Gossip About Freemasonry; Its History And Traditions.

GOSSIP ABOUT FREEMASONRY ; ITS HISTORY AND TRADITIONS .

A Paper read by Bro . S . Vallentine , P . M . and Z . No . 9 , to the Brethren of the Albion Lodge of Instruction , 2 nd November 1 SS 9 .

( Continued from page 51 . )

fl"YHE Sacred Law could have held but short supremacy JL over the minds of the people . Josiah ' s unworthy son Jehoicam was conquered and became captive to Nebuchadnezzar , and it was again disused and apparently lost . A copy , however , is said to have been secreted by Hildah

the Prophetess , and was discovered during the building of the second Temple . Here tradition again steps forward , telling us , by means of the Apocryphal Book of Esaias and the not always correct Josephus , that Zerubbabel was permitted to resume the re-building of tho second Temple by favour

of Darius , such privilege having been obtained by the influence of the king ' s concubine Apane , who was pleased by the victory of Zerubbabel in a poetic contest , the theme given being as to which was most powerful , " The King ,

Wine , or Woman , " he having awarded the superiority fo the latter . Apane , in her delight at this compliment , urged the monarch to issue the necessary decree . On tho commencement of tbe work Ezra devoted himself to the

arrangement of the Sacred Books . According to Dean Milman , much of the Hebrew Literature was lost at the time of tho captivity , including the ancient book of Jashir ( see Joshua x . 13 ) , that of tho Wars of the Lord , the writings of God , and Iddo the Prophet , and thoso of Solomon on Natural History .

Succeeding this , troublous times again encompassed the Jews . Alexander the Great sent a colony of that people to Alexandria , aud it is reported that the Egyptians made claim against them , and appealed to that ruler to enforce it . It was that they should be condemned to reimburse the

value of the gold , silver and precious stones which their ancestors had lent them at their departure from Egypt under Moses . The Jews allowed the justice of tho claim of the Egyptians , and consented to pay them , provided that they too would satisf y thoir demand tor the services of four

hundred years which their fathers had rendered to the Egyptians . Alexander decided that the claims of the Egyptians and those of the Jews balanced each other . The Jewish triumph was but short-lived , for Ptolemy , one of Alexander ' s generals , having mado himself master of

Egypt , invaded Judea and carried into captivity one hundred thousand of its inhabitants , whom ho sold as slaves to tho Egyptians . But yet again another gleam of sunshine came over this people when Ptolemy ' s son Philadelphus restored freedom to these unfortunates . Under this

¦ sovereign , and at the request of the Israelites resident at Alexandria , the Septuagint was produced , containing perhaps the first translation of the Pentateuch into Greek . Jt is said Ptolemy desired the High Priest at Jerusalem to select men who were thoroughly acquainted with the

Hebiew language to assist in the translation . John , in his work on the Hebrew Commonwealth , asserts that the Jews who bad established themselves in Egypt valued the Septuagint highly because they had lost their knowledge of Hebrew . It is not impossible thafc many of the

authorities and works of reference consulted for the objects of their labour may have been lost to the world by the destruction of the Alexandrian Library . However , this work and the Latin translations of it were adopted by the ecclesiastical authorities of the Christian Church until the

at that time so-called " Modern Solomon , " James I ., sanctioned by his Royal will the English version of the Scriptures , now used and known as the Authorised Version . It has been said that of 47 persons who were appointed to make this translation only three of them understood

Hebrew , and of these two died before the completion of the work . Ifc appears to my thinking that amid all these vicissitudes some portions of the purely historical parts of the Bible may have been confused . I cannot imagine that the violations of the unities of time , such as we find in

many portions of ifc , could have been in the original . Of course I am not in any way alluding to the sacred portions of it . God ' s holy will and word has been at all times impressed on the hearts of some good and worthy men , of whom many lived to propagate it , and died in defence of it . It needed not for this purpose to be written on linen or

Gossip About Freemasonry; Its History And Traditions.

papyrus , vellum or crape . God willed his word should livo , and it lives . In its genealogies of the Patriarchs errors of some ignorant or presumptuous transcribers have found admission , otherwise wo could scarcely find the two chapters of

Genesis , iv . and v ., in contradiction , and that , after a clear statement of the line from Adam to Noah in the first of these chapters the other should abruptly commence , " this is the book of the generations of Adam , " and then proceed to materially alter this line . Has this been done

accidentally , or purposely , with the object to direct attention from the circumstance that the man saved by God to repeoplