steps which LED first to a low wall enclosing the court of the Gentiles inside this was another wall

Containing the court of the Israelites where no Gentile might enter and within this court was the temple proper at the West nearest to Jerusalem was the holy of holies containing the ark while the next chamber was the Holy Place containing the golden Candlestick table an altar of incense without was the temple Court

Approached by the porch which faced east east on the Mount of Olives this enabled the worshippers to view from then the rising of the Sun and in this respect the temple was planned like the Roman basilicas and exactly the reverse to the arrangement of the Christian churches the entrances to which always

Faced the West the details of the building are given in I King 6 and 7even and also by Ezekiel in his vision of the temple which he had seen with his own eyes and the description of which is given in chapter 40 of his book the dimensions are given to

Cubits the popular measure of length in the East being equal to the length of an average man’s arm from the elbow to the middle fingertip or about 21 in according to this the extreme length of the temple was 108 ft the height 54 ft and the breadth 36 ft Josephus in his Antiquities

B7 c 3 also describes the building which he says was made of a limestone found near Jerusalem and which could be polished to appear like white marble the foundations described by Josephus were investigated by Sir Charles Warren for the Palestine exploration fund and his reports confirm the statements of

Josephus as to their great depth one of the most interesting features of the temple were the porches of which there appear to have been several in the different courts there was the porch of pillars the porch for the throne where Solomon might judge in eastern fashion

And the porch before the Temple of the house supposed to have been a tower this porch was adorned with two Hollow brass pillars made by hyam the architect which are fully described in the book of kings and by Josephus their height in both writers is

Given as 18 cubits or 33 ft though in two cron three 15 the height is given as 35 cubits or 63 ft which may include part of the steps referred to in two cron 9 four as the king’s Ascent by which he went up into the house of the

Lord authorities differ as to whether these pillars were separate from the building or supported the Ure though the better opinion is in favor of the former view one thing is perfectly clear about the design of the temple and that is that the plan of it was not an original

One for it was designed to be only a copy on a larger scale of the Tabernacle this want of originality in design was also reflected in its ornamentation for the king of Tire being appealed to by Solomon for assistance which was evidently lacking in Jerusalem at the time an artificer was sent from

Tire itself to supply those ideas which were needed at the headquarters of the building one can imagine ham the architect gazing at those plans which merely attempted to translate into the more lasting form of stone the temporary woodwork of the Tabernacle and wondering in what way it could be

Improved his thoughts would naturally turn to the temple which stood intire itself and which is thus described by Herodotus the Greek historian B2 C 44 and being desirous of obtaining certain information from whatever Source I could I sailed to Ty in Phoenicia having heard that there was a Temple dedicated to

Hercules and I saw it richly adorned with a great variety of offerings and in it were two pillars one fine gold the other emerald stone both shining exceedingly at night the temple was probably open to the air and the historian is picturing the Magnificent view of the pillars as they appeared by

Bright Moonlight hyam when summoned to Jerusalem might naturally have be thought himself of these magnificent pillars of the Tyrion Temple and designed two others of different shape and different materials but yet intended by him to be as noteworthy as those of his native city which being practically an island

Had always stood for Independence both in action and character it will probably be remarked that ratus viewed the temple at Ty in 443 BC or about 550 years after the temple at Jerusalem had been built but on this question he expressly tells us that the priests at Ty assured him

That their Temple had stood for 2,300 years and consequently it must have been in existence prior to King Solomon’s time whether the two pillars in King Ham’s Temple had any special religious significance or were merely architectural Necessities remains to be seen but it is worthy of attention that amongst the

Egyptians who were the earliest Builders of the world and from whom other peoples and probably also the tyrians derived their ideas pillars were held in great honor the Egyptian great god Osiris being known as the lord of the pillars one of the familiar scenes in Egyptian sculptures was the Great Festival of

Setting up the pillars in which the Kings took a prominent part it may well be that the pillars at the entrances of temples were borrowed from the ancient altars composed of a pillar of stone such as we read Jacob in the early Hebrew days erected at bethl and The

Druids used at Stonehenge for their sacrificial rights the Temple of Solomon had an army of workmen some thousands in number some of whom were employed to heue down timber in the forests of Lebanon when it was taken to the port of Ty carried in rafts to japa the modern

Jaffa and then by Road about 30 Mi to Jerusalem the stones are told were all worked and shaped at the quaries so that no sound of axe or chisel was heard during the building Masonic tradition asserts that these workmen were banded together in a secret society under the

Leadership of the overseers or as the Hebrew word in two cron 2 18 gives it the manim and that Solomon was The Grandmaster of the society Solomon’s Temple lasted for 400 years when it was destroyed by the Babylonians under Nebuchadnezzar when Babylon was in turn taken by the

Persians Ezra was allowed by Cyrus the king to return and build up the city of Jerusalem and zerubabel working with Ezra built the second temple this stood for over 500 years until the time of Herod BC 18 who seeing that it was much dilapidated resolved with a view to

Please his Jewish subjects to rebuild it this he did and that building was the temple which was standing in Jerusalem at the time of Christ in ad 70 Jerusalem was Again besieged by the Romans under Titus when herod’s Temple was burnt down by the soldiers contrary to the will of the commander

Who tried to save it from destruction some Masonic writers have wondered whether the selection of King Solomon’s Temple as the center of Freemasonry was in any way due to bacon who in his book the new Atlantis imagined an island called Ben Salem which had a society known as the house

Of Solomon to promote the Arts and Sciences under a master who was indebted to Solomon for his wisdom it is pointed out however by D Quincy that the supposition must be fallacious as bacon himself stood as the head of the antagonists of the school of Alchemists and cabalists who were supposed to be

The progenitors of Freemasonry seven the essin one of the most interesting of the secret societies and one which gave the keynote to many of its successors was a Jewish one which existed in Palestine in the time of Christ known as the essenes and which lasted nearly 300 years from about

200b C till 100 ad for its record we are indebted to three writers Josephus the Jewish historian who was an initiate for 3 years but did not complete his education amongst the sect and who has given the fullest account felo of Alexandria the Jewish philosopher and the Roman writer plyy the younger felo

Locates the body on the shores of the Dead Sea but Josephus tells us they had no one city and were scattered in various spots in Palestine they are treated as an extreme sect of the Pharisees who lived in communities under recognized heads professed a strict adherence to the laws

Of Moses and practiced the greatest austerities in life similar somewhat to John the Baptist without despising the married State they were celibates and adopted other people’s children when they found apt p they copied the stoics in their rejection of pleasures and in being despisers of wealth charity and virtue

Being their only riches they appear to have been a very early order of monks for they lived a life of devotion Rising Before Sunrise for prayers and talking of no worldly matters before that luminary appeared they were socialists in practice having all their goods in common administered by stewards

Appointed for the purpose the members thus avoiding riches on the one side and pover y on the other while they rejected the idea of slavery as being in conflict with the equality of all men in their order after morning prayers which were recited to a set formula they worked for

Several hours at their appointed tasks set by curators and then at a signal they met together bathed in cold water and put on white robes in the vestibule of the meeting house they then proceeded to the refectory where each was brought a loaf and a single plate of food the

Meal being preceded seated and followed by Grace said by a priest no strangers were allowed at this morning meal which took place at 11:00 consisting of bread salt and hup after its conclusion the white robes were again laid aside in the vestibule and work resumed till the

Evening while in like manner supper was served but at this latter meal strangers might be admitted everything was done According To Rule and in quietness no General conversation was allowed but if anyone wished to to speak he could do so in his turn and without interruption by others so that no man

Dared to speak unless he had something of importance or originality to discuss the needy were looked after and charity bestowed but in order to prevent any appearance of unfairness no man was allowed to give to his own relatives directly any claim of that kind being referred to the curators to deal with

They devoted their Leisure to studying The Works of the old Hebrew writers and were messengers of peace to all restraining their anger every man and treating his word as his bond and avoiding Oaths except those they took as part of the ritual of their society Josephus says he saw a great

Similarity between their views and those of the pythagoreans amongst the most prominent of the essen’s ideas being the belief in a resurrection after death a judgment day and the punishment of the wicked if anyone wished to become a member of the order he was a probationer

Living the same life with the others for a year and being given a small Spade a linen apron which was also used as a towel and a white garment for use at meal times there does not appear to have been any uniform habit used by the

Members but it is stated that they wore their clothes till they were in rags when new ones were provided by the curators and each man had only one change of rayment and one pair of shoes after the expiration of a year the Man became a novice and went through a

Kind of baptismal ceremony and again continued with the brethren for another 2 years if after this long trial he satisfied all the tests to the satisfaction of the Brethren he was elected a member of the society but before he was admitted to full rights in the order and allowed to join his

Brethren in their daily routine and meals he was obliged to take what Josephus describes as tremendous Oaths which have a great analogy to those of the secret societies of later days he swore first of all to observe piety towards his God then as to his fellow men he was to observe Justice towards

Them to do them no harm either by his own will or by the direction of others to hate the wicked and help the good he further swore to be a faithful citizen to show respect to those in authority and if placed in power never to abuse it

Or Endeavor to outshine his subjects in dress or finery and to keep his hands from theft and his lips from lying finally as to the order he swore to conceal nothing from his brethren never to divulge to others the secrets he received from them not to alter the

Constitutions of the order and to jealously preserve the books wherein the secrets were written their numbers do not appear to have exceeded 4,000 and as they made little appearance before the Jewish world no direct reference is found to them in the New Testament unless it be in the passages wherein

Swearing is prohibited math V 34 and James V12 and as to the worshipping of angels Colonel 2 18 which was a part of the religious ceremonies of this sect there was another Society of Jews in existence in Egypt in filo’s time known as the therapeuti who are often classed

With the essin though there is no evidence that they use the rights and ceremonies of the latter body in his work on the contemplative life felo tells us they lived in cells for speculative purposes and met for United prayer on the Sabbath day by some writers they are described as

Contemplative Essen and uist chose to claim them as Christians probably only because their manner of worship was different from that of the Egyptians amongst whom they dwelt eight the Roman Builders when a new city is founded we expect to find Engineers Architects and Builders flocking there by the score and

We are not surprised to hear that in the legendary days of ramulus the founder and first king of Rome many men became Builders when the second king Numa pompilus ascended the throne in BC 629 building had become well Advanced trades were established and workmen began to combine in their guilds one of these

Societies was said to be that of Masons though the Romans great idea was to construct their work of concrete instead of stone these guilds like those of other days favored apprentices and there was some form of initiating a new man into the craft with sound rules of

Conduct in life and regulations for the guild and its meetings though it cannot be said to deserve the title of a secret society in connection with this subject comes the story of the for crowned Martyrs or quatu coronna which has at all times been of deep interest to

Masons it goes back to the time of the Christian persecutions under the emperor Diocesan a. D300 it is said that there were five Christian Masons or sculptors in Rome who were ordered to do some work to Pagan statues which from religious Scruples they refused to carry out they

Were sentenced to death and became Martyrs and should have been honored as the five Crown Martyrs save for the fact that 2 years afterwards Diocesan still continuing his cruel career for Christian Soldiers became the object of his wrath for refusing to burn incense on the altar of the God esculapius these

Four also suffered the penalty of their Devotion to the faith and joined the noble Army Of Martyrs tradition asserts that the deaths both of the first five and the second four happened to take place on November 8th with a gap of a couple of years between for years later

In ad 304 Diocesan having resigned the Reigns of government sought Rest In A Country House at Salona in Dalmatia and the Christians had peace he was succeeded by a man of totally different character Constantine the Great who allowed the Christian religion equality with the Pagan creeds presided over the famous Church council

At NAA in 325 when the nyine Creed was propounded and ended by accepting Christianity under Bishop uus to come back to the martyrs we find that in ad 38 10 years after the death of the five Masons Pope melchiades being anxious to show the change in public sentiment which had taken place since

The time of Diocesan revived the memory of the martyrdom and appointed November 8 as the feast day of the four crowned Martyrs and this institution has continued in the Roman Catholic Church to the present day 500 years later in the year 848 a church was erected and dedicated to these Martyrs the remains

Of the nine being placed in them and travelers to Rome today can visit the Church of the quatro in kradi which stands on the site and is the successor of the original building erected in the 9th century coming to the 12th and 13th centuries we find a college of of

Italian Architects or Freemasons settled on the shores of Lake KO in Northern Italy who may have been the successors of the Roman art as they were of the Roman blood and who taught the kings of Lombardy how to build their churches if free reign is given to the

Fancy we can imagine them as The Guiding Spirit of European architecture and at last penetrating into England and becoming the tutors of the English stonemasons and their offspring the Freemasons but although such fancies have been discussed as actual facts we have no option but to repeat the story

And leave the KO Architects to bring their main influence to bear in their own neighborhood in Aubrey’s natural history of Wilshire and in Ash mol’s Antiquities of birkshire the story is expanded so that we are to believe that in the reign of Henry III the pope granted a bull to

These Freemasons to travel up and down Italy to build churches and further that these Masons were part of a secret society which had an oath of secrecy with certain signs and passwords the story winds up and it continues to this day which has been taken as proof positive that these Roman

Builders were the lineal ancestors of modern-day Freemasons nine the Knights Templars it has often been asserted that part of the degrees of Freemasonry were derived from the Ancient Order of the Knights Templars of Jerusalem though this appears to be only one of those vague speculations so often

Met with in writers who derive their fact from ideas only the story is an interesting one and we proceed to tell it in brief in the days of the First Crusade by Godfrey of bullan Duke of Lorraine and his brother the Duke of Flanders in 1099 Jerusalem was taken

From the sasin and Godfrey was made King though he contented himself with the title of defender of the Holy Seiler explaining that he did not care to wear a crown of gold where his savior had worn one of thorns 20 years after Wards a small body of nine Christian Knights

Desiring to preserve free access for the pilgrims to the Holy Land against the musulmans and robbers of the neighborhood banded themselves together into an association known as the Knights Templars or Brethren of the Temple of Solomon at Jerusalem there were two leaders Hugh de pagans and Jeffrey D St omr who

Professing poverty adopted as their Seal two knights riding on one horse and Matthew Paris the historian Gravely relates as a fact that one horse served two of them Baldwin Illinois king of Jerusalem found quarters for them in his Palace and the Abbot of the church and convent of the temple gave them a

Building in which to keep their weapons at first they lived only on arms which flowed in so freely that they speedily became very rich and disdained to mix with any but the upper classes of nobles huep pagans adopted the title of Master of the temple which has continued to the

Present day and in 1128 he came to England to stir up enthusiasm on behalf of his order here he established a branch with a prior of the temple at its head and it speedily grew into power and had several houses the chief of which was in Southampton row near hurn

Afterwards the order acquired the site of the temple near Fleet Street where they built their circular Church in Imitation of the Church of the Holy Seiler in Jerusalem and afterwards three similar round churches were built at Cambridge Northampton and Maple’s head in Essex he returned to Jerusalem with

300 English followers and in the same year 1128 he requested the Council of chaah to frame rules for the order which were drawn up and sanctioned by Pope huius 2 in 1146 Pope eugenius 2 ordered them to wear a red cross on their left breast and on their Banner which was of

Black and white stripes known as the bant and this word also became their battlecry meaning sitting firmly while the Templars were often called Red Cross Knights the order now assumed a definite form the head of it being known as The Grandmaster who was elected by the

Chapter of the knights and under him was a sential the branch associations were divided into provinces and ruled by a grand prior under whom were priors and lower still in the scale preceptors ecclesiastics were also admitted known as chaplain with serving Brethren some of whom acted as Squires

To the knights and there were also non-fighting members after this the sarasin made Headway in the holy land and in 1185 a second mission was dispatched by the Knights Templars to England when hercus the patriarch arrived in England and was received with open arms by Henry II who had just performed his Penance

For the death of Thomas ackett hercus took the opportunity to consecrate the Temple Church while he was here but he failed to get the pecuniary assistance he required and in 1187 Jerusalem was taken by saladan not withstanding the efforts of King Richard kurel liion in 1190 Jerusalem remained in the hands of the

Sarasin and the Templars retired from Jerusalem to Cyprus they still continued as a powerful and Wealthy body in France and England and we have records of their piety which was highly thought of for people talked of the devotion of Templars Who Rose at midnight to say

Their prayers and it was a deemed a great privilege to be allowed to be buried in their grounds a favor only to be acquired by large Gifts of money or lands their piety was illustrated by the strictness of the discipline which punished offenders against the rules by whippings performed in church on Sundays

Or by scourgings at the hands of the master in the cells and there was in the north wall of the Temple Church near where the organ now stands a penitential cell 4T 6 in Long by 2 6 in wide in this confined space those who had transgressed the rules were confined

Whose monotony was only relieved by being permitted to gaze at the altar in the church through a hole made in the wall of the cell there was a proper initiation ceremony among the Templars conducted by the master who after putting the initiate through a catechism made him kneel and then put into his

Hands a copy of the gospels with the Templars read cross upon it he had then to swear to obey the master to hold no property of his own to observe Chastity never to consent that any man should be spoiled of his Heritage to lay violent hands on no man except in selfdefense or

On the sarasin and not to reveal the secrets of the order the candidate then kissed the cross on the gospels and the master gave him a white mantle to wear placed a linen koif on his head and gave him a kiss on his mouth henceforth the Templar

Wore the girdle by day and night and allowed his beard to grow a custom borrow from the sarasin themselves the order lasted for nearly 200 years but the year 1307 saw the beginning of its downfall for then Philip the fair of France having got James deole the master

Of the order within his power imprisoned him and all the French Templars and in January 1308 the members met a similar fate in England in August 1308 the Pope Clement V issued a bull commanding all Christian Kings to assist him in inquiring into the order and for

2 years the inquiry went on charges were made against them of gross immorality and impiety which were attempted to be supported by evidence of renegade Templars who had their own ends to serve and by confessions extorted from the accused parties while upon the rack though it must not be forgotten that

Pope and Kings alike had a greedy ey upon the templar’s wealth it was asserted that the novices of the order were taught to despise the crucifix and trample it underfoot and that from their association with their natural foes the muhammadans they had learned from them to renounce the Trinity and to adopt a

System of natural religion opposed to Roman Catholicism the lessons they had learned from their enemies of the East were said to have been enshrouded as Mysteries communicated only to those who attained the highest of the degrees of their order and some of their wrongdoings were alleged to be in connection with an

Image kept in their temples the figure represented a human bust of large dimensions and ridiculous aspect covered with human IM Bond skin having a shiny appearance and with two carbuncles for eyes much controversy was aroused as to the origin of its alleged name bth d Quincy in his essay on rosac crucian and

Freemasons goes into the subject and concludes that the name was a compound affected by cutting off the two first letters of Muhammad and substituting Bap or Pap the first syllable of the Italian word Papa meaning the Pope The Secret of this name it is said was not disclosed by the members of the

Order even under the tortures of the rack probably for the good reason that there was nothing to reveal in fact nothing was too ridiculous to be made the subject of a charge against them they were supposed to worship a cat to raise devils and to murder babies

Needless to say the clergy of the day found them guilty and in Paris 113 members of the order were burned to death at the stake which only formed a Prelude to the slaying of James deole on March 18th 1313 who was roasted to death over charcoal fires the sight of his

Execution being one of the little islands of the S near Paris in England milder measures prevailed for after many examinations and rackings the Templars to save their lives confessed to the charges and received Absolution on the steps at the South door of St Paul’s Cathedral their property however was

Forfeited and to save appearance es was supposed to be given to the Knights hospitallers of St John but only a small fraction went to that body and the King and his advisers shared the rest the Temple Church and its precincts was sold by the order of the hospitallers of St

John in 1313 after which it became the residence in school of the lawyers the old order of the Knights Templars is said to be associated with modern Freemasonry by the fact that when The Grandmaster was killed Pierre diamont the next Templar in order with several Knights escaped to Scotland in the

Disguise of Masons where they were able to perpetuate the secrets of the order to which in time became added a ceremony in connection with the death of the grandm and they then called themselves Frank makens it was a favorite Theory with old writers that this was the origin of

Freemasonry itself but this is abundantly disproved now though it is a fact that in 1743 a new ceremony known as the right of strict observance was founded in Scotland and in it the death of the Grand Master of the Knights Templars and some of their Mysteries was

Adopted it is interesting to learn that the young Pretender who was in Scotland at the time was himself initiated into the right there is a modern order of Knights Templars which has derived its name if not its Ritual from the old Templars their meetings are called encampments and there are three

Principal officers known as the most eminent Grand Commander the general isimo and the captain General who wear robes and not an apron only X the vme we now come to a secret society of a different order to the preceding ones for this is of a political stamp and was

Designed in the Middle Ages as a secret police for the establishment of Law and Order the scene of their labors was the ancient duche of West philia which amongst the members was known as the red Earth either from the blood spilt in carrying out the decrees of the order or

From the color of the standard of West faia there were many many courts of the order the country being divided into districts for the purpose and the lord of the manner was the head of each there were two Circles of the order the outer or often bear Ding and the inner known

As heimish act or true Oak from its proceedings taking place in the open air under an oak tree the Outer Circle was not a secret society and met three times a year always on a Tuesday it seems to have been a kind of grand jury composed of householders who made presentations

Of of all crimes and Wrongs of which they had any knowledge which were to be punished by the Inner Circle the Inner Circle was composed of the wisenden or initiated and to become such the candidate being bareheaded and deprived of weapons underwent an examination similar to that of other secret

Societies he was compelled to state that he was Freeborn of German birth and not guilty of any crime against the principles of the order he then took an oath on the Bible to preserve the secrets of the order from all his relatives relatives from Every Creature

Upon which the sun Shone or rain fell and from every living thing between Earth and Heaven he further swore to disclose all offenders of whom he knew or heard and that he would not fail so to do for fear or favor for gold silver or precious

Stones he was then entrusted with a grip by which to test his fellow members and a password to make himself known to them the direful penalty of failure to comply with his oath was to be blindfolded thrown to the ground his tongue torn out

By the back of his neck and to be hanged seven times higher than other criminals the various branches of the order were presided over by a grand chapter the grandmas of which was either the emperor himself or his Deputy the stat holder of the duy who was at one

Time the Archbishop of cologne the accused persons do not always appear to have had the privilege of a trial but to have been condemned by the oath of members of the Inner Circle whose Duty was to carry out the sentence of death on the accused who was known as

Veram or outlawed the whisten in themselves if accused had the privilege of a trial before the Inner Circle which proceeded upon the lines of a trial in a criminal court of those days the vmri attained its highest powers in The 14th Century when it is stated to have

Numbered no less than 100,000 members its proceedings were depicted in the pages of fiction by Sir Walter Scott in his novel and of gerstein chapter 20 but he candidly confesses that he has colored the picture to suit his readers and indeed he has largely produced a copy of a court of the Spanish

Inquisition composed of judges in Black cowls sitting in an underground court with an altar in the center bearing a cord to bind the victim and a poyard to stab him 11 the rosac crucians there is no name more fascinating to the student of medieval days on the continent nor so elusive as

That of the secret society of the rosac crucians their Mysteries have either been so well-kept or were so unimportant as to bring about in the minds of many students the conviction that there were no Mysteries at all and that at best the society performed no better task than

Hoaxing the watchful and spying World which attempted to peep through the chinks of its doors Lord Linton set before himself the task of making a follower of the rosac crucians his central figure in his novel of zenoni but he has attempted no account of their rights or Mysteries and confined himself to the

Study of a recluse who dabbled in the magic Arts of the ancient Alchemy cabalism and astrology though the author makes one of the characters say that the rosac crucians were wiser than the Alchemists Lon imagines following the German writer Andrea of whom we shall speak presently that the order emanated

From the brains of the Arabians who at Damascus in 1378 taught to a Wandering German certain secrets which afterwards became those of the rosac crucians this German was named Christian Rosen CS who prolonged his life either by natural causes or by reason of this discovery of new drugs and elixir to the

Well-seasoned age of 106 if we are to believe the account of him told in a work known as the F fraternitas Rosen Cs on his return to Germany established a secret society consisting at first of four and afterwards of eight members who Liv together in a house known as The House

Of the Holy Ghost to these members under vows of secrecy and Fidelity he communicated the secrets of the order and their rules were to cure the sick gratuitously to meet together in the house at certain appointed periods each brother to appoint a successor to take his place on his death that the society

Was to be kept a profound secret for a hundred years and that their watch word should be the word Rosie cross which was later explained as the Cross of Christ sprinkled with his Rosy blood it is asserted that 120 years after the death of Rosen croy’s search was made in the

House and a seven-sided Vault discovered upon the door of which was inscribed in Latin I shall open after 120 years in the center of the Vault was an altar illuminated by a blazing sun with four figures upon it and under the altar was found the body of Rosen CS a chest which

Was also discovered contained some secret books of the order with mirrors Bells burning lamps and some mechanical musical instruments the name of paracelsus the subject of Browning’s poem has also been associated with this order paracelis was a name coined by Philip bombastus hoenheim a man filled with conceit and

Empty Pride to indicate that he was Far and Away Superior in medical skill to the celebrated Latin physician celsus who in ad 50 wrote an important Treatise the medicina Paras celus was born in 1493 at the Swiss Village of aidel near Zurich and was a relative of the hoenheim who

Became Grand prior of the Order of Malta the portrait of paracelsus a man with a sensuous heavy face was painted by Rubin and hangs in the picture gallery at Brussels paracelsus spent his time in traveling from country to Country in Pursuit Of The Mystic knowledge of astrology witchcraft magic and Alchemy

In which he is said to have been in initiated by his father though it is more probable that most of his learning came from the English writer Roger Bacon he traveled both on the continent and in the East including Egypt and tartter in both of which countries he is said to

Have been initiated into the mysteries of the Oriental magicians in 1529 we find him at Crotona in Austria where he founded an organization for the high sounding purpose of the moral Reformation of society at large and which apparently bore some resemblance to a Rel religious Brotherhood and a secret society he died

Not withstanding his much vaunted discovery of the elixir of Life at salsburg in 1541 and the chief results of his life were the introduction of mercury and lodam as drugs and the coining of the word bombast as meaning great boasting on shallow foundations if he actually belonged to

The rosac crucians he must have been a visitor of many lodges by reason of his travels and he was the type of man who would be amusing as as a visitor but most annoying as a constant companion the name of Rosen CS came prominently before the Learned men of

Europe again in 1614 when in the town of Cala was published by an anonymous German writer a work entitled The Universal and general Reformation of the whole world together with the history of the Brotherhood of the worthy order of the rosac crucians possibly if it had not been for

This work the name of Rosen CS might have been unknown amongst us today the author of it is now supposed to have been Andrea a professor of theology who had caught the spirit of the earlier teachings of paracelis and Rosen CS the work known from part of the Latin title

As the F fraternitas was translated into English and published here shortly after 1614 by darar Robert flood an English medical man and an Enthusiast in mysticism who combined with the use of drugs the practice of a system of Faith healing which he professed to have derived from the doctrines of the rosac

Crucians Andrea did undoubtedly write another German work published in 1616 called the chemical nuptials of Christian Rosen which is imbued with chemical and astrological fancies it is only on the acknowledged authorship of this work that the f fraternitas is traced to Andrea and it is only on this later work that the

Existence of the rosar crucian society or brothers of the rosie cross is founded the book after giving the details of the finding of the body of Rosen CS professes to declare the principles of the order the members are stated to have been of the Protestant Faith they honored their king and

Country and dealing with the important question of the transmutation of Base medals into gold the writer declares that this was not done for the mere purpose of acquiring wealth but for the study of chemistry and the Mystic Arts of alchemy One Declaration of the rosac crucians is stated to have been that our

House of the Holy Ghost though a 100,000 men should have looked upon it is yet destined to remain untouched imperturbable out of sight and unrevealed to the whole Godless world forever Andrea also published another work in Latin the confession of the Brotherhood of the rosie cross to the

Learned of Europe in which he stated that the order had different degrees that its members included both rich and poor from Princess downwards so long as their motives were pure and their objects worthy of the order that it had a language of its own and that though it

Possessed vast stores of silver and gold it counted itself Rich only in its wealth of learning and its philosophy it appears that Curiosity was much aroused in Germany over the rosac crucians and as they could not be met with openly letters were sent to them which were never answered no Lodge

Answering to the pretensions of Rosicrucianism was ever found in Germany and we feel compelled to come to the same conclusion as libbets many years afterwards who writing to a friend said it appears to me that all that has been said of the brothers of the rosie cross is a pure invention of some

Ingenious person it has also been pointed out as a straw which might show the way the wind raised by Andrea might blow that the armorial bearings of Andrea’s family were St andrewk cross with four roses and that with these emblems constantly before him it was a short step for him to imagine the

Existence of a society bearing those marks as its badge flood the translator of Andrea’s works as we might suppose for a man so wedded to his studies remained a bachelor and died in 1637 aged 63 and is buried in the Church of barstead near maidon a topic such as the search for

The Elixir vti the main object of the rosac crucians would lend a charm to any romance and Gera aptly introduced it into the pages of his Immortal play of fa Having learned the details from the writings which paracelsus left behind him in part one scene two fa a doctor of

Philosophy Juris Prudence medicine and Alchemy discloses the secret method of the rosac crucians to obtain the celebrated Elixir the whole passage being a poetical description of an experiment in which the chemicals are treated as being masculine and feminine my fathers was a somber brooding brain which through the holy spheres of nature

Groped and wandered and honestly in his own fashion pondered with labor Whimsical and pain who in his Dusky Workshop bending with proved adepts in company made from his recipes unending opposing substances agree there was a lion red a woer daring within the Lily’s tepid bath espoused and both tormented then by Flame

Unsparing by turns in either Bridal chamber housed it then appeared with color Splendid the young Queen in her Crystal shell this was the medicine the patience wo soon ended and nun demanded who got well the explanation of this passage is that the red chemical known as sulfate of mercury was pictured as a

Red lion wooing a white lily which was a preparation of antimony known as The Lily of paracelsus these were placed in a tepid bath of water after which they were put in double retor courts and tormented By Flame unsparing the result was a chemical compound pictured as the young queen of

A ruby or purple color which taken as a medicine would either speedily kill or cure the patient such an experiment to Modern Eyes would excite no wonder but in the days of the rosac crucians a professor armed with such chemicals and apparatus would speedily acquire the

Reputation of a worker of magic who was Allied with mystical spirits and and occult influences and when several such chemists work together they would easily be taken for a secret society who practiced Black Arts and incantations it is suggested that if a poisonous substance were evolved as the

Result of such experiments the subtle Mind Of The Alchemist by a complete reversal of reasoning might be able to call that an elixir of Life which was really only an elixir of death leading to the life beyond D Quincy the essayist became interested in the order as one

May well imagine in a writer who dreamed the mystical dreams of an opium eater and in the London magazine for January 1824 he wrote a paper entitled an historical critical inquiry into the origin of the rosac crucians and the Freemasons the Quincy was well-versed both in Latin and German and had been at

Much trouble to study the works of Andrea flood and other writers though the present stores of knowledge as to Freemasonry which modern research has brought to light might have modified some of his historical conclusions as to the Freemasons he goes back to the mysteries of the Persians the Egyptians and the

Arabs and finding no trace of Freemasonry in them asserts in general then I affirm as a fact established upon historical research that before the beginning of the 17th century No traces are to be met with of the rosac crucian or Masonic orders his final conclusions are summarized when he states that

Freemasonry is neither more nor less than Rosicrucianism as Modified by those who transplanted it to England 12 the wood cutters during the feudal times in France the working classes especially in the provinces found it necessary to ban themselves together in societies for Mutual defense and protection against the Barons who with their armed

Followers became a means of Oppression rather than of defense and support the wood cutters and charcoal burners of the forests in the Jura mountains were Pioneers in this direction and formed an order of French arinori or free charcoal burners which had a ritual of its own

And bound its members by an oath there is always a tendency to antie these guilds besides associating the names of Kings with them and accordingly Francis I of France has been dubbed as being a member of it in 1510 to come from a conjecture to actual

Fact we know that in 1748 a society known as Les fenders or with cutters was in full activity and held a meeting in Paris though by a fiction that city was supposed to be a place in the center of the king’s forests the society was said to be

Founded for the protection of those who lived in the woods and who being likely to meet dangerous characters there could only be effectually helped by the combined force of the members The Lodges were called chantiers or Woodards and were held in the open Woods in summer

And at other times in a room adorned with branches and leaves or painted Woodland scenery charity and the duty of hospitality was its keynote founded on the Beatitudes in Matthew 25 as translated from their French version I was naked and ye clothed me thirsty and

Ye gave me to drink hungry and ye gave me to eat in prison and ye visited me ill and ye suckered me cold and ye warmed me Afflicted and ye consoled me the master or per Matra sat in the East while while before him lay a log of Oak

And a hatchet there were also a book of the Constitutions of the order a cup of stone a biscuit a parcel containing five half Pence a pair of white gloves a yellow ribbon representing a dead leaf and a little gilded Hatchet while behind the master was a holly bush for Huts

Formed part of the property of the chantier in each of which part of the ceremony was performed the candidate for initiation was supposed to be lost in a wood and demand Ed admittance he had water poured over him to cleanse and purify him and was presented with bread

And wine and to help him on his way was given a five Sue which at a later stage he put in a money box for the cause of Charity he was then made to repeat the oath I swear upon my honor upon the Bread and Wine of hospitality that I

Will never reveal the secrets of a wood cutter I promise to offer to my cousins in their neat Hospitality Bread soup shavings and half of my days wages when I shall have earned it may the axe of the wood cutter separate my head from my body if I ever perger myself shavings

Was only a pleasant way of referring to the white and red wine which was drunk during the meeting a song was sung to wind up the proceedings friends and comrades Brave Wood Choppers who the axe itself resemble is it for mere empty Pleasures that we Choppers here assemble let us

Love and drink our fill sing and chop with hearty will the Brethren of the lodge did not disdain to have their lady friends as members and copying the example of the great Kings and Lords addressed one another as cousins there were signs and passwords to enable them

To recognize fellow members if they met in the forests and these signs were all of a woodland character the body being deemed to resemble the trunk of the tree the arms being the branches the forked tree the 10 fingers and the Twisted tree the right leg bent the catechism goes

Through many of these similitudes and concludes as follows Q what have you found in the lodge a good cousins and fellow Wood Choppers zealous and work courageous and charitable Q if I have need of help what will you give me a I will share my days wages with you when I shall have

Obtained it with my bread of adversity we will burn together my sack of shavings and I will Lodge you in my cabin Q if anyone wishes to do me harm what will you do a I will defend you to the point of death this Association which had originally a trade origin

Gradually developed into a speculative society and its workingclass members were augmented by those of higher social standing the society existed till the early part of the 19th century but afterwards traces of it are lost 13 the Italian and Spanish societies the order of charcoal burners or Shaner which originated in France and

Of which the Wood Choppers or fenders were a development not unnaturally spread its branches across the Alps in the early days of the 19th century where the French workmen were joined by their Italian Brethren of the same trade in France the society had no political or religious aims but in Italy it partook

Of another character and became a society of violent partisans whose objects were the independence of Italy then oppressed by Austria and France and the reform of the church side by side with the practice of their ritual and under the cloak of secret meetings the carbonari conspired together for

Political purposes till in 1814 they caused such trouble in the province of Calabria that Ferdinand king of Naples forbade them to assemble anymore the dangers aroused by the plots of of the carbonari were met by the formation of a counter society called the calderari which was originally

Composed of a large number of people who had been excluded from the ranks of the carbonari and the calderari were favored by the ministry of Ferdinand and assisted to put down the others the watchwords of the carbonari were those which they had learned from the French populace in the days of the Revolution

Liberty equality of Rights and constitutional Administration the carbonari were succeeded in Italy by another political secret society known as Italy reunited which was in existence in 1852 and possessed three distinct orders with passwords signs and Insignia these were given to the members after they had passed an examination and

Taken an oath the penalty for Disobedience being death every member had the right to demand of the others protection and help and if he died poor the society looked after his children there are at the present day various secret societies in in Italy but as their objects are purely transitory and

Political we need make no further reference to them it is popularly supposed that there is an Italian secret society with signs and passwords known as the pfia but it is not quite clear whether it is a definite body or only a part of a widespread system under a name

Which had its origin in Sicily and spread to Italy and which is defined as the spirit of hostility to law and its ministers prevailing among a large portion of the population the mafia consider it dishonorable to have recourse to law for the redress of wrong and crime and prefer the system of

The Vendetta or what has in later days become known as the unwritten law the idea of a secret sign might well arise from such a simple everyday occurrence as a mother motioning to a child that she would punish him with a cane in case of Disobedience and a motion of the Hand by

One Italian to another to keep silence might similarly be interpreted as part of a pre-arranged code of science signs in his novel of loair Benjamin Disraeli who afterwards became Earl of beaconfield refers constantly to the Italian secret societies which existed at the time of garabaldi in

1867 of one of these the modre nura or natural mother he gives the following interesting account the Madre nura is the oldest the most powerful and the most occult of the secret societies of Italy its Mythic origin reaches the era of P ISM and it is not impossible that

It may have been founded by some of the despoiled professors of the ancient Faith As Time Advanced the Brotherhood assumed many outward forms according to the varying Spirit of the age sometimes they were Freemasons sometimes they were soldiers sometimes artists sometimes men of letters but whether their external representation

Were a lodge a commander a studio or an academy their inward purpose was ever the same and that was to cherish the memory and if possible to secure the restoration of the Roman Republic and to expel from the Aryan settlement of Romulus the Creeds and sovereignty of what they styled the Semitic

Invasion the author proceeds to relate a tradition that Cardinal dedachi afterwards Pope Leo I 10th was admitted to the fraternity and attempted strangely enough to preserve its principles after he occupied the papal chair Disraeli pictures the order as being one of act ity at a time when the

Conflict of the Italians against the temporal power of the Pope was in progress and explains that they guarded against the Corruptions and abuses of the religion of nature by the entire abolition of the Priestly order and on the principle that every man should be his own priest they believed they had

Found the necessary security a Spanish Society was copied from the carbonari with the name of the commun Rose and took its rise in 1820 it professed High aims and declared that the social and philanthropic bases of Freemasonry were not wide enough for its purposes ladies were admitted to its

Ranks which numbered as many as 40,000 the oath taken by all the members was a rigorous one and read thus I swear to put to death whoever shall be pointed out as a traitor by this society and if I am found wanting in carrying out this

Promise may my head fall under the axe my remains be consumed by fire and my ashes be thrown to the winds 14 the Illuminati there is in Bavaria on the banks of the danu about 50 mi from Munich the little town of inal which became known to Fame in the early days

Of the Jesuits for its Devotion to the Roman Catholic faith and the enthusiasm which it showed to that great missionary ignacius loyala the founder of the Jesuit Society here was a college of that order and loyala termed the town by way of endearment his little Ben Benjamin here too lived in

1776 one Adam W shaed who was a Jesuit and a professor of canon law in the college at length we shout found the collar of Jesuit discipline too tight for his neck and he in that year broke away from it and founded a secret society to which he gave the old

Christian name of the Illuminati or initiated his society which in ritual was probably much like the other secret orders declared itself in matters religious simply deistic and in matters political as tending to republicanism it was difficult however to break entirely away from the Jesuit habits which had molded the life of the

Founder why shouted and we find that a system of confession was preached by its members who also formed themselves into a secret police force to spy into the habits and mode of life of the other members Guided by a man who had broken away from his old traditions it is no

Matter of surprise to find that there was another cleavage for in 1785 we Shout quarreled with the influential Noble Baron von Nick and was banished the kingdom of Bavaria which brought of itself a speedy end to the Society of the Illuminati 15 Freemasonry the operative

Masons no Society has at any time so far as can be found attained the worldwide character that distinguishes Freemasonry which has appropriated to itself the title of the craft this word at once gives us the idea of an association of men working in a trade who had special

Methods of carrying out their work and used their utmost skill and craft to perform it and in truth the society did not bely its name when it was originally founded for it was undoubtedly an association of those operative stonemasons who when the cathedrals of Europe and particularly of England were

Being built carried out the higher branches of the work and made those lovely traceries in Windows arches and moldings which are the glory of our Gothic Cathedrals their axes as shown in illustrations of the period were boat-shaped flat at one end and pointed at the other and with these tools they

In Norman days carve those zigzag ornaments which we see over the doorways at Durham Cathedral and walam Abbey and which are now known as ax work the same kind of tool is now used by Freemasons at their meetings and called a gavl The Architects of those days were the

Abbotts and monks who copied their plans from those of other similar buildings and gave them to the Masons to carry out the latter being skilled workmen and possibly of some education were necessarily above the Surfs or bondmen and the Masons were proud to call themselves free the work of building

Would go on for some considerable time but like all other mundane things it saw its end at last and the Masons moved away from one job to find another sphere of work at another Cathedral or Abbey the the first question would be that of lodgings and what was more natural than

For the Masons to erect near the intended building a lodge where they could reside together as a community while their work lasted during this time they would be brought into close contact every day with the bishop or the Abbot as the case might be and with the

Cannons of the cathedral or monks of the Abbey who had prepared the plans and who would superintend the work either as advising Architects or in the capacity known nowadays as Clerk of the works to accept accept or reject the material to be used on the building in this way the

Mason had a touch of the ecclesiastic about him as the churchmen acquired in part the character of a Mason and each took an interest in the Affairs of the other one body of monks who interested themselves in the doings of Masons were the CIS who were most prominent in

Scotland where they had monasteries at EST Andrews dun Kel and Leven they resided in separate monasteries each governed by an Abbot who owed no allegiance to any other head of the order and the members were tied down by monastic rules like the benedictines and Sans they had members also in Ireland

And in parts of England and Wales but the body which established itself at York is the one which most concerns Us in connection with our present subject it certainly interested itself a great deal with the Masons who from time to time were engaged in building the

Minster at York of which they were in charge in the days of King aelan that King in 9 36 was a worshipper at York and gave the kid or monks certain grants of land as Thanksgiving offerings for his successes in battle the CES were at York for several hundred

Years certainly up to the year 1200 and there were building operations going on there from time to time the church which athlan was acquainted with was burnt down in 1069 when a new one was built which itself was enlarged in 1154 and entirely reconstructed in 1230 the cues had every opportunity of

Enlarging their minds for in addition to their acquaintance with the working Masons their doors were always wide open for the reception of all Wanderers and travelers amongst whom would be numbered the jester and singer who like their followers in these days went from one Baron’s Castle to another to amuse the

Guests at dinners and festivals The Peddler Who Sold goods from the pack he carried on his back the Workman searching for a job the mendicant frier and parner and the pilgrim who went from holy place to Holy place to worship at shrines and to view

The relics of saints it is said that the CES had mysteries of their own of a masonic type which they had derived from Egyptian sources and had dignified those Eastern myths by blending them with the doctrines of Christianity it seems more probable that from close contact with the Masons the

Monks learned the use of the tools and treating them as symbols of higher things taught the Masons to look upon their everyday implements as God guides to Faith and gave a spiritual meaning to the axe and the Chisel which might mold lives as well as Stone also to the

Square encompasses which gave precision and certainty to work which would otherwise be executed roughly by the unguided hand Shakespeare voiced the idea when he said there’s a Divinity that shapes our ends Ru HW them how we will Hamlet Act V s.2 the last appearance of the cues in

Scottish history is in the beginning of the 14th century when they made a claim but unsuccessfully to take part in the election of a primate of Scotland the York CES are responsible probably for what is known as the Edwin Legend to which they gave a local setting in the

Ancient charges of the order to which we shall allude presently and which were undoubtedly written by monks there is the story which may or may not have had a foundation in history that that after the death of a Alban there were Wars in England which had the effect of

Destroying the good rule of masonry until the reign of King athlan Who Loved well Masons athlan was supposed to have a son called Edwin who it is stated loved Masons more than his father did Edwin obtained from his father a charter for the Masons to hold a yearly assembly the

First of which was at York where Edwin himself presided and made Masons so runs the story written by the monks for the glorification of the Masons but no Charter of apelan has been preserved and it is impossible to test the truth of this part of the story if

It is true it places the date of English Freemasonry in the year 930 or thereabouts for aalan Reign from 925 to 940 there is one difficulty in the story which has puzzled and probably will continue to puzzle the student for King aelan himself the grandson of King

Alfred had no son of at all and the question arises who was this Edwin with an anxious desire to make the English institution as old as possible many authors have admitted the mistake in the word son and throwing probability to the winds have said it was another Edwin who

Was king of North Umbria in 674 in truth aelan had a half brother named Edwin who was probably the person intended to be designated and an Old Charter signed by King aelan at Winchester his capital city has come to light which is witnessed by this Edwin who describes himself as Clinton a word

Signifying an important office in the state such as might fairly be filled by a kingk half brother the rest of the story as to the establishment of an assembly or chapter of masons in the interests of the trade was undoubtedly true either in the days of athlan or of

Following Kings of England in plantagenet days for there is ample evidence that such lodges or chapters were annually held to control the industry and its apprentices and to regulate wages the latter matter was a direct infringement of the statute of laborers passed in 1350 which fixed the

Wages of a master free stonemason at the moderate sum of 4 P per day and in connection with this it is interesting to note that in the ancient charge from which we have already quoted the author with a view to the monetary interest of Masons states that t Alban who also was

Said to love well Masons made their pay right good standing as the realm did for fi gave them twos 6D a week and 3D for their assistance and before that time through all this land a Mason took but a penny a day and his meat the good Street Alban

We may add was reputed to have also obtained for the Masons a charter which was afterwards destroyed these lodges or chapters of workmen at last became obnoxious in the eyes of employers of of Labor who had perfored to pay more dearly for their work and another Act of Edward iiii

Passed in 1360 prohibited all alliances of Masons and carpenters and congregations chapters ordinances and OES betwix them made or to be made a more notable act however was passed in 1425 three Henry V 6 cap one when the King was only 4 years old forbidding under penalty of f and imprisonment the

Holding of the annual congregations and confederacies made by masons in the general chapters and assemblies on the ground that by reason of them the good course and effects of the statutes of laborers was openly violated and broken in subversion of the law and to the great damage of all the

Commons it is said however that the Act was never enforced and that the chapters went on as before so powerful was the Masonic Rule and Lord chief justice kooch considered it as virtually repealed by an Act passed in 1563 5 Elizabeth cap for though this was afterwards formally done by an act of

Parliament passed in 1825 6 George IV cap 129 16 Freemasonry the ancient charges in order to give a tone of dignity and impressiveness to these chapters and a religious setting charges or moral discourses were drawn up for the operative Masons containing rules of conduct in life which were intended to

Be read to the members at each meeting and confirmed by a solemn oath on the Bible several of these charges have come to light and from the nature of their composition and the handwriting it seems clear that they were the production of the churchmen who fed the Mystic side of

The Mason’s art one of them is now in the library at Freemason Hall being known as the Grand Lodge Ms and was bought for2 £5 from the owner a lady about 50 years ago its date is December 25th 1583 in Queen Mary’s Reign and after the dissolution of the monasteries

When the monks had been disbanded and this particular charge does not therefore lend itself to the idea that it was written in an Abbey for the benefit of the Masons who were engaged in its building it is however almost a copy of others in existence and

There is no reason to doubt that the chain of the charges goes back at least to the time of William the Conqueror in 1066 in fact for some years the date of the grand law GS was quoted as 1183 the writer of it being very careless as to the clearness

Of his figures the earlier date given causing no surprise to anyone these charges are in three parts the first being an invocation to the Trinity the second a comprehensive history of builders in all ages and the third a series of moral precepts another charge known as the Dowling

Ms was published in the gentleman’s magazine for 1815 and as it is very similar to the other ancient charges we give it in full but modernizing the words and spelling the invocation the might of the father of the Kings with the wisdom of his glorious grace through the grace of the

Goodness of the Holy Ghost there being three persons in one godhead be with us at our beginning and give us Grace So to govern us here in this Mortal life living that we may come to his kingdom that never shall have ending amen the Masonic history good Brethren and fellows our purpose is

To tell you how and in what Manner this worthy science of masonry was begun and afterwards how it was favored by Worthy Kings and princes and by many other worshipful men and also to those that be willing we will declare the charge that belongeth to any true Mason to keep for

In good faith and ye have good heed thereto it is well worthy to be well-kept for a worthy craft and a curious science for there be Seven Liberal Sciences of the which seven it is one of them and the names of the seven Sciences be these first is grammar

And it teacheth man to speak truly and right truly and the second is rhetoric and teacheth a man to speak fair in subtle terms and the third is dialect and that teacheth a man for to discern or know truth from false and the fourth is arithmetic and that teacheth a man for

To reckon and to count all manner of numbers and the fifth is called geometry and that teacheth meat and measure of Earth and of all other things and which science is called masonry and the sixth science is called music and that teacheth a man of song

And voice of tongue and organ harp and trumpet and the seventh science is called astronomy and that teacheth a man the course of the sun moon and stars these be the Seven Liberal Sciences the which being all founded by one science that is to say geometry and this may a man prove that

The science of the work is founded by geometry for geometry teacheth a man meat and measure ponderation and weight of all manner of things on Earth for there is no man that worketh any science but he worketh by some meat or some measure nor no man that buyeth or sth

But he buyeth or sth by some measure or by some weight and all this is geometry and these merchants and all Craftsmen and all other of the seven sciences and in Especial the plowmen and tillers of all manner of grounds grains seeds Vines flowers and sellers of other

Fruits for neither grammar nor rhetoric astronomy nor none of all the other seven Sciences can no man find meat nor measure without geometry wherefore me think that the science of geometry is most Worthy and that fth all other how that these worthy Sciences were first begun I shall you

Tell before Noah’s flood there was a man called lamech as it is written in the Bible in the fourth chapter of Genesis and this lamech had two wives and the one was called a and the other called Zilla by his first wife Adali he got two sons and that one jabel and the

Other jubble and by that other wife Zilla he got a son and a daughter and these four children founded the beginning of all Sciences in the world and this elder son jabel found the science of geometry and he minded flocks of lambs and sheep in the field and

First rought house of stone and tree as it is noted in the chapter above said and his brother jubil founded the science of music songs of tongue harp and organ and the third brother tubil can founded smithcraft of gold silver copper Iron and Steel and the the daughter founded the craft of weaving

And these children knew well that God would take Vengeance for sin either by fire or by water wherefore they wrote their science that they had found in two pillars of stone that they might be found after Noah’s flood and that one stone was marble for that one would not

Burn with fire and that other Stone was called blood turns and would not drown in no water our intent is to tell you truly how and in what Manner these Stones were found that this science was written or the great herin was that Cub’s son the

Which Cub was shem’s son that was Noah’s son this Hermes afterward was called Hermes the father of wise men he found one of the pillars of stone and found the science written there and he taught it to other men and at the making of the Tower of Babylon there was masonry first

Made much of and the king of Babylon that height Nimrod was a Mason himself and loved well the science as it is said by masters of histories and when the city of Nineveh and other cities of the East should be made Nimrod the king of Babylon sent to three score Masons at

The rogation of the king of Nineveh his cousin and when he sent them forth he gave them a charge on this manner that they should be true each of them to other and that they should love truly together and that they should serve their lord truly for their pay so that

The master may have worship and all that belonged to him and other more charges he gave them and this was the first time that ever Mason had any charge of his science moreover when Abraham and Sarah his wife went into Egypt there he taught the seven Sciences to the

Egyptians and he had a worthy scholar named uid and he learned right well and was a master of all the seven Sciences liberal and in his days it befell that the Lord and the Estates of the realm had many sons and they had no competent livelihood to find with their children

Where they made much care and then the king of the land made a great councel and a parliament to will how they might find their children honestly as gentlemen and they could find no manner of good way and then they did cry through all the realm if there were any

Who could inform them that he should come to them and he should be so rewarded for his travail that he should hold him pleased after that this cry was made then came this worthy Clerk euklid and said to the king and to all his great Lords if ye will take me your

Children to govern and to teach them of the seven Sciences wherewith they may live honestly as gentlemen should under a condition that ye should grant me and them a commission that I may have power to rule them after the manner that the science ought to be ruled and that the

King and all his counsel granted to him alone and sealed their commission and then this worthy doctor took to him these Lord’s sons and taught them the science of geometry in practice for to work in Stones all manner of worthy work that belong belth to building churches temples castles towers and manners and

All other manner of buildings and he gave them a charge on this manner the first was that they should be true to the king and to the Lord that they own and that they should love well together and be true each one to other and that they should call each

Other his fellow or else brother and not his servant nor his Nave nor none other foul name and that truly they should deserve their pay of the Lord or of the master that they serve and that they should ordain the wisest of them to be Master of the work and neither for love

Nor great lineage nor riches nor for no favor to let another that hath little knowledge to be Master of the Lord’s work through which the Lord should be evil served and they ashamed and also that they should call their governor of the work master in the time that they

Work with him and other many more charges that are long to tell and to all these charges he made them to swear a great oath that men used in that time and ordained for them reasonable wages that they might live Honestly by and also that they should come and assemble

Every year once how they might work best to serve the Lord for his profit and to their own worship and to correct within themselves him that had trespassed against the science and thus was the science grounded there and that worthy ukl gave it the name of geometry and now it is called through

All this land Masonry so then long after when the children of Israel were coming into the land of promise that is now called Among Us the country of Jerusalem King David began the temple that they called templum Domin and it is named with us the Temple of

Jerusalem and the same King David loved Masons well and cherished them much and gave them good pay and he gave the charges and the manners as he had learned of Egypt given by uid and other charges more that ye shall hear afterward and after the decease of King David

Solomon that was David’s son finished the temple that his father began and sent after Masons into diverse countries and of diverse lands and gathered them together so that he had four score thousand workers of stone and were all named Masons and he chose out of them 3,000

That were ordained to be Masters and governors of his work and furthermore there was a king of another region that men called hyam and he loved well King Solomon and he gave him Timber to his work and he had a son called hurum and he was a master of geometry and was

Chief Master of all his Masons and was Master of all gravings and carvings and of all other manner of masonry that belonged to the temple and this is witnessed by the Bible in chapter 5 book of kings and this Solomon confirmed both the charges and the manners that his father had given to

Masons and thus was that that worthy science of masonry confirmed in the country of Jerusalem and in many other kingdoms curious Craftsmen walked about full wide into diverse countries some because of learning more craft and cunning and some to teach them that had but little knowledge and so it befell

That there was one curious Mason called mamus Gus that had been at the making of Solomon’s Temple and he came into France and there he taught the science of masonry to Men of France and there was one of the Regal line of France called Charles Martell and he was a man that

Loved well such a science and Drew to him this mamus Gus that is above said and learned of him the science and took upon him the charges and manners and afterwards by the grace of God he was elected to be king of France and when he

Was in his estate he took Masons and did help to make men Masons that were none and set them to work and gave them both the charges and the manners and good pay as he had learned of other Masons and confirmed formed them a charter from year to year to hold their assembly

Where they would and cherish them right much and thus came the science into France England in all this season stood void as for any charge of masonry unto St Alban’s time and in his days the king of England that was a pagan he did wall the town about that is called St albin’s

And St Alban was a worthy Knight and Steward with the king of his household and had governance of the realm and also of the making of the town walls and loved well Masons and cherished them much and he made their pay right good standing as the realm did for he gave

Them twos 6D a week and 3 D to their assistance and before that time through all this land a Mason took but a penny a day and his meat till St Albin amended it and gave them a charter of the king his councel for to hold a general

Counsel and gave it the name of assembly and there at he was himself and helped to make Masons and gave them charges as ye shall hear afterward right soon after the decease of sa Alban there came diverse Wars into the realm of England of diverse Nations

So that the good rule of masonry was destroyed unto the time of King athan’s days that was a worthy King of England and brought this land into good rest and peace and builded many great works of abies and towers and other many divers buildings and loved well

Masons and he had a son called Edwin and he loved Masons much more than his father did and he was a great practicer in geometry and he drew him much to talk and to commune with Masons and to learn of them science and afterwards for love

That he had to Masons and to the science he was made Mason and he got of the king his father a charter and commission to hold every year once an assembly where that ever they would within the realm of England and to correct within themselves defaults and trespasses that were done

Within the science and he held himself an assembly at York and there he made Masons and gave them charges and taught them the manners and commanded that rule to be kept Forever After and took then the charter and the commission to keep and made ordinance that it should be

Renewed from King to King and when the assembly was gathered he made a cry that all old Masons and young that had any writings or understanding o the charges and the manners that were made before in this land or in any other that they should show them forth and when it was

Proved there was found some in French and some in Greek and some in English and some in other languages and the intent of them was found to be all one and he did make a book thereof and how the science was founded and he himself ba and commanded that it should be read

Or told when that any mason should be made for to give him his charge and from that day unto this time manners of Masons have been kept in that form as well as men might govern it and further more divers assemblies have been held and they ordained certain charges by the

Best advice of Masters and fellows here follows a direction in Latin that one of the seniors are to hold a Bible upon which the candidate is to place his hand and then the charges are to be read to him as follows the charges every man that is a Mason take

Right good heat to these charges if that any man find himself guilty in any of these charges that he amend himself against God and in principle ye that been to be charged take good heed that ye may keep these charges right well for it is great Peril for a man to forswear

Himself upon a book the first charge is that he or thou shall be true man to God and holy church and that he used neither error nor heresy by your understanding or discreet men or wise men’s teaching and also that he shall be true Le man to

The king of England without treason or any other falsehood and that they know no treason nor treachery but ye amended priv if ye may or else warn the king or his counsel and also ye shall be true each one to other that is to say to

Every Mason of do the science of masonry that have been Masons allowed ye shall do to them as ye would that they should do to you and also that ye keep truly all the councils of Lodge and chamber and all other councils that ought to be

Kept by way of Mason hood and also that no Mason shall be in Theft nor thievish for as far forth as he may think or know and also that ye shall be true to the Lord or master that ye serve and truly see his profit and his

Advantage and also ye shall call Masons your brethren or else your fellows and none other foul names and also ye shall not take your fellows wife in Vilan nor desire ungodly his servant nor put him to no disw worship and also that ye pay truly for your meat and drink where you

Go to board and also ye shall do no villiany in that place where you go to board whereby by the science might be slandered thereby these be the charges in general that belongeth to every true Mason to keep both Masters and fellows rehearsed will now other charges singular for Masters and

Fellows first that no master shall not take upon him no Lord’s work nor none other man’s work but that he know himself able and sufficient of cunning to perform and end the Lord’s work so that the science have no slander or no dis worship but that the Lord may be well served and

Truly and also that no master take no work but that he take it reasonable so that the Lord may be truly served with his own good and the master to live honestly and to pay his fellows truly their pay as the manner is and also that no master nor fellow shall not supplant

Other of their work that is to say if he have taken a work or else stand Master of the Lord’s work he shall not put him out but if he be unable of cunning for to end the work and also that no master nor no fellow take no Apprentice within

The term of s years and that The Apprentice be able of birth Freeborn and of Limbs whole as a man ought to be and also that no master nor fellow take no allowance to be made Mason without the ascent and the counsel of his fellows at

The least six or seven given years and he that shall be made Mason to be able in all manner of degrees that is to say Freeborn and of good Kindred come and true and no bondman and also that no Mason shall not take no Apprentice but if he have sufficient occupation for to

Occupy one two or three fellows at the least and also that no master nor fellow put no Lord’s work to task that was W to go to journey and also that every Master shall give pay to his fellows but as he may deserve so that ye be not deceived

By false workmen and also none of you slander another behind his back to make him to lose his good name or his worldly Goods and also that no fellow within the lodge or without Mis answer either ungodly or Repro without reasonable cause and also that every Mason shall reverence his

Elder and put him to worship and also that no Mason shall not be any common player at haard or at the dice nor at any other unlawful place whereby the science might be slandered and also that no Mason shall not use no leery nor be no bod whereby

The science might be slandered and also that no fellow go into the town at nighttime without that he have a fellow with him that he may bear him witness that he was in an honest place also that every master and fellow shall come to the assembly if it be within 50 Mi about

Him and if ye have trespassed against the science for to abide the award of Masters and fellows and to make them accorded if they may and if they may not Accord then to go to the common law and that also no master nor fellow make neither mold nor Square nor rule rule to

No layer inferior workmen nor set no layer within the lodge or without to Hue or mold stones and also that every Mason receive and cherish strange fellows when they come over the countries and set them at work and they will as the manner is that is to say if he have not molded

Stones in his place he shall refresh him with money into the next Lodge and also that every Mason shall truly serve the Lord for his pay and every Master truly make an end of his work be it task or Journey if ye have your covenants and

All that ye ought for to have these charges that we have now rehearsed to you and all other that belongeth to Masons ye shall keep so help you God and your holy D and buy this book unto your power amen thus was the operative Mason introduced into a society where

Speculative Mysteries were engrafted on his own trade and craft human nature will peep out even from a parchment for these charges were written in a clerkly hand hand on long narrow rolls of parchment which would be held by the reader and slowly Unwound as he proceeded with the reading if one looks

At the backs of some of these charges it will be seen that part of them are cleaner than others which goes to show that The Gentle art of skipping a book was not unknown in those days and that sometimes the master recited the preface and the ending and left out the middle

As being twoo prolix or too well known to need repetition the memory of these ancient charges is brought back when a c is made a Freeman of the city of London for in addition to the parchment record of his freedom he also receives a little book corresponding to the Masonic charges

Containing some rules for the conduct of life to which are added a few cautions for the use of such freemen of the city of London as take apprentices 17 Freemasonry the Masonic poem it would be strange in such a society as we have pictured if there did not arise someone

With a musical ear who was able to write an epic poem which could be easily learned and easily remembered containing the Traditions which had been handed down from time to time such a poet for the Masons appeared in the reign of Richard II about 1390 who wrote a quaint

Work known as the Masonic poem consisting of 800 lines which is now in the British Museum and cataloged as the regius MS the poem begins with a brief introduction relating to the foundation of masonry in Egypt by uid as already told in the ancient charges here begin the Constitutions of

The art of geometry according to uid who will both read and look he may find written an old book of great Lords and also ladies that had many children together I know and had no income to provide them with neither in town nor field nor would

A council together they did them take to ordain for these children children’s sake how they might best lead their life without great Trouble Care and strife they sent them then after great clerks to teach them their good works in that time through good geometry this honest craft of good

Masonry was ordained and made in this manner imitated of these clerks together at these Lord’s Prayers they imitated geometry and gave it the name of masonry for the most honest craft of all these Lords children there too did fall to have of him the craft of geometry the which he made full

Curiously this great Clerk’s name was called euklid his name it spread full wondrous wide and so each should teach the other and love together as sister and brother furthermore yet ordained he Master called so should he be but Masons should never one other call within the craft amongst them all

Neither subject nor servant my dear brother though he be not so perfect as another on this manner through goodwi of geometry began first the craft of masonry the clerk euklid on this wise it found this craft of geometry in Egypt’s land in Egypt he taught it full wide in

Di lands on every side many years afterwards I understand air that the craft came into this land this craft came into England as you may say in time of Good King athelstan’s day he made them both Hall and also Bower and high temples of great honor to disport him in

Both day and night and to worship His God with all his might this good Lord loved the craft full well and purposed to strengthen it every Dell part for divers defaults that in the craft he found he sent about unto the land after all the Masons of the craft

To come to him full even strafed angered for to amend these defaults all by good councel there follow 15 articles and 15 points of Good Conduct to Masons and the poem then goes on to deal with the interesting legend of the quator coronati or four crowned martyr

Which we referred to in a previous chapter the Masonic poem afterwards resumes the story of masonry going back to the building of the Tower of Babel and then comes the latter part which could only have been written by a monk or clergyman containing rules for good behavior at church in days when manners

Were not an essential part of a gentleman’s education look then come not to church late for to speak scandal in the gate then to the church when thou DST Fair have in thy mind Evermore to worship thy Lord God both day and night with all thy

Wit and all thy might this latter part is substantially repeated in a work now in the British museum entitled instructions for a parish priest by John myrc though the perversity of some antiquarians will have it that the Masonic poem is the copy and that the parish priest came earlier in date

Drawbacks serious indeed to the bill in trades were the wars of the Roses which lasted from 1455 to 1485 and more important still the disolution of the monasteries under Henry VII in 1549 and the subsequent destruction of many of them the ruined abies of England is a

Phrase which must bring a note of sadness to the minds of all who have any regard for the works of our ancestors and to the rise of the beautiful in art as exhibited in the walls and windows of those sacred buildings the abies of fountains and Revo in the

North croland Abbey in the Midlands and nley Abbey in the South are sufficient even if they were all to raise our enthusiasm for the old wonderwork masons in the Elder days of art Builders rought with greatest care each minute and hidden part for the gods see everywhere Longfellows

Builders one great virtue cannot be denied to the Masonic writers of a hundred years ago that of precision which admits of no doubt in their statements if we are to believe them masonry pursued an even and well chronicled course in all ages in England from the days of apelan and by a

Masterly but simple system of singling out the man who in each Reign had important buildings erected for him these writers make that man The Grandmaster of masonry for that period in fact there is a small basis of Truth to go upon for in the Reigns of Edward III and Richard

II one Henry ivil bore the official title of King’s Master Mason acting as a superintendent of building Works he had a successor in 1400 Who Bore only the title of King’s Chief Mason but neither of them can be dignified with the title of Grandmaster of a Mason Society the

Undaunted historian knows not of the existence of such men as iil and makes his own Heroes for his own domestic drama one writer in the encyclopedia Landini Enis published in 1816 sets out a most interesting list of these supposed Grand Masters and the important buildings erected in their days he

Starts his list with Leaf Earl of Coventry in the days of Edward the Confessor in 1041 when Westminster Abbey was rebuilt after the conquest the Tower of London needed Masons and the bishop of Rochester and the Earl of Shrewsbury are promoted to be joint patrons of the

Masons in the days of hen Henry the and Steven when a chapel was built at Westminster near the House of Commons the president of The Lodges was the Marquee of pemro by the time Henry II came to the throne The Lodges were supposed to be under the superintendence

Of the grandm of the Knights Templars who employed masons in 1155 to build the temple in Fleet Street masonry continued under this order till 1199 and in the days of John a new Grandmaster was found found in the person of Peter de Co Church who began to rebuild London

Bridge with stone Peter D rabus succeeded as Grandmaster and in 1272 when Westminster Abbey was finished Edward I appointed the Archbishop of York as head of the Masons in the following Reign the bishop of exiter was Grandmaster his appointment dates from 1307 and he superintended the building of exitor and

Oral colleges at Oxford and Clare Hall at Cambridge William of wam succeeded in the days of Richard iel building new college at Oxford and the college at Winchester the Earl of su came to the front as Grandmaster in the days of Henry IV when battle Abbey and the

Castle at fing hay were built as well as the Guild Hall in London on the accession of Henry V Chipley Archbishop of Canterbury was appointed under Whom The Lodges and Communications of the fraternity were said to be frequent masonry suffered its reverse in the early days of Henry V 6 by the ACT

Forbidding their chapters and congregations though we are assured the Act was never actually put in force and the Archbishop still continued to preside but in 1442 a new phase came over the craft when the King was himself admitted into masonry presiding over the lodges in person but nominating Wayne

Fleet Bishop of Winchester as Grand Master who built Magdalene College Oxford the statement that Henry V 6 was a supporter of the Masons is contained in two of the ancient charges known as the William Watson Ms and the Henry HMS the latter of which is dated 1675 and is in the inner Temple

Library it states that these charges have been seen and perused by our late Sovereign Lord King Henry V 6 and the Lords of his honorable Council and they have allowed them and said that they were right and good and reasonable to be Holden in the reign of Edward IV English

Masonry was continued under the headship of the bishop of Salsbury who was the chancellor of the order of the Garter and repaired Windsor Castle Henry iith presided as Grandmaster at a lodge held in his Palace in 1502 his reason for doing so being that he wished to

Build with its wonderful fan tracery his Chapel at the East End of Westminster Abbey in Henry 8’s days Cardinal woy was Grandmaster and he signalized his office by building Hampton Court and Christ Church Church College Oxford and he was succeeded in 1547 by the Duke of Somerset who built Somerset house in

Elizabeth’s days Sir Thomas Sackville held the premier position and the queen with the Curiosity of her sex hearing that Masons had Secrets which she desired to know sent an armed Force to The Lodge at York to find out what the Mysteries were The Grandmaster was by no means non-plus and took the sagacious

Course of initiating the chief officers sent by the queen into the craft and on their return they in some way persuaded the queen that the secrets were not worth knowing and that the body of Masons were loyal subjects who should be left in peace a similar story is told of

Maria Teresa the Empress of Austria who desired to find out the secrets of the lodge in Vienna but she like Elizabeth failed to achieve her object Sir Thomas gram was also in the line of masonic rulers and in the days of James I Inigo Jones the architect Rose to the post and

Was succeeded in 1618 by the Earl of pemro the days of Cromwell afford many speculations and Nikolai one of the writers on masonry expresses his views as follows after the death of Charles I in 1649 several people of rank United themselves with the Freemasons because under this mask they could assemble and

Determine on their future measures they found means to establish with within this Society a secret conclave which held meetings apart from the general meetings this conclave adopted secret signs expressive of its grief for its murdered master of its hope to Revenge him on his murderers and of its search

For the Lost word or logos the King’s son and its design to reestablish him on his father’s Throne as faithful adherence of the royal family whose head the queen Henrietta Maria had now become they called themselves sons of the the Widow in this way a secret connection was established amongst all persons

Attached to the royal family as well in Great Britain and Ireland as in France and the Netherlands which subsisted until the death of Cromwell and had the well-known issue for the Royal cause other ingenious speculators of old days had another and quite different Theory this time of a

Democratic nature for they made Oliver Cromwell himself the founder of Freemasonry in 1645 when he and his friends Iran Sydney Neville and others are supposed to have established an order of Freemasons apparently to reconcile the contending parties in politics and religion but really to safeguard the protector’s projects

18 the transition from operative to speculative Freemasonry the transition from the meetings of the operative to those of the speculative Freemasons is the last link of our subject which joins the present with the past and it affords views of great interest if we can but revive the faded colors of the picture

We can imagine the original operative Mason’s lodges consisting of rude unleaded Builders who came in their working aprons of leather and brought with them their working tools which they placed in front of them the master of the lodge may have been able to read and

If so he would give a short reading from the beginning an end of one of the ancient charges treasured within the lodge or if he could not read he would recite as much of it as he could remember after a time when education became more popular a superior class of men were

Found in such lodges and a short formal ritual was learned this brings us to the days of the stewards when the Trade union idea of the working Masons broke down and they began to realize that the lessons they sought to draw from their tools were Universal ones and worthy to

Be taught to The Limited circle of Outsiders who would appreciate the peculiar methods of the Masons so it was that from time time to time some of these strangers were brought in of whom the best known example is that of the Learned antiquary Elias ashol he was born in 1617 and at

21 years of age became a solicitor the law however had no attraction for him and he became a dabbler in mathematics astronomy astrology and Alchemy and wrote One work on chemistry and another on the history of the order of the Garter he also left behind him a most entertaining diary as

Also did his personal friends Peeps and Evelyn in this he notes under date October 16th 1646 when by the way the writer was only 29 years old I was made a Freemason at Warrington in Lancashire with Colonel Henry mainwaring of kenchan in chesher he lets in a sidelight on the story by

Informing us that the lodge began in the afternoon at 4.30 but the members doubtless allowed the daylight to fade away long before it dissolved it is a significant fact that it cannot be found that any of the surviving members of the body in 1646 were operative Masons so that the later phase

Of masonry was plainly visible then in this way ashm became one of the first speculative Freemasons who had nothing to do with the building trade and his name is held in high veneration among Freemasons from having been one of the Pioneers in exploring the new land discovered by the operative

Masons he was a fit man for the sub for in addition to his learned studies he was not only a clubbable man but one who cared for the welfare of his fellow men as was proved by his magnificent gift to Oxford of the well-known ashmolean Museum the genial peeps met

Ashol in October 1660 whom he says I found a very ingenious gentleman so ingenious that in May 1661 when they both met at a lord mayor’s banquet ashm made the credulous peeps believe that frogs and many insects do often fall from the sky ready formed peeps does not

Seem to have been informed that these frogs and insects must have started their career on the earth before being taken a loft by the wind or other natural causes ashm lived at Lambeth where John Evelyn went to see him on July 23rd 1678 which the latter notes as

Follows went to see Mr Elias Ash mol’s library in Curiosities at Lambeth he has diverse MSS but most of them astrological to which study he is addicted though I believe not very learned but very industrious as his history of the order of the Garter proves he showed me a toad included in

Amber the famous John traisen bequeathed his repository to this gentleman who has given them to the University of Oxford in his diary ashm has another note by which it appears that on March 10th 1680 By Invitation delivered only the day before he went to Mason’s Hall London

Where Sir W Wilson captain borwick and three other gentlemen were admitted into the fellowship of Freemasons Ash Mo notes with pride that he was the senior fellow amongst them as it was 34 years since he himself had been admitted a Freemason Hall was the master of the city company of the Masons the

Foundation of which company is not easy to discover though it is possible the date may be put as 12:20 in the reign of Henry III there is a firm place to rest upon in the time of Edward III in 1376 when the Mason’s company was officially stated by the corporation of

London to be entitled to return four members to the court of common Council in 1472 the company got its Grant of Arms from the Herald’s college and in the warrant it is described as the whole craft and fellowship of Masons though in the reign of Henry VII its title became

The simpler one of the company of of Freemasons eventually in the time of Oliver Cromwell in 1656 The company took its modern name of the worshipful company of Masons though its members always seem to have delighted to dub themselves Freemasons and this is a title found on several City tombstones relating to

Members of this company some inner meetings of the company were called except ions from which obviously comes the word accepted in relation to masonry and the members were divided intoon who were simply free and others who were free and accepted for the latter ceremony fees were charged amounting to

20 Shillings for a candidate already a member of the company and 40 Shillings for Outsiders the company obviously took the same lines as the rest of the city companies such as the Salters goldsmiths fishmongers and others who in the days of Charles II had broken down the enclosures which

Admitted members of their own craft or trade only and were glad to allow approved Outsiders to join in their assemblies the operative Masons copied this example of the city companies and though ashm was an early Stranger Within the gates he was followed in time by armies of others another Outsider who

Copied Ash mol’s example was an antiquary and genealogist named Randall Holm who was born in 1627 and in 1665 wrote out a copy of some Masonic constitutions which is now in the British museum where it is indexed as part of the harlean MSS annexed to this copy is a note by

Home as follows there are several words and signs of a Freemason to be revealed to you which as you will answer before God at the great day of judgment you keep secret and not to reveal the same to any in the years of any person but to

The Masters and fellows of the said Society of Freemasons in 1688 he wrote a book entitled The Academy of Armory and in its says I cannot but honor the Masons the more as being a member of that society called Freemasons Randall Holm had a father and grandfather of the same name as himself

But he was doubtless the Randall Holm whose name occurs as a member of a Mason’s Lodge held at Chester from 1665 to 1675 in addition to the Chester Lodge there was an operative Mason’s Lodge held at alwick in Northumberland while the York Lodge and its offshoot at Scarboro continued to exist as independ

Lodges after the creation of Grand Lodge in 1717 another well-known writer of those days was Dr Robert plot who was not a Freemason he wrote many Works amongst them the natural history of Wilshire to which we shall presently allude and another known as the natural history of Staffordshire in the latter work flying

Rather wide of his subject he discourses as if he were talking of birds and not men of the Freemasons of Staffordshire who he said say abounded most on the moorlands of the county though he admits that he found the custom spread more or less all over the nation and that

Persons of most eminent quality did not disdain to be of this Fellowship he also alludes to the ancient charges which were read in Mason’s lodges and talks of a large parchment volume they have amongst them containing the history and rules of The Craft of masonry the secret of the success of the

Society in Staffordshire might be guessed from the fact that log meetings were preceded instead of being followed by a dinner to which both the candidates and their wives were invited when the repast was finished the lodge was formed when not less than five or six members or ancients had to be present who

Communicated certain secret signs whereby they were known to each other and by which they had maintenance wherever they traveled plot adds in his own original way for If any man appear though altogether unknown that can show any of these signs to a fellow of the society whom they otherwise call an

Accepted Mason he is obliged presently to come to him from what company or place whoever he be in nay though from the top of a steeple what hazard or inconvenience whoever he run to know his pleasure and assist him VI if he want work he is bound to find him some or if

He cannot do that to give him money or otherwise support him till work can be had which is one of their articles the last step step for Freemasonry to take was to cut itself a drift altogether from the old operative Masons and to admit as its members the

Outside world who were not all operative but rather Free and Accepted or speculative Freemasons so that those who were formerly only members by courtesy occupied the chair of Master of a lodge by right there were at no time any great number of operative Masonic lodges in existence after the great Cathedrals had

All been finished but after the fire of London in 1666 when no building was in progress an army of Architects and Builders were assembled together in London chief of whom was Sir Christopher Ren he must have been the busiest architect of his day for in May 1681 Evelyn states that

Ren his Majesty’s architect and surveyor was building St Paul’s Cathedral the monument and 50 Parish churches from his official position as architect to the king Ren is of course made by the old writers and also by Anderson in the book of the Constitutions to occupy the position of

Grandmaster of the Masons of his day a mythical post though it is quite worthy of credence that Ren was a member of that Lodge founded in 1691 of the Masons engaged in rebuilding the cathedral which met at a Tavern in a te Paul’s churchyard and was probably that known

As the goose and GD iron which subsequently became for a Time lodge number one on Sunday December 5th 1697 the first service was held in the cathedral and the Dome was finished in 1710 Ren was 78 years old at that time and in 1723 he died at the mature age of

91 we cannot imagine that in 1717 Ren at his Advanced age would take any great interest in founding the New Order of things but we believe that it was owing to the men who had worked under his leadership and who found the number of their Brethren lessened when Ste

Pauls was completed that the establishment of masonry on a broad basis was due it is stated by Dr plot in his natural history of Wiltshire that on Monday May 18th 1691 was a great convention at Paul’s Church of the fraternity of adopted Masons where Sir Christopher Ren was to be adopted a

Brother it is impossible that any part of a Paul’s Cathedral could be used for the purposes of a Mason’s Lodge a especially as it was incomplete and it is fair to assume that the lodge was held in St Paul’s churchyard in any event it seems beyond

Question that Ren was made a mason in his later days though the statement that he was at one time Grandmaster is obviously fallacious one writer the Quincy declares with no show of authority that Ren was a member of the order of Knights Templars it is interesting to note that on March 25th

17723 there was an announcement in the post boy of the funeral of Sir C Ren in which he was described as that worthy Freemason one of the workmen who assisted Sir Christopher Ren in the building of EST Paul’s Cathedral probably a member of the same Lodge was

Edward strong whose death at new Barnett on February 8th 1724 was announced in Reed’s weekly journal in this journal it is stated that strong was one of the ancient Masons and Freemasons in England and formerly Mason of St Paul’s Cathedral the paper adds it is remarkable of that church that it was

Begun and finished under the direction of one and the same architect Sir Christopher Ren that one and the same Mason Mr strong mentioned above laid the first and last Stone and that it was begun and finished during the Sea of one and the same Bishop Dr Henry Compton as

Marking the influence of operative masonry on its Offspring The speculative Masons we may note four points in which the Masons of later days copied their predecessors the first was the white leather apron worn by the master of the lodge which reminded the members that work and not play was the keynote of the

Masters of earlier days in the same manner too that a Workman would not disdain to wear his apron when returning home from his labor it appears to have been usual for a worshipful master to return home in his apron and we find it stated that the Duke of warten in

1721 returned to his house in Paul Mall from his lodge in his white leather apron leather was the Orthodox material for all aprons of workmen in days past and Shakespeare describes it as the material for the aprons even of servants in ale houses which proves that leather

Aprons were the usual ones for workmen of all classes in his days Prince how might we see fall staff bestow himself tonight in his true colors and not ourselves be seen poins put on two leathern jerkens and aprons and wait upon him at his table as drawers Henry IV Act 11

S2 in the early days after 1717 when masonry began to be fashionable amongst the upper classes the wearing of the working apron of the operative Mason was objected to and we hear that as a subterfuge the fashion arose of wearing the apron upside down till it was found

That it was decidedly inconvenient to have the strings of the upper part dangling on the floor and and at some later period a new and smaller apron was devised writing in 1807 Thomas Payne also says in speaking of the apparel of the Masons in their lodges part of which

As we see in their public processions is a white leather apron in the second place we pay some attention to the form of what is known in general terms as the Hammer of the chairman of a meeting and the similar instrument used by an Auctioneer both of which were probably

Derived from the tool known as a travel used by the master of a lodge of operative Masons the most generally used form is navicular or boat-shaped flat at the Keel and Stern and with a sharp edge at the bows this very type of tool is figured

In Old drawings of Masons and by the use of it and without a chisel the old Norman Builders were able to carve out those zigzag moldings over doorways seen at walam Abbey and Durham and Peterboro Cathedrals which are now known as Axor the other form of gavel used in Mason’s

Lodges resembles a big hammer with a long claw to it and this type is also seen in some drawings on Old mizes representing medieval Builders a third point was that in order to keep up the associations of the operative Masons it was for some years after 1717 laid down as a cardinal point

That at least one of the members of a lodge must be an operative Mason by which was probably meant one associated with the building trade this is mentioned in a broadside called the pural signs of a Freemason published in 1730 and the first senior Warden of Grand Lodge was a

Carpenter the fourth point was the use of the word accepted which as we have have shown in the case of the Masons company referred to an outsider such as ashm being accepted as a member in a society of a different class to himself and to which he had no original right to

Belong 19 the Grand Lodge thus we pass by easy stages to the reign of George I and the year 1717 so well remembered by Freemasons these were the days of the golden age in English literature when the essayists Addison and steel were at their best and when the rhythmic lines

Of Pope rang in the years of those who had a soul for such forms of art Freemasonry was at a low E for only four lodges in all can be numbered at that time these are stated in the second edition of the book of the constitutions to have been those that met respectively

At the goose and grid iron Ale House in EST Paul’s churchyard the crown ail house in Parker Lane near Drury Lane The Apple Tree Tavern in Charles Street Covent Garden and the rummer and grapes Tavern in Channel row Westminster in the same edition of the book of the

Constitutions it is stated that after the rebellion was over in 1716 these four lodges in London thought fit to unite under a grandm at the center of Union of Harmony and meeting at the Apple Tree Tavern put into the chair the oldest Master Mason who was

Then the master of a lodge and formed themselves into a Grand Lodge in due form they revived the quarterly communication of the officers of lodges resolved to hold an annual assembly and feast and then to choose a Grandmaster from among themselves till they should have the honor of a noble brother at

Their head it appears that the meeting duly took place on June 24th 1717 at the goose and grid iron in a Paul’s churchyard when Anthony Seer a private gentleman was installed as the first Grandmaster and congratulated by the assembly who paid him the homage due to him The Grandmaster appointed Jacob

Lamal as his senior Grand Warden and it is important to observe that he is described as a carpenter in this manner satisfying the requirement of the lodge having at least one operative Mason amongst its members the word Mason was obvious ious ly interpreted to include all members of the building trade the

Junior Grand Warden was Captain Joseph Elliott who would represent the speculative as opposed to the operative Mason at first The Lodges were only known by the names of the taverns where they met but in 1728 they were given numbers in Pines engraved list of lodges published in 1729 when Lord Kingston was

Grandmaster is contained a list of regular lodges according to the seniority in Constitution which sets out the four oldest with their places and dates of meeting as follows one St Paul’s churchyard meeting on 1 and third Mondays in the month constituted 1,691 two against fival in in hurn

Meeting on 2 Wednesday of month constituted 1,712 three Westminster meeting on the 3D Friday for Ivy Lane meeting every other Thursday no date of constitution appears against either of the last two lodges future growth is not however to be judged by the diminutive size of the sapling but by the Life Energy contained

Within it this quality was present amongst three enthusiastic members of these four lodges whose names were Dr James Anderson Dr JT D sagers and Mr Payne who banned themselves together to make a living force of Freemasonry with a proper ritual written constitutions and a governing body the ritual which

Was quite short as compared with that of modern days would naturally be derived from the oldw written charges of the Masons and the oral Traditions they had handed down and it is believed that Mr Payne was part author of this it comprised only one degree answering in Essentials to our first and second

Degrees was formed in the shape of question and answer passing between the master of the lodge and his different officers and is to be found published in various newspapers and broadsides issued at the time as the ritual of those days is now quite Antiquated and no guide to

Present day methods it may be referred to here in 1730 was published a broadside with the title of pill signs and wonders of a Freemason and although this was written by an opponent of The Craft there is no reason to doubt its correctness one important note to it

Which is of great interest as showing the transition character of the growth of Freemasonry as a speculative system states that one at least of the members of a lodge must be a working Mason while another note points out that there were then two degrees in the ritual but that

The second or Master Mason’s part now known as the third degree was not ordinarily performed the writer says there is not one Mason who will be at the expense to pass the Master’s part except it be for interest and in fact this degree was only performed by the

Grand Lodge and was not learned by the heads of the private lodges this note if correct tends to show that the new degree of Master Mason was established by 1730 and this is confirmed by another work written in the same year by Samuel Pritchard called masonry dissected which contains the ritual of

The master Mason’s degree amongst the questions and answers are the following quaint specimens Q where was you made a in the valley of Jehosaphat behind a rush Bush where a dog was never found to bark nor a to Crow or elsewhere Q how was the master clothed a

In a yellow jacket and blue pair of britches the writer of the broadside in another note tries to reassure his astonished readers by telling them that the master is not otherwise clothed than common the question and answer are only emblematical and and another writer explains that a pair of compasses is

Referred to which with its brass top appeared to have a yellow jacket while its two steel legs made a blue pair of britches P became Grandmaster in 1721 and died in 1757 Reverend Dar D sagers was a French parentage his father having been a hugenot refugee from France in 1685 when

The Edict of non which gave Toleration to the Protestants was revoked by Louis the 14th he was a clergyman of the established church who in 1730 became Rector of wit Church near edgewear the church having been built by the Duke of Chandos he was a man of refinement and

Well fitted to take a part in the establishment of the revived Society he became Grandmaster in 1719 and afterward several times held the post of Deputy GM and died in 1744 Dar James Anderson was was however the most active of the trium and to him the craft is indebted for the first two

Editions of the book of the Constitutions which he edited and partly wrote in 1723 and 1738 he was a scotch Presbyterian minister in London of great learning especially in the Hebrew tongue and of a subtlety of mind which reveled in symbolic and Mystic researches the most interesting part of

Dr Anderson’s book is the long history of Freemasonry which forms its first part and which was derived and much elaborated from some of the old charges Anderson brings into his net of masonry every scripture character whoever made a tent or raised an altar beginning at Adam lamech Enoch Moses

Solomon and many others are swept into the net and then we get uid Julius Caesar Charles Martell who was King of France St Alban and king athlan and the author winds up with an anticlimax in the shape of an account of the laying of the foundation stone of a te Martins in

The fields Westminster in 1726 with Masonic honors by the famous historian Dr Bernett Bishop of Salsbury in the reign of George III Dr Anderson never attained the degree of Grandmaster and died in 1739 St John the Evangelist from his symbolic pictures in the book of the revelations became practically the

Patron saint of the craft and his name is often included in the mythical list of members of the fraternity the feast day of that Apostle is in wintertime on December 27th but he speedily became confused with the other saint of a similar name St John the

Baptist whose feast day is in summer on June 24th the latter day was likely to enjoy more agreeable weather than the December 1 and accordingly the new Grand Lodge fixed on St John’s day in summer for its annual meetings and this became a recognized day for such

Gatherings an exception to this date was made in 1725 when Grand Lodge met at Merchant Taylor’s Hall on St John’s day in Winter the Duke of Richmond as Grandmaster being continued in office until that date the number of The Lodges began to grow after 1717 and masonry speedily became a

Fashion in the town and members of the nobility were drawn to it the Duke of monu joined it so did the Dukes of Kent Sussex and War and in George 3’s Reign the whole of his sons were members of The Craft while in Germany Frederick the great took upon himself its

Obligations as did George Washington in America the Grand Lodge at York continued to meet as usual and the old dispute as to precedence between the archbishops of Canterbury and York was repeated in a similar rivalry between the grand Lodges of London and of York the ecclesiastical controversy was

Settled by calling the Archbishop of Canterbury the prime primate of all England while his grace of York became simply primate of England in the same way if we can believe a possibly fallacious chronicler the Grand Lodge of London called itself the Grand Lodge of all England while that of York was known

As the Grand Lodge of England a breach between the two grand lodges occurred later on in 1738 when the Duke of Chandos as Grandmaster of the London lodges appointed a provincial Grandmaster for the West writing of Yorkshire which was resented by the York Grand Lodge as an encroachment on its

Privileges this caused for some time a cessation of all correspondence between the two grand lodges and when divisions occurred afterwards in the craft the seceders took the title of York Masons coming to 1721 we hear that Grand Lodge of London met at the Queen’s Arms Tavern in St Paul’s churchyard where

There had been removed the old Lodge of St Paul’s afterwards The Lodge of antiquity number two the Duke of Mont took his seat as grandmas and initiated the Earl of Chesterfield into the order we hear that the Grand Lodge then adjourned an open procession through the streets to stationers Hall where they

Sat down in the ancient manner of Masons to a very elegant Feast the regular minutes of grand lodges in the first six years of its life were either not duly recorded or have been lost and it is only from June 24th 1723 when the Duke of warden vacated the chair that we have

Their light to gu us in our search amongst the records of the Brotherhood we have however the unofficial but on the whole correct records of the newspapers of the time which have been zealously and laboriously searched by bro Alfred F Robins to whose industry we must Here

Pay due tribute as we have made liberal use of his researches to fill up the gaps in the history for years from the establishment of grand LOD the young Duke of Wharton a man of remarkable character or one of it caused considerable commot Motion in Masonic circles through his greed of office and

Rashness he had been initiated into the order in August 1721 the ceremonies as the weekly Journal announced being performed at the King’s Arms Tavern in EST Paul’s churchyard and his grace came home to his house in the Paul Mall in a white leathern apron etiquette would have bidden him Ascend the degrees of

Masonry in order but he at once aimed at the chair of the grandm the next election for which to place the Duke of monague would take place on June 24th 1722 it is stated in the official records that Philip Duke of Wharton lately made a brother though not the

Master of a lodge being ambitious of the chair got a number of others to meet him at stationers Hall on June 24th 1722 and having no Grand officers they put into the chair the oldest Master Mason who was not the present master of a lodge also irregular and without the

Usual decent ceremonials the said old mason proclaimed aloud Philip Wharton Duke of Wharton Grandmaster of Masons but his grace appointed no Deputy nor was the lodge opened and closed in due form irregular as the meeting undoubtedly was we cannot find that any proper meeting was held on St John’s day

So that it could not be said that two rival Grand Masters claimed the chair at the same time the situation was nonetheless irritating to the craft and it was due to the diplom of the former Grandmaster the Duke of montigue to pour oil on the troubled Waves by summoning a

Proper meeting at the King’s Arms on January 17th 1723 when Warton was regularly proposed and elected as Grandmaster his term of office expired June 24th 1723 and if the post had not been merely a yearly one it is clear that Wharton’s Wayward nature had already tired of the

Position a preliminary meeting of Grand Lodge was held held on April 25th 17723 to settle upon the choice of the new Grandmaster and although Wharton agreed to the appointment of the Earl of dkei in that office he had oldow judges to pay off against Dar D sagers and

Strongly objected to his appointment as Deputy Grandmaster Wharton’s conduct in the chair was strongly objected to and having lost his point we hear that the late Grandmaster went away from the hall without ceremony which sounds as if the Duke was not man enough to know how to suffer

Defeat gracefully Warden got over his displeasure with desagulier so far as to allow himself the pleasure of attending at Grand Lodge at Merchant Taylor’s Hall on the following estd John’s day when in the presence of about 600 Masons the Earl of dalkeith was regularly appointed as Grandmaster Morton’s presence may be

Explained partly by the newspaper announcement in Reed’s weekly Journal which states that there was a noble feast in which the stewards gave entire content and gained Universal Applause and there was a handsome entertainment both of vocal and instrumental music Wharton was a great jackaby and a personal friend of the

Young Pretender so that it was feared that masonry might be considered as a training ground for Rebels to the state accordingly in the year after Wharton’s retirement a deputation from Grand Lodge went to Lord Townsen one of the secretaries of state to assure him that Masons were supporters of the government

And to be assured that the usual convocation of Masons would cause no umbrage to this is satisfactory but ambiguous answer was returned that much as mankind loved Mischief no one had ever betrayed the Masons Wharton having spent his force on masonry pined for other worlds to conquer and in December 1724 only 18

Months after he had ceased to be Grandmaster of the Masons the following paragraph appeared in the British Journal we hear that a peer of the first rank a noted member of the Society of Freemasons hath suffered himself to be degraded as a member of that society and his leather apron and

Gloves to be burnt and thereupon entered himself a member of the Society of Gormans at the Castle Tavern in Fleet Street the rest of this story is told in our chapter relating to the Gormans until comparatively recent times it was usual to talk of the bism which

Took place in masonry in 1751 when the Grand Lodge of England was supposed to have split up into two opposing sections the new body in a fine burst of irony arrogating to itself the title of the independent Lodge of ancients consisting at first of six lodges with 70 to 80

Members and calling its Elder Brethren the moderns happily this ancient liel has been dispersed by the Learning of bro Henry Sadler in his two Works Masonic facts and fictions published in 1887 and Masonic reprints and Revelations in 1898 the movement was led by an Irish Mason Lawrence dermit who being WM of

Lodge 26 in Dublin in June 1846 was elected Grand Secretary of the new body on February 5th 1752 and acted as such till 1771 when he was appointed Deputy Grandmaster by the Duke of atole GM and held the post till 1787 bro Sadler finds that no considerable number of the Ancients ever

Bore allegiance to the Grand Lodge of England that in fact they were Irish Masons who in consequence of the doors of the English lodges being closed against them formed their own lodges till they were strong enough to ban themselves first into a grand committee and afterwards on December 27th 1753 into a

Grand Lodge their book of constitutions called Ayman reason written by der was partly copied from sprat’s Irish constitutions 1751 and the work is entitled rules and orders to be observed by the most ancient and honorable Society of free and accepted masons as agreed and settled by a committee appointed by a

General assembly held at the Turks head Greek Street Soho on Wednesday July 17th 1751 in the year of masonry 5751 so matters went on till EST John’s day in summer June 24th 1814 when the Duke of Kent being The Grandmaster of the Ancients and the Duke of Sussex the

Grandmas of the moderns a fusion took place and a United Grand Lodge of ancient Freemasons of England was formed with the Duke of Sussex as its new Grandmaster since then the record is of a growing Society with many distinguished members there has never been a difficulty in finding eminent peers to

Fill the two principal offices of Grandmaster and prog Grandmaster and in our own time Edward iith when Prince of Wales held the post of Grandmaster and was followed by his brother the Duke of connot The Lodges which in 1717 numbered only four in 200 years since that time have grown to

Close upon 4,000 under the Grand Lodge of England alone an opportunity for the craft to express its gratitude for the exception made in its favor by the statute of 179 9 occurred shortly after that date for in the next year George 3’s life was attempted to be taken by

Hadfield and Grand Lodge at a meeting held at Freemasons Hall on June 3rd 1800 Drew up an address to the King which the Prince of Wales being a Freemason presented to him we append two interesting extracts from the address the law by permitting under certain regulations the meetings of Freemasons

Has defined the existence of the society by ing at the same time the members of it by a new obligation of gratitude for the confidence extended toward them to labor so far as their feeble Powers May apply in inculcating loyalty to the king and reverence to the inestimable fabric of the British

Constitution as a veil of secrecy conceals the transactions at our meetings our fellow subjects have no assurance that there may not be in our association a tendency injurious to their interests other than the general tenor of our conduct and the notoriety that the door of Freemasonry is not

Closed against any class profession or sect providing the individual Desiring admission he unstained in moral character to remove therefore as far as possible any ground for suspicion it has been from time immemorial a fundamental rule most rigidly maintained that no political topic shall on any pretense be mentioned in the lodge Freemasons felt

After a time that they wanted some permanent home for Grand Lodge which had since its formation in 1717 been held at different taverns unless it could secure the hospitality of one of the city companies and borrow its Hall such as that of the merchant tailor in thread needle Street and the stationers nearest

Te Pauls accordingly a site was secured in great Queen Street near Lincoln’s and Fields where on May 1st 1775 the foundation stone of Freemason Hall was laid with Masonic honors by Lord Petr The Grandmaster on May 23rd 1776 it was dedicated and the usual procession of Freemasons in their

Regalia took place through the streets the original cost of the building was over £12,000 at the dedication of it di Dodd as Grand chaplain made an oration founded on the building of Solomon’s Temple now said he be it remembered that this great event took place above 1,000 years before the Christian era and

Consequently more than a century before Homer the first of the Grecian poets wrote and above five centuries before Pythagoras brought from the East his Sublime system of truly Masonic instruction to illuminate our Western world but remote as this period is we date not from then the commencement of

Our art for though it might owe to the wise and glorious king of Israel some of its many Mystic forms and hieroglyphic ceremonies yet certainly the art itself is coeval with man the great subject of it we Trace its Footsteps in the most distant the most remote ages and nations

Of the world we find it among the first and most celebrated civilizers of the East we deduce it regularly from the first astronomers on the plains of caldia to the wise and Mystic Kings and Priests of Egypt the sages of Greece and the philosophers of Rome the inadequacy

Of the present Freemason Hall to accommodate the increasing number of of Masons who are entitled to Resort there has Ling been felt but at length in 1908 a resolution was passed in Grand Lodge to form a fund by the yearly contribution to Grand Lodge of

6D per head by each Mason in England for the ultimate rebuilding and enlargement of the building Grand Lodge has the oversight of masonry all over England and the British colonies and is a court of appeal from the decisions of the district Grand Lodges of the colonies Grand Lodge has at its head The

Grandmaster who is elected annually in March and if he is a prince of the blood Royal he may appoint a prog Grand Master who must be a peer the other officers appointed by The Grandmaster are the deputy Grandmaster with grand wardens deacons chaplain registar director of Ceremonies sword and standard bearers

And persant besides of course the grand secretary and Grand Tyler in addition to these there are 19 stewards who are appointed annually by as many private lodges which earn this right from time to time these stewards who in contrast to the dark blue clothing of other members of Grand Lodge where Scarlet

Collars and aprons have various duties in connection with the annual Grand Masonic Festival which is held on the Wednesday following April 23rd St George’s day there is a committee of Grand Lodge known as the board of benevolence which administ ERS its charity and the board of general purposes which deals with all its

Business Affairs Grand Lodge itself meets four times a year on the first Wednesdays of March June September and December and the Masters past and present of all lodges with their wardens are eligible to attend in addition to the charity dispensed by each private Lodge from its own benevolent fund and

By Grand Lodge from the larger charitable funds of the board of benevolence there are three permanent Charities the Royal Masonic Institution for girls with its school at clam Junction was founded in 1788 and was followed in 1798 by the Royal Masonic Institution for boys which now has its

Schools at bushy Harts while the Royal Masonic benevolent institution which grants pensions to aged Freemasons and their widows and has arms houses at Cen was established in 1842 each of these Charities holds a festival the Bold peoples in February the girls in May and the boys in June

And it is the usual practice for the master of each Lodge to go up as Steward for one of these Charities during his year of office and he collects from his lodge and its members contributions to the funds of the charity the study of the ritual of Freemasonry has been

Greatly Advanced by the establishment of Lodges of instruction held in connection with various private lodges the most important of these is the emulation Lodge of improvement held at Freemason Hall which has set a standard of ritual and working the ceremony used at some of these Lodges of

Instruction is known as the 15 sections of the three lectures on Craft Freemasonry which is a useful catechism on the ceremonies of each degree in which are contained some of the old speculative explanations concerning the craft a part of the fifth section of first lecture is often times used in

Regular lodges to explain the working tools of the second degree and this is known as the longer working Milton and Shakespeare have both been drawn upon by the writers of these lectures or catechisms to Adorn some of their beautiful passages of rhetoric for those Masons who desire to inquire into the

History of masonry and the number of them is constantly increasing there are two lodges which meet to read and discuss papers and lectures on these subjects and which publish their transactions one is the quatu Corona Lodge which means meets at Freemason Hall London and the other is the lodge

Of research which meets at Lester the former has an inner circle of members elected for their research work and there is also a correspondent circle of outside members who now number over 3,000 and are constantly increasing England was parceled out for Masonic purposes into provinces as early

As 1725 that being the date of the chesher PG Lodge and in each is held a provincial Grand Lodge which meets once a year or more and invites all the Master Masons in its area to attend it is governed by a provincial Grandmaster who exercises authority over lodges in

His Province and has his Deputy with officers similar to those of Grand Lodge London has no Province for itself and consequently its members were debarred from provincial honors but in 1908 in response to a demand for the establishment of a provincial Lodge for London the grandmas established a new class of

Honors for London Masons known as London rank the members of which have no precedence over each other the ordinary lodges are presided over by its worshipful master who is elected for a year and new lodges are formed by a petition to the grandm from Seven Master Masons who are called the founders of

The lodge and to whom the warrant is addressed each Lodge has a number and name given to it the grandmaster’s lodge being no I while the grand Stewart’s Lodge which has no power of making Masons has no number given to it but is placed at the head of all other lodges

And ranks accordingly it may be noted that the processions of Freemasons in the streets so often referred to by different writers which made the craft an object of derision were at length put an end to by the action of Grand Lodge who passed a rule that no brother should

Appear clothed in any of the jewels collars or badges of the craft in any procession or at any funeral ball theater public assembly or meetings unless by the special dispensation of the grandm another degree in Freemasonry known as the Royal Arch was founded about 1740 the meetings of which are

Known under the old title of chapters as in craft masonry the Royal Arch had two branches which were United in 1817 it is ruled by a grand chapter similar to that of the sister Society of Freemasons the degree of Mark masonry which has never been formally recognized

By the Grand Lodge of Freemasons was founded in 1769 as an appendix to this is the order of Royal Arkansas Mariners The Lodges of which are officially styled mored to Mark lodges there are two other bodies one known as the 18th degree the other as the 33rd degree but they are not officially

Recognized one phase in the history of Freemasonry must not be passed over and that is the hostility which it incurred from the pope who several times has put it under his ban the French order of the companion was prohibited by the Council of ainon as early as the year

1376 as it was found to be favorable to Liberty of thought and religious toleration and perhaps also because it savored of religious views which might grow too wide to come within the pale of Orthodoxy in the early operative masonry as we have seen the guilds were under

The direct influence of the church and in the first book of the Constitutions published in 1723 Freemasons were required to be of the religion of the country in which they lived the second book of the Constitutions published in 1738 altered this and admitted all believers in God which brought down the papal displeasure

And in the same year Pope Clement 12th issued his book Bull against it this was followed by another bull of Benedict the 14th in 1751 and so recently as 1884 the fulminations of the Roman Church against Freemasons were again confirmed by the pope XX Freemasonry outside England the story

Of Freemasonry appears to be the same in England Scotland France and Germany for in each we start with a society or Guild of men engaged in trades who ban Ed themselves together for business purposes Scottish building ran on Parallel Lines to English though in that country there is practically only one

Style analogous to what we call Early English the Masons engaged in the buildings were probably the same in many cases the men journeying with their services were required and their habits were similar for we have evidences of charters for the formation of a guild Society of riches and Masons by which

Was meant wood writs and stonemasons so far back as 14755 another reference to masonry in Scotland in 1598 is found in certain codes of law signed by William Shaw MTI of the king’s work and Warden of the Masons which were addressed particularly to a lodge or chapter which had been

Established at K winning in AER near which in after years Robert Burns the poet and a Freemason was to reside masonry seems to have flourished in the northern Kingdom for in the 17th century we find traces of it in many places and an interesting case is quoted of the

Reverend j anley a presbyterian minister at Kelo who in 1652 was objected to as being a Mason the Senate however absolved him considering that there was neither sin nor scandal in that word masons in the purest times of the church having been ministers the Scottish right has always

Arrogated a special place to itself and the old imaginative writers tell the story in their own way starting with the co- winning Lodge they tell us that King James the 1 of Scotland took the matter in hand and ordered that every Grandmaster chosen from either the nobility or clergy was entitled to

Receive 4 pound Scots from each Master Mason and a fee on the initiation of every new member he also had the power of a judge over the members and appointed wardens in the chief towns of Scotland James II appointed the Earl of orne who was also Baron of Roslin as Grandmaster and

Made the office and hereditary one to his successors in the Barony it is obvious why this Earl should have been chosen as his name will always be associated with the beautiful Chapel of Roslin near Edinburgh which he built and which contains some of the most delicate Stone carving in

Scotland one column there is called the apprentices column and is associated with the legend of an apprentice Mason who outdid his master in his carving and was slain in consequence of the jealousy he aroused by his Superior work the Barons of Roslin were said to have held

Their grand lodge at kwin where they granted warrants for the establishment of lodges throughout Scotland in the reign of James I 6 there is a warrant dated September 25th 1590 from holyrood granted by the king to Patrick Copeland for using and exercising the office of weny over the art and craft of Masonry

Over all the boundaries of Aberdine ban and kardan to hold Warden and Justice Courts within the said boundaries and there to minister justice as further proving the Antiquity of masonry in Scotland it may be mentioned at the lodge at Edinburgh known as EST Mary’s Chapel has records

As far back as 1598 from which it appears that Thomas Boswell was made warden in 1600 and that the honorable Robert Mor quartermaster General to the scotch Army was made a Master Mason in 1641 in 1736 the then Earl of Rosland summoned a meeting of 32 lodges and

Formed a Grand Lodge of Scotland after the pattern of the English one and the Earl was chosen as the first Grandmaster of the newly constituted Grand Lodge the heads of the ordinary lodges being given the title of right worshipful master another variation of the story of Scottish masonry is made by an old

Writer Nikolai as follow follows after the death of Cromwell and the deposition of his son the government of England fell into the hands of a violent but weak and disunited faction in such hands as every Patriot saw the government could not be durable and the sole means for delivering the country was to

Restore the kingly authority but in this there was the greatest difficulty for the principal officers of the Army in England though otherwise in disagreement with each other were yet unanimous in their hostility to the king under these circumstances the eyes of all parties were turned upon the English army in

Scotland at that time under the command of Monk who was privately well affected to the Royal cause and the Secret Society of the king’s friends in London who placed all their hopes on him saw the necessity in such a critical period of going weily and mysteriously it strengthened their sense

Of this necessity that one of their own members Sir Richard Willis became suspected of treachery and therefore out of the bosom of the secret conclave the Masonic master’s degree they resolve to form a still narrower conclave to whom the scotch i e the most secret Affairs should be

Confided they choose new symbols adapted to their own extremely critical situation these symbols imported that in the business of this interior conclave wisdom obedience courage self-sacrifice and moderation were were necessary their motto was wisdom above thee for greater security they altered their signs and reminded each other in

Their tottering condition not to stumble and break the arm the last reference is probably to a part of the old ritual of the masonry of Scotland which was introduced into Paris in 1743 under the title of the right of strict observance later on in 1786 it was established there as the regular French

Order which still FL flourishes and is known as the grand Orient of France and has since been introduced into Belgium Egypt and many of the states of South America tracing French Freemasonry backwards from the present institution we find the same class of trade guilds as in England and a society known in

That country as the companion the members of which were called companion to devoir they are heard of at different dates from 800 to 1631 and again in 1730 at which latter date there were at least two branches of the fraternity at lran in Province the members of which in a

Fit of rivalry had a fight using firearms and the military had to be called out to quell the riot the members provided free board and lodging for their traveling fellow Craftsmen and there were certain observances at the grave of a deceased brother that they did not forget the observance of

Friendly repasts after Lodge duties seems obvious from Prince which are in existence showing companion in procession to a feast along a country road armed with staves and some even with what are undoubtedly bottles of wine an interesting reminiscence is contained in the fact that after the Napoleonic Wars

Ended and while there were many French prisoners of War bed in The Villages of dorer and elsewhere in England the French soldiers wilded Away part of their time by establishing Masonic lodges and perfecting themselves in their Lodge work there are many Memorials of these LOD lodges left in

The shape of addresses to the brethren in French some obviously addressed to members who proposed to escape from their imprisonment and return to France and in which the members wished the fugitives Bond Voyage Germany prior to the famous VRI of which we have spoken in a previous chapter had its system of

The Stein medson which was a trade Guild of Masons who looked after its apprentices and made rules for Good Conduct it does not appear to have had a regular system of signs and passwords but when the Stein medson built the Cathedral at Wartburg they showed their Affinity to other secret societies by

Placing their two pillars named after those of King Solomon’s Temple in 1738 a lodge was founded in Brunswick where Frederick the great who was then Crown Prince of Prussia was initiated and the German order has always been considered as a most important one in Continental Freemasonry another German secret

Society but of a political nature was the tujin B or Society of the friends of virtue this came into existence about 1806 born of the enthusiasm created in Europe by the French Revolution and field Marshall bler who helped Wellington at watero in 1815 was said to

Have been in his early days a member of it in 1813 it received the approbation of the authorities as being a patriotic band of men but afterwards it fell back in public estimation and was branded as a society of demagogues and ultimately died away Irish architecture in the

Middle Ages was of a simple character and it is not surprising to find M absence of the trade Guilds of Masons which characterized England and Scotland it is said that some system of Freemasonry had permeated Ireland prior to the establishment of the orange Society but we gain firm ground in

1726 when we find a Grand Lodge of monster in existence which in 1731 became merged into the still existing Grand Lodge of Ireland America followed the fashion of England in Masonic matters after the movement of 1717 and a lodge was founded in 1731 at Philadelphia another at Boston Massachusetts in

1733 and two at Savana and Charleston in 1735 the great Benjamin Franklin acted as Grandmaster of the Philadelphia Lodge in 1754 which in 1782 became known as the Grand Lodge of Massachusetts George Washington was an initiate of the order in 1752 his portrait as such hanging in Freemasons Hall London and

Masonry flourishes exceedingly in America at the present day in Australia New Zealand Canada South America Egypt in fact in any place where the foot of the Englishman Treads Masonic lodges have been established and we have the testimony of Bishops who are masons that in those places where churches are few and far

Between masonry has proved itself the handmade of religion 21 the gregorians the growing Vitality of the order of Freemasonry after its Renaissance in 1717 was sufficient to give rise to many offshoots from the parent stem which would enable other men to take the honors of the position of

Grandmaster of their order and rival the importance attached to that post by the Freemasons themselves Alexander Pope the poet was himself a free Mason and in the fourth book of his satirical poem The dunad published in 1742 he refers to two fresh growths which had sprung up some

Deep Freemasons join the silent race worthy to fill Pythagoras’s Place some botanists or florists at the least or issue members of an annual Feast nor pass the meanest unregarded one rose a Gregorian one a gormon the the order of gregorians were a secret society founded about 1736 with a regular initiation service

For candidates whose qualifications were that they must be Men of Honor sound morals and true loyalty the order was presided over by an official known as the grand of the order who in 1797 was Prince William Frederick of Gloucester one of the sons of George iiiii the chapters of the order were

Presided over by a grand who was assisted by a secretary two wardens and seven committee men there were separate chapters held in several taverns in London and also at EST Albans kruer and Norwich of which last named chapter sir Edward asley MP was The Grand in

1771 this chapter in 1797 did itself the honor of electing Nelson himself a norfol man as an honorary member and Nelson acknowledged a compliment by a letter written by him from his ship lying in Yarmouth roads but it does not appear that he ever attended any of the

Meetings the order terminated about the year 1805 when all reasons for its existence as a Protestant Society had died out it had a song set to music for two voices and known as the Mary Griggs the first verse of which is as follows let poets and historians record the brave

Gregorians in Long and Lasting lays while hearts and voices joining in gladsome songs combining sing forth their deathless praise Smet in his book travels through France and Italy written in 1765 referring to the processions of the Roman Catholics at Easter in nce Compares them to the Freemasons and

Gregorians both of which bodies in those days as we have before remarked had processions through the public Street the members being dressed in a regalia crab in his poem entitled the burrow published in 1810 refers to the order Griggs and gregorians hear their meetings hold convivial sexs and Bucks

Alert and bold a kind of Masons but without their sign the bonds of union pleasure song and wine there appears to have been so far back as 1673 a society known as the gregories but whether the gregorians derive descent from them or not is not known their character may be

Guessed at from the fact that a sermon was preached to them in the Church of St Michael cornhill on June 19th 1673 by Reverend Dr Gregory one of the chaplain of Charles II 22 the Gormans it seems a Pity to have to include the subject of a joke in a

Serious work of this kind but as the humor has infected men of standing like Pope and Hogarth who have conferred immortality upon the subject of it we must do our duty and treat it as a part of the story we are to tell Pope’s lines as to the Gormans we recalled in our

Account of the gregorians and Hogarth himself a Freemason as was his father-in-law Sir James Thornhill the painter played the part of the comic Muse in relation to the society in a caricature he published in 1743 entitled The Mystery of Freemasonry brought to light by the Gormans in this he shows A procession

Headed by the Emperor of China and three mandarins who are followed by a monkey wearing outsized gloves and a woman on a donkey supporting one end of a ladder the other end is borne by a man who has his head between two of the steps while

A knight in armor brings up the rear wearing a masonic apron in the background are a crowd of people confined in a house and looking out of the door and windows at the foot of the plate are the following lines from Eastern climes transplanted to our coasts two oldest orders that creation boasts

Here meet in miniature exposed to view that by their conduct we may judge their due the Gormans a venerable race appear distinguished with peculiar Grace what honor wisdom truth and social love sure such an order had its birth above the lines conclude with a reference to

Freemasonry in an ironic vein so as to appear to Pate the Wrath of the the Gormans for the scorn thrown upon them by the artist in the caricature to preserve the Chinese character of the scheme Hogarth playfully ads painted at Pin by matchat graved by Hogue the leader of

The society which Hogarth ridiculed was a spendthrift Whimsical and changeable as the wind in springtime a man who caught the public eye and amused it for the time a man who might have played an important part in the state if he could have gained steadiness by experience a man whose faults can only

Be excused by the spirit of the times in which he lived this was philli Duke of warden an Irish peer born in 1698 married at 16 made a Duke in the English peage for political purposes at 20 bankrupt at 24 indicted for high treason and a

Refugee in Spain at 31 and dead at 33 he was the associate of the most extravagant men about town of his day and his vanity could not be appeased without an attempt to attain the highest position in any club or Society of men to which he might belong having become a

Mason he at once made up his mind to occupy no post less than that of Grandmaster and as this appeared to be difficult of achievement in a regular way he summoned a private meeting of his own Masonic friends for John’s day June 24th 1722 at stationers Hall who proclaimed him

Grandmaster this naturally caused dissension but the vanity of the Duke was eventually Satisfied by an arrangement being made that he should be regularly appointed as Grandmaster in the following January which was actually done the moment the prize was seized it became worthless to him and he held it

Only 5 months and was replaced by another Grandmaster dot on the succeeding St John’s Day in June 1723 when quing with his colleagues another whim took his fancy to form a rival society and to call it the of Gormans Warton had spoken in Parliament once on the subject of the south sea

Company and his speech made a great impression at the time besides which he affected to be a literary man the New Order was therefore heralded by announcements in the Press which were either written or inspired by Warton himself as to the Antiquity of the order he was just founding in September and

October 1724 notices appeared in several papers that at the Castle Tavern Fleet Street was to be held the first chapter of the ancient Noble order of the Gormans instituted by the first emperor of China many years before Adam of course Wharton was its head as he was of

That Infamous codery he founded called the hellfire club anyway the Gormans did not know him long for his fortunes were soon broken and in a few months he left England never to return proceeding to Paris in 1725 he met the old Pretender whose cause he warmly espoused and in 1728

Wharton published a continuation of the farsal account of the Gormans from a Jacoby standpoint taking occasion to ridicule the Georgian rule of England The Pretenders sent him to Madrid on a political mission where he is said to have founded a lodge of Freemasons Hogarth probably had Wharton

In his mind when he painted his re’s progress and Pope left a character sketch of Wharton the scorn and wonder of our days in his epistle IO sir Temple thus with each gift of Nature and of Art and wanting nothing but an honest heart grown all to all from no one Vice

Exempt and most contemptible to shun contempt his passion still to covet General praise His Life to Forfeit it a thousand ways ask you why Wharton broke through every rule TW was all for fear the naves would call him fool exi the orange Society it is generally considered that the body

Of Freemasons during the steuart risings in the Reigns of George I and George II were jacobites at heart and some of the scorn which was poured out upon them in those times particularly by the press and by pamphleteers was for due to this cause it is not therefore surprising to

Find a secret society established with opposite aims to glorify that revolution of the wheel of kingship which occurred when William III Prince of of orange in 1688 ousted James II from the Throne of England an established protestantism as the state religion some time after this the orange Society of ultr Protestants was founded

In Belfast it partook of the nature of such Societies in having a regular ceremony of initiation with passwords and signs it originally consisted of scattered lodges which were independent of one another but in 1795 in the reign of George the third it followed the example of the Freemasons and established itself

As an organized body with a Grand Lodge so that branches of it sprung up in England and America the order still flourishes in a modified form in Ireland and the principal days observed by them are November 5th when the prince of orange landed in England July 1st the

Anniversary of the battle of the bo fought in 1690 and July 12th in memory of the the Battle of augm fought in 1691 on which days the members are supposed to wear an orange lily flower it’s opponents of course were the national color of Irish Shamrock Green in the days of William

IV the society took a new but brief lease of life when active branches of it were formed in England for political purposes and in 1835 the Duke of Cumberland Uncle to Queen Victoria was appointed its Grandmaster in 1836 it was discovered that the society was engaged in a

Treasonable conspiracy and on the motion of the Prime Minister Lord John Russell an address was moved in the House of Commons to the king calling on him to Proclaim its condemnation which was done and the English society came to an Inglorious end 24 the United Irishman Society the influence of the French

Revolution of 1789 made itself felt all over Europe and wherever there was a national grievance the people felt that salvation was to be found by copying the French pattern and putting their rulers in awe and we find that this lasted for many years after the last rumbling of

The earthquake of revolution in France had subsided in no country did it find a more ready response than in Ireland which had its grievances on the subject of Roman Catholic emancipation and the Tyranny to which members of that church were subject the Irish parliament in 1798 under graten was largely a Protestant

One and the Roman Catholics felt that if they waited for redress by constitutional means alone they might wait forever a young Irish Barrister curiously enough a Protestant with a winning tongue and a brain on fire with enthusiasm for the cause named wolf tone became the leader of their thoughts

Which he attempted to translate into action by calling to Ireland’s Aid the Archen enemy of England at that time bipart tone was already the second Secretary of a secret society who had an oath signs and passwords and went by the name of the association of United

Irishmen tone went to France and saw the imperious Frenchmen who sent three successive expeditions to Ireland to raise the standard of rebellion there as with the Armada of Elizabeth’s days the winds were contrary and bipart ships were delayed and Scattered fresh members of the United Irishmen were daily being

Sworn in and armed with weapons to join the French Invaders all was however to no purpose for a further Fleet intended for Ireland was dispatched by bipart to Egypt and the Irish had to fight by themselves Lord Edward Fitzgerald another Protestant was then chosen for leader

And in the spring of 1798 the Rebellion broke out in Wexford an Irish priest father Murphy became one of the leaders and at first there were some successes but father Murphy was caught and executed in May and Lord Fitzgerald was likewise captured and died in jail in June

1798 in October the remnant of a French Fleet which had first numbered nine vessels and eventually was counted as four with tone on board dressed as a French officer arrived at lockly in Ireland it was easily defeated by the English Fleet the French soldiers taken captive while tone was arrested tried

For treason condemned to death but an anticipated his execution by committing suicide in prison such an experience of a secret society was not to be lightly thought of by the English government especially as other similar Societies in which members were incited to action by the sacred reality of an oath to do

Their Duty had been formed both in Scotland and in England the government naturally concluded that all secret societies were dangerous and must be suppressed so a bill was drafted to carry out the purpose as soon as the session of par was opened in 1799 the bill was introduced and eventually passed into

Law on July 12th 1799 it is known as the unlawful societies act 1799 and its language is of the greatest interest it starts with bipart and says that a traitorous conspiracy had long been carried on in conjunction with the persons from time to time exercising the powers of government in France to

Overturn the laws and the civil and ecclesiastical establishment of Great Britain and Ireland and that in order to carry out this object societies have been instituted of a new and dangerous nature inconsistent with public Tranquility particularly certain societies calling themselves societies of United Englishmen United scotsmen United Britains United Irishmen and the

London corresponding Society the nature of the organization of these societies is explained by the statement that the members of them had taken unlawful Oaths and engagements of of Fidelity in secrecy had used secret signs and appointed committees secretaries and other officers the ACT goes on to forbid the

Meetings of any such societies under the Pains of incurring a fine of an undefined amount and imprisonment for an undefined time it will of course be observed that throwing the net so wide a society such as that of the Freemasons would be caught within its meshes accordingly when the bill went

Into committee the Duke of vle and the Earl of Moira two prominent Freemasons carried amendments which excluded their fellows in the craft from its ban upon condition that the various lodges were duly registered with the clerk of the Peace of the county in which they usually met a further certificate of

Respect for the craft was given by stating that Freemasonry had been long accustomed to be Holden in this Kingdom Under the denomination of Lodges of Freemasons and further to relieve it of any suspicion that its Gatherings were V vivial only the ACT states that such meetings were in great measure directed to charitable

Purposes the Act was eventually thought to afford protection only to Masonic lodges actually in existence in 1799 and 8 years afterwards the seditious meetings act 1817 was passed which amongst other Provisions made it apply to new lodges as well as old ones a wise enactment looking at the large increase

Masonry had made since the date of the former Act XXV the friendly societies there are certain benefit societies now registered under the friendly societies acts which have passwords and signs and many of the characteristics of secret societies the ancient order of Foresters is a very important friendly society

Which having signs passwords and an initiation ceremony is also entitled to be classed as a secret society its members number no less than 1,28 89,900 composed of both sexes and juveniles and its benefits to sick members and their widows are considerable its meetings are known as courts which are presided over by a

Chief Ranger whose officers are known as subchief Ranger senior and Junior Woodwinds senior and Junior Beatles besides a Treasurer and secretary orders of Foresters can be traced it is alleged from ages Back in the New Forest and there are stories of initiation ceremonies where bre were dressed as

Woodmen carrying our boughs of trees in some respects the resemblance may be found to the French societies of Wood Choppers the first established Court of the Foresters was held at the old Crown Inn kirkgate Leeds in 1790 but the society was much hampered in those days by the provisions of the unlawful

Societies act 1799 and the sedici meetings act 1817 the latter of which enacted that meetings of more than 50 m members of a secret society were unlawful it is stated that the old initiation ceremony which has been altered in later days was free from that Masonic influence which permeated the ritual of old

Oddfellows the chief Ranger of the Foresters began with an impressive prayer oh thou Eternal and Supreme Being whose power is manifested unto man in the Whirlwind and in the storm when the rushing winds howl through the forest and the affrighted deer flee they know not wither w from their coverts

When the rain descends in torrents and the mighty waves in Wild commotion lash each other when Lightnings illumin the heavens and the loud thunder reverberates from beatling Crag to towering cliff and so on until 1843 the initiate had to undergo a mock combat with a member of the Court both being armed with

Cudgels this was however treated in a symbolic manner the explanation being that as Adam had to fight and contend with wild and Savage Beasts of the forest so all faithful Foresters were bound to contend with the World the Flesh and the devil the Supreme government of the order is vested in a

High Court held every year at a different town and presided over by a high chief Ranger the order of Oddfellows is another benefit and secret society with signs and passwords by which the members can recognize each other and an oath to bind them the order was founded in

Manchester the annual meetings are held in different towns selected from time to time and are attended by delegates chosen from the different lodges the order in 1884 comprised 600,000 members and the numbers are now increased to over a million there is an old medal of the order of odd fellows in

Existance which has an imitation of an heraldic design two Crossed Swords are partly covered by a shield which contains three faces of men who may justly be designated as Oddfellows the crest on the shield is a raised hand with a heart in its Center there are two figures on either side

Supporting the shield of Oddfellows dressed in the costume of the 18th century wearing scarves suspended over the shoulder there are also two mot upon my honor and quid rides which may be translated why do you laugh the head of each odd fellow’s Lodge is called the Grand and his two principal officers are

Called right supporter and left supporter while the head of the whole society is called Noble Grand the Royal anti- deluvian order of buffalos sometimes known as a system of working man’s Freemasonry is mainly of a social character but has now the basis of a fund for the benefit of the orphan

Children of deceased members it has an initiation ceremony and the heads of its Lodge are known as Primos the Supreme rule over the order being wielded by the grand Primo the officers are known by courtesy titles of Lords and knights the society is not strictly a friendly

Society and is included here only for the sake of convenience the order of Druids is a benefit in secret society founded in 1780 whose lodges are called Groves recalling those early British days when the ancient Druids in The Glades of the forest performed their rights and taught

Such of the principles of geometry and philosophy as were known in those days even these old philosophers are made to pay tribute to the Mythic histories of Freemasonry as related by some old writers D Quincy as we have seen insists that Freemasonry had its origin in Rosicrucianism Richard Carlile in his

Mysteries of Freemasonry in company with other writers carries it back to the Egyptians while Thomas Payne the author of an essay on the origin of Freemasonry Finds Its Source in the writs of the ancient Druids pay’s Theory can be set out in two Passages at the beginning and

Conclusion of his essay it is always understood that Freemasons have a secret which they carefully conceal but from everything that can be collected from their own accounts of Masons their real secret is no other than their origin which but few of them understand and those that do envelope it in mystery the

Essay concludes thus The Druids became the subjects of persecution this would naturally and necessarily oblig such of them as remained attached to their original religion to meet in secret and under the strongest injunctions of secrecy their safety depended upon it a false brother might expose the lives of many of them to

Destruction and from the remains of the religion of The Druids thus preserved arose the institution which to avoid the name of Druid took that of Mason and practiced under this new name the rights and ceremonies of Druids the sole argument pain uses in support of this conclusion is that in

The Masonic ritual there are distinct traces of sun worship and as this was practiced by The Druids the inference that one was copied from the other is to him irresistible he also makes use of the statement of Captain Smith a writer in 1783 on masonry that not withstanding the obscurity which envelopes Masonic

History in Britain various circumstances contribute to prove that Freemasonry was introduced into Britain 1,30 years before Christ from this exceedingly vague and unproved statement pay argues that as the druid flourished in Britain at that period it is from them that masonry is descended and it is obvious that arguing on such slender

Premises it would have been possible to prove anything one wished as the basis of masonry 26 Freemasonry in literature and art it may be laid down as an axiom that if the history of a country were to be lost it could be Rewritten from its contemporary literature and art for it is impossible

To keep out of books whether novels biography poetry or essays or out of pictures references to the life going on at the time of their being written or painted the fact that Shakespeare makes no reference to any secret society though he reflects in his writings most of the characteristics of his age is

Proof positive that masonry in Queen Elizabeth’s days was a small and select Circle and the only reference he makes to working Masons is to compare them to a swarm of honey bees who are described as the Masons building roofs of gold Henry V 5 act I s.2 in Charles

II s rain masonry existed only in its transition stage from operative to speculative but it had its signs and passwords as the public of that day were aware for Andrew Marvel who wrote from Hull in 1672 in his work the rehearsal transposed says as those that have the Mason’s word secretly discern one

Another such a phrase in a writer of the period is proof of existing masonry Beyond tons of theory Dar Johnson though born in 1709 only 8 years before the Revival of Freemasonry and living till 1783 through the days when the craft was heard of a good deal in literary circles

Must have come into contact with many Freemasons in his time to quote Mr Augustine beel he knew not only books but a great deal about trades and manufactures ways of existence customs of business he had been in all sorts of societies kept every kind of company in his dictionary Johnson absolutely

Ignores Freemasonry so that one may well imagine it had for him no definite existence as a permanent institution one prominent Mason Dr William Dodd he certainly knew but not favorably that famous Divine and fashionable preacher Dodd was a member M of Grand Lodge but Falling upon evil

Days he forged the name of his Patron Lord Chesterfield to a bond for 4,000 for which he was tried at the Old Bailey and found guilty in July 1,777 Dodd was the author of a well-known work the beauties of Shakespeare and from a friendly feeling for a brother author diar Johnson wrote

Some sermons for DOD to preach while in prison and also drafted a petition in favor of reprieve which was widely supported Dodd passed his enforced Leisure by writing a poem called thoughts in prison which was passible from a literary standpoint but it only called forth from Dr Johnson the comment

A man who has been canting all his life may can’t to the last DOD subsequently met the Fate which in those days followed persons found guilty of forgery in 1709 steel writing in this Tattler talks of a set of people who assume the name of pretty fellows get new names and

Have their signs and tokens like Freemasons again in 1710 he writes in the same paper of certain Idol fellows that one would think that they had some secret intimation of each other like the Freemasons both of these extracts are interesting as showing that the old Freemasonry prior to 1717 was known

Sufficiently to be talked about in current conversation and writings an early reference to Freemasonry is made in a poem called the Masonic reproduced in a volume known as ancient poems published in 1846 by the Percy society and they’re stated to be a very ancient production in this poem it is alluded to

Thus for in heaven there’s a lodge and St Peter keeps the door and none can enter in but those that are pure the first official poet of the new Freemasons after 1717 was Matthew Burkhead a well-known actor and master of Lodge No five and 1722 who wrote what

Has become well known in Masonic circles as the entered apprentices song which is still sung as a toast at the dinners of many lodges it first appeared in print in The Columns of Reed’s weekly journal on December 1st 1722 under the title of the Freemason health and was the next year

Printed by Dr Anderson in his first book of the Constitutions where it is set to music and is directed To Be Sung when all all grave business is over and with the Masters leave the song had seven verses of which we quote the first two and the writer is at much trouble to

Find a passible rhyme for Mason in each verse which varies from occasion which occurs twice station and Nation to Rhymes worthy of Browning Gaze on Grace on and face on come let us prepare we brothers that are met together on merry occasion let’s drink laugh and sing our

Wine has a spring is a health to an accepted Mason the world is in pain our secrets to gain and still let them wander and Gaze on they n can Divine the word or the sign of a free and an accepted Mason Burkhead died at Wich Street strand on January 3rd 1723 and

Was buried at St Clement Dan’s Church before the publication of his song in The Book of the Constitutions which appeared in that year he also appears to have been responsible for a play which was produced at Drury Lane theater a week after his death it was performed by his

Majesty’s company of Comedians and is described on the play bills as a comedy never acted before Called Love in a forest altered from the comedy called As You Like It written by Shakespeare the play was also announced to appear in book form tomorrow will be published love in a forest as it was

Acted at the theater Royal Drury Lane dedicated to the worshipful and ancient Society of Freemasons it will be observed that no author’s name is given for a very obvious reason and as no copy of the work is to be found in the British museum it is an open question whether

The book was ever actually published it is not surprising to find that the newly revived order had a period of ridicule to pass through from the press in the days of George L and many witty paragraphs were inserted in the papers of the day many pamphlets and broadsides

Also appeared and the public does not appear to have minded paying six P for a paper covered book running down the craft one of these broadsides called pill signs and wonders of a Freemason published in 1730 has been referred to in our chapter on the Grand Lodge in

1724 another booklet was published at the usual price 6D of such Publications entitled The Grand mystery of Freemasons discovered wherein are the several questions put to them dotted their meetings and installations as also their oath Health signs and points to know each other by as they were found in the custody of a

Freemason who died suddenly and now published for the information of the public this contained another version of The Craft ritual and an introduction with the story of a man who professed to have a great curiosity in his house house but when challenged could only produce a small irritating insect the

Inference drawn from the secrets of Freemasonry was obvious the six Penny booklet must have pleased the reading public of the day for in January 1726 was published another at the same price it was entitled The Freemason accusation and defense in six genuine letters between a gentleman in the

Country and his son and student in the temple wherein the whole Affair of masonry is fairly debated and all the arguments for and against the fraternity are curiously and impartially handled a more ambitious effort to saiz Freemasonry was made in 1726 by the publication of an Ode to the Grand kyar

The author being anonymous this work ridicules the alleged ancient foundation of the craft and its opposed members wherever buildings Masons found to praise their art they picked occasion hence Cain was for the craft renowned and mighty Nimrod was a Mason with empty names of kings and Lords the Mystic Lodge May sooth the

Fancy words without meaning it affords and signs without significancy one only thing they plainly tell in pros and verse on this occasion a mole hill to a mount to swell is the true sign of a Freemason another poem a 6 penny1 appeared in February 1723 entitled the Freemasons and

Hudibrastic poem the author simply describing himself as a Freemason and professing to divulge their laws ordinances signs Works messages so long kept secret Faithfully discovered and made known the title page contains the following all secrets till they once are known are wonderful all men must own but

When found out we cease to wonder is equal then to wind and thunder legendary stories concerning masonry arose in plenty the favorite of which was that of the red hot poker applied to the victim as a part of his initiation which formed a staple topic for the caricaturist of

The day that the compilers of the ritual were influenced by the literature of their ancestors is also evident from the fact that Bacon’s essays which had been published in 1620 were drawn upon in after years for parts of the stately ritual which was composed revised and improved upon from time to

Time in this ritual the phrase a citizen of the world occurs and we find it taken from Bacon’s essay on nobility where it reads if a man be gracious and courteous to strangers it shows he is a citizen of the world another happy phrase is the

Bark of this life the idea being again borrowed from Bacon’s essay of adversity which talks of Christian resolution that saleth in the frail bark of the flesh through the waves of the world in one of the old addresses am Mason was a jured not to be an Enthusiast persecutor or

Reviler of religion and the word Enthusiast seems to be in direct conflict to the drift of the whole passage the compilers were however justified by a passage from a well-known work the Divine legation of Moses written in 1738 by Dr werton Bishop Bishop of Gloucester who said enthusiasm

Is that temper of Mind in which the imagination has got the better of the Judgment in this disordered state of things enthusiasm when it happens to turn upon religious matters becomes fanaticism Addison the essayist was not a Freemason but in the pages of The Spectator in 1712 appeared an essay

Written by him on the glory of Heaven in which are passages that reflect the thoughts of the thinking men of that day who were compiling the new ritual of Freemasonry if the passage itself did not set them thinking of the subject Addison says as in Solomon’s Temple

There was the sanctum sanctorum in which a visible Glory appeared among the figures of the cherubims and into which none but the high priest himself was permitted to enter after having made an atonement for the sins of the people so if we consider the whole creation as one Great temple

There is in it this holy of holies into which the high priest of our Salvation enter entered with how much skill must the Throne of God be erected with what glorious designs is that habitation beautified which is contrived and built by him who inspired hyam with wisdom how

Great must be the Majesty of that place where the whole art of creation has been employed and where God has chosen to show himself in the most magnificent manner what must be the architecture of infinite power under the direction of infinite wisdom in 1730 appeared a Trea called masonry dissected written by

Samuel Pritchard who was a Freemason giving the catechism of the Masonic ritual in his introduction the author following the old Legends of the ancient charges says the original institution of masonry consisted in the foundation of the liberal arts and sciences but more especially of geometry for at the building of the

Tower of Babel the art and mystery of masonry was first introduced and from then handed down by uid a worthy and excellent mathematician of the Egyptians and he communicated it to hyam the Master Mason concerned in building Solomon’s Temple in Jerusalem readers in those days must have been very gullible as hyam lived

1,000 years before Christ and had been dead 700 years before uid the mathematician was born but possibly the author if faced with this fact would have sought refuge in the old device of imagining two ukets to have existed each of them equally famous in Geometry Pritchard made a declaration on

Oath before the Lord mayor verifying his book which was answered in another work by W Smith a Freemason entitled The Freemason pocket companion Pope’s references to Freemasonry in his dunad published in 1742 are dealt with in the chapter on the gregorians Goldsmith as a member of the public had obviously heard of the

Gregorians who were presided over by an officer called the looked Grand and when Goldsmith wished to picture the chairman of a convivial meeting holding a hammer in his hand The Writer’s thoughts went to the gregorians and he described such a chairman as a grand in 1759 he

Published his volume of essays under the title of the be in which is an account of the club of choice Spirits the first Club I entered upon coming to town was that of the choice Spirits the grand with a mallet in his hand presided at the head of the table

My speculations were soon interrupted by the grand who had knocked down Mr spriggins for a song The gregorians would probably find this an accurate description of part of their proceedings at Norwich in 1761 when attended by a band of Music in barges and boats they went by the river

Yar to their annual venison Feast which we are told concluded with great Harmony another reference to masonry occurs in 1765 when Tobias smallet wrote his travels through France and Italy he saw in the streets of nice A procession at Easter time of members of Roman Catholic confraternities concerning whom he says

The confes are fraternities of devotees who enlist themselves under the banners of particular Saints on days of procession they appear in a body dressed as penitents and masked and distinguished by crosses on their habits there is scarce an individual whether Noble or plebian who does not belong to

One of these associ ations which may be compared to the Freemasons gregorians and anti- gallic of England both Fielding in his novel of Tom Jones and Stern in his Tristram Shandy written in the 18th century introduced the word Freemason into the conversation of their characters showing that the craft was

Not unknown to them in those days about the same period Lord Halifax writes the lawyers like the Freemasons may be supposed to take an oath not to tell the secret referring to some political matter of his day gray also has the newly established craft in his mind when

He writes humorously to Horus walpool saying I reckon next week we shall hear you are a Freemason Charles dibon the author of The Immortal Tom bowling in 1780 left his songs and wrote for the stage producing at Drury Lane theater a pantomime called Harlequin Freemason dibon was a Mason and the

So-named pantomim consisted of a dialogue with songs followed by a pageant the first part comprised The Phoenician architect who assisted King Solomon in building the temple with choruses of skaters and of lawyers a masonic song in introduced which was not written by dibon but taken from the first book of the Constitutions

Published in 1723 where it is attributed to Charles Dale Fay hail masonry thou craft Divine Glory of Earth from heaven revealed which does with jewels precious Shine from all but Mason’s eyes concealed the pageant consisted of A procession of the principal Grand masters from the creation to the then

Century and the characters were drawn from the long catalog of them contained M the book of the Constitutions there were no less than 20 banners representing different epics after Each of which marched the performers they began with Enoch and Nimrod Then followed the king of Egypt

Who was named Mitra which happened to be the Hebrew word for Egypt and he was accompanied by two men carrying a property pyramid Solomon with the two hyams followed and naturally enough the Queen of Sheba succeeded Persia entered now with Darius and zoroaster and then came Rome personified by Augustus Caesar

Celebrated for his rhetorical flourish I found Rome built of brick but I have left it built of marble and to point the moral two men carried a model of the the pantheon of Rome Titus Vespasian and Constantine were the predecessors of William the Conqueror and the Tower of London born Al loved by

Two assistants who were followed by Queen Elizabeth Pope Julius ji Michelangelo Raphael and a model of a Peters at Rome the 14th Banner took in James I with Inigo Jones and a representation of White Hall while Charles II with William and Mary succeeded them and and for some reason

They were followed by a man bearing an obelisk Sir Christopher Ren wounded up the list of memorable Builders and patrons of architecture and he was accompanied by two men carrying St Paul’s the last three banners were followed by representatives of the orders of Knights Templars members of

The Royal Arch degree and of Modern Masons the latter bearing one of Solomon’s pillars the pageant was well thought out and obviously gave much pleasure for it was performed at intervals until the following following Christmas and was adopted for the Lord mayor’s show on November 9th 1781 a society professing the principles

Of Freemasons may be expected to be in close touch with religion and this is borne out by the number of sermons which we find to have been preached before them and prominent amongst these may be mentioned that of John Wesley who writes in 1772 I preached in the Mason’s Lodge

That jovial Soul Robert Burns the poet was initiated into r at the St David’s Lodge at tarbolton Aire on July 4th 1781 and he subsequently became a member of several other lodges in June 1786 as this T John’s day was approaching he wrote a poem by way

Of invitation to a brother Mason Mr McKenzie the surgeon at mahlin to attend the lodge which was held in a little back room in a Tavern kept by a Publican named Manson in tarbolton Friday firsts the day of appointed by our right worshipful anointed to hold our grand procession to

Get a blade of Johnny’s morals and taste a Swatch of Manson’s barrels I the way of our profession our master and the Brotherhood W be glad to see you for me I would be May than proud to share the mercies y you for the benefit of those

Living south of the Tweed we may perhaps be allowed to explain that Friday first is the scotch method of saying Friday next while right worshipful is the Scott’s equivalent of the English worshipful master the grand procession Burns talks about has been pictured in a print of the period which shows a body

Of Masons marching along the street of tarbolton past the church with a man bearing a flag in front bearing the legend St James Lodge the members following after in their regalia and being welcomed by the children of the town as they passed in November 1786 Burns meditated immigrating To Jamaica

And he wrote a poem intended as a farewell to the Brethren of a te James Lodge tarbolton which begins Ado a heart-warmer Brothers of the Mystic Thai ye favored ye enlightened few Companions of my social Joy he then refers to the fact that he had been Master of the

Oft honored with Supreme command presiding over the sons of Light and by the hieroglyphic bright which none but Craftsman ever saw strong memory of my heart shall write those happy scenes when far Hour May Freedom Harmony and love unite you in The Grand Design beneath the omnicient ey above the Glorious

Architect Divine that you may may keep the uniring line still Rising by the plummets law till order bright completely shine shall be my prayer when far AWA Burns did not go abroad after all and in July 1787 he was in the chair of the lodge and initiated Dougal

Stewart the professor of philosophy at Edinburgh University into masonry Captain George Smith provincial Grandmaster for Kent published in 7 1983 a work entitled The use and abuse of Freemasonry he is another author who goes to the creation of the world for the origin of his subject and remarks

That at that time The Sovereign architect raised on Masonic principles the beest globe and commanded that Master science geometry to lay the planetary world and to regulate by its laws the whole stupendous system in just uniring proportion rolling round the central Sun but I am not at Liberty

Publicly to undraw draw the curtain and thereby to descant on this head it is sacred and will ever remain so those who are honored with the trust will not reveal it and those who are ignorant of it cannot betray it it has been said of the poet crab that he was a miniature

Writer for in his poems of country life if he describes a Laborer’s Cottage he never forgets the smallest details of the furniture of the house and the clock and plates and knives do not Escape his searching eye one cannot therefore expect to leave out a reference to the

Masonry of his day when describing the burrow in his poem written in 1810 which we have quoted in chapter 20 Thomas Payne the author of The Age of Reason which criticized Christianity wrote an essay on the origin of Freemasonry which was not published till after his death

In 1809 and was reprinted in 1818 by the publisher R Carlile 183 Fleet Street a man with the historic and antiquarian tastes of Sir Walter Scott could hardly avoid becoming a Mason even if his father had not been one before him Scott was initiated into masonry in 1801 and

His son-in-law and biographer lockart and Scott’s son and Grandson also became members of The Craft Scott was imbued with information on all historical subjects and founded his novel of and of gerstein on the records of a secret society while his Masonic knowledge helped him to picture the scene were a

Solemn oath usual in such societies was administered and also helped him to describe the ceremonies and he says in chapter 20 of that novel everything about the institution its proceedings and its officers were preserved in as much obscurity as is now practiced in Freemasonry to come down to the 19th

Century Douglas Gerald in 1845 touched on this subject in the eth chapter of Misses coddle curtain lectures where the Intrepid but fallible coddle has been made a Mason and the turant heroin remarks do you suppose I’d ever suffered you to go and be made a Mason if I

Didn’t suppose I was to know the secrets not that it’s anything to know I dare say and that’s why I’m determined to know it Thomas D Quincy the essayist has already been referred to as to the author of several papers on the rosac crucians and Freemasons but although he

Dived as deeply as was possible into the secrets and history of the rosar crucians his conclusions as to the history of Freemasons are useless in the light of the fresh facts and documents which have been found since he wrote upon the subject in fact he makes the errors

Which all make who form their conclusions before they get the facts in 1835 there appeared in the papers of a periodical called the Republican a series of papers from Richard Carlile who was formerly a publisher in Fleet Street and gave his address as Dorchester jail containing the whole

Ritual of Freemasonry of his time its only interest at the present day is to show how many intellects have been at work since that time to improve and elevated it without destroying its Old World flavor a second writer who somewhat injudiciously attempted to give away some of the details of masonry was

A Frenchman named alons Carr who in 1850 published a work entitled unvoyage otter ma jardan which was widely read at the time in his delightful account of the flowers and trees in his garden he comes upon the acacia which reminds him that it forms part of a masonic Legend which

He then proceeds to tell but whether from the fact that it is a French origin or because of changes due to the lapse of time it is difficult to reconcile it with the authorized version in his Society novel loair written in 1870 Lord beaconfield makes many references to the

Secret societies both of France and Italy which had so much influence on the Italian revolution in 18 67 concerning the French ones he makes one of his character say there are more secret societies in France at this moment than in any period since 1785 for his account of the Italian

Societies in which he mentions Freemasonry see our chapter on that subject any reference to Freemasonry and literature would be incomplete without reference to the great work of bro freak gulon the history of Freemasonry published in three volumes which is a Storehouse of information for the student turning from literature to Art

The most prominent delineator of The Craft was Hogarth whose grasp of the human nature of his day was too wide for so entertaining a subject as Freemasonry to escape him it must be borne in mind that however much of secrecy there was in the lodge there was no attempt on the

Part of the Masons in the early days of George I to hide themselves when out of the lodge and they felt proud to dress themselves in the regalia and parade the streets sometimes with a band of Music this had been done in the former days of

The old system of the campag nonage in France and there is an old print of these French worthies parading the streets of a village on their way to a masonic Feast accordingly we are not surprised to find Hogarth picturing masons in regalia Out of Doors one work

Of his was that of the Gormans and Freemasons referred to in chapter XXL while another is called night which is the fourth of a series of hours of the day the first three being entitled morning noon and evening in night Hogarth pictures a street whose rough cobbles have brought to grief the

Salsbury coach which is lying on its side unattended while from a window opposite peeps out a Slatterly woman the foreground is occupied by an elderly man in knee britches wearing a masonic apron and collar who is the master of a lodge returning home after an evening’s carouse attending him is the Tyler of

The lodge who who Bears a lantern and a pair of snuffers such as were used by tyers of those days to trim the wax candles burnt in The Lodges the picture is not meant to illustrate masonry but to depict scenes such as Hogarth saw around him every day and it affords a

Sidelight on the manners of Freemasons of the time we cannot dismiss the subject of Art in connection with masonry without touching upon the outward adornment of masons in what is termed their clothing it is a goodly sight to watch the proceedings of grand l and to contrast the collars of the grand

Officers of Deep Blue adorned with golden lies against the Scarlet of the stewards and the pale blue of the rest of the craft the apron as we know it now is an article of a stereotyped pattern supplied by the Masonic Jeweler but in 1717 it was of white leather we find

That when that material was supplanted by Kid some latitude was allowed to Masons to exert the artistic fancies of themselves and their lady friends in producing an elaborate ly wrought article some aprons had designs on them drawn with Indian ink some were printed from engraved plates some were hand

Colored While others were beautiful specimens of art needle work worked in silks or sequins the representation of a temple in the center of the apron is a favorite device especially on French aprons which are smaller than the English and are rounded at the corners the aprons of masons in Belgium

And America are of the circular type and shades of green rather than blue are observed in them Germany keeps the full square of the English apron but the blue color is darker and the apron is supported by a red silk sash tied round the waist the badges attached to the

Collars of the master and officers in a lodge are known as jewels and there are many old types of these in existence of varying degrees of art ornamented with various Masonic emblems a wide field of art was also open to the craft in the designing of metals for various occas occasions in

The history of lodges and their officers firing glasses for toasts and glass goblets engraved with the names and arms of lodges were other forms of masonic art and are now highly prized by collectors there are some old and quaint tracing Boards of lodges but the majority of those used at the present

Day are in our opinion very crude and as all of them very considerably there is obviously here a fresh field for the labors of the Masonic artist to produce a work which shall satisfy the most rigorous perceptor of a lodge of instruction and Delight the eyes of the lover of the Fine

Arts XXV Freemasonry and the law it is a curious fact that by 1771 the security of all secret societies was felt to be menaced by the political upheavals of those days and to secure to Freemasonry a safe Anchorage A bill was introduced into the House of Commons by the Hort

Charles Dylan Deputy Grandmaster of the tomodern for incorporating and well-over the Society of free and accepted masons thus giving it a parliamentary sanction the bill was read a first time but Freemasons were not unanimous in its favor and on the second reading it was opposed by Mister Onslow in a speech in

Which he contended that granting the Freemasons a charter was in fact to pass a general bill of naturalization for foreign papists and in all probability giving The Pretender himself the citizenship of a country where he was prescribed under the penalties of high treason thus it will be seen that the old character of

Jacobites given to the Freemasons like the odor of an oldtime scent still clung to them to avoid a defeat Mister Dylan moved the adjournment of the debate which was carried and the bill was never heard of again the idea of the official recognition of Freemasonry by Parliament

Was not however dead and masonry found other means to be recognized by Statute law two important acts of parliament affecting Freemasons and members of other secret societies were passed in the reign of George hii just after the time of the activity of Napoleon bipart the first was the unlawful

Societies act 1799 foot 39 go3 c79 sometimes called the corresponding societies act which prohibited secret societies which took Oaths but accepted Freemasons on their regist string their lodges with the clerk of the pece of the county in which they met the other was the seditious meetings act 1817 57

Go3 C 19 which forbade meetings of societies of more than 50 members but added nothing in this act shall extend to any society or societies Holden under the denomination of Lodges of Freemasons in Conformity with rules provided such lodges shall comply with the rules and regulations in the the ACT 39 goo 3

C79 by a declaration before two justices of the peace and confirmed by the major part of the justices at quarter sessions in a few years after its New Foundation Freemasonry found itself in the Law Courts for bro Pritchard had been grossly annoyed by one Barrett who had made insulting observations touching the

Craft the former finding that arguments were of no use in keeping up the character of the institution at last lost his temper and forcibly impressed his arguments on the head and nose of the insulting Barrett the latter went to his attorney who brought an action of Barrett versus Pritchard in the court of

Common pleas at Westminster for assault and battery the case was tried before a judge and jury who in consideration of the provocation the defendant had received awarded the plaintiff a verdict of only 20 Shillings damages this however carried costs with it and bro Pritchard had to pay the

Expenses of both sides here was the first opportunity for the craft to afford support to its brother members and accordingly on November 25th 1723 Grand Lodge minutes record that mister Henry pritchard’s case was recommended by the grandm to the Grand Lodge that he should not be a sufferer on February

19th 1724 a subscription was got up in Grand Lodge for the relief of bro Pritchard which realized £87 6D the grandmas the Earl of D Keith heading the list with two guies it must not be forgotten that in order to get at present day values one must multiply

These figures by six which would make the total amount about £175 which was probably enough to pay the whole expense of the litigation another curious law case concerning Masons was tried in 1815 at the old Palace court at West Miner which is now abolished the plaintiff was a

Printer named Smith who sued Finch for the price of work done Finch admitted the debt but claimed to have a set off for £161 19 6D for making the plaintiff a Mason and giving him instruction in the various degrees this sounds as odd a claim as

Could be made and its strangeness is no wise lessened when we hear that the so-called Lodge was a private one conducted at Finch’s private house near Westminster brick expert Witnesses were called from Grand Lodge who proved that Finch was not authorized to make Masons and that it

Was against the rules of the craft to make private gain out of such work we are happy to add that the jury promptly found against Finch who had to pay the plaintiff’s account in full in Scotland Freemasons also took their part in the Law Courts for in July 1810 a case of

Loss and V Gordon was heard in the court of session in Edinburgh in which the plaintiff or pursuer as he is there called claimed that a masonic lodge could be treated as an incorporated body but this was disallowed by the court in another Scotch case to which we have no

Reference in the same court a question arose as to whether Masonic lodges in order to obtain the protection of the act of 1799 must be certified by the Grand Lodge of Scotland or whether outside lodges were also protected the court decided that the ACT applied to all lodges whether certified or not

Conclusion to summarize our results we may point out briefly that we have thus tried without overloading our work with detail to trace from earliest times the succession of changes in the minds of men who founded secret societies we have pointed out the transactions of the essenes written by

Josephus and copied at Alexandria by filo and the Greek Jews from whom in turn they were learned by Pythagoras who left behind him writing in which references were made to these earlier Mysteries these Greek writings remained dead for many years till they were Unearthed at the end of the 15th century

When the study of the classics revived and were learned by the students clerical and lei both on the continent and in England the Norman invasion of England meant not only the incursion of soldiers into the land but also of an army of foreign ecclesiastics and Builders who set to work to erect

Cathedrals and churches thus as we have shown came about the establishment of the operative Masonic lodges with their passwords and obligations all of which may well have been taught them by the priests who in turn may have got them from tradition if they could not then read them from the

Original Greek this is sufficient to account for the early ritual of the transition days from 1536 when the Lesser monasteries began to be suppressed and church building ceased for a time until the beginning of St Paul’s Cathedral in 1675 it is difficult to speculate as to when those parts of the ritual which

Seem to be taken from the Sun worshippers were introduced for we find no trace of them among the operative Masons and possibly it was in the transition period of the 17th century that some scholar Came Upon them in his studies and work them into the Mason’s ritual it is important in tracing the

History of Freemasonry to bear in mind that the ritual consists of two sharply defined Parts the first being what is known as the Entered Apprentice and fellowcraft degrees which are clearly derived from the old operative Masons the second or Master Masons part which was established in England at some

Time between 1717 and 1730 has an entirely different history though there is no direct evidence as to who wrote it or whence it was derived perhaps it came directly from the scotch Masons perhaps it was written by some learned Hebrew Scholars like Dr Anderson for the man who wrote it knew

His Hebrew Bible well perhaps such a man was assisted by Scholars who had in their minds some of the old Egyptian Legends perhaps time May throw its Limelight upon the subject but in the meantime we can only hold out our candle in the darkness to show up the facts that a apparent today

And which must be of the greatest interest to all who are interested in the craft its Noble designs and its beneficent work the end

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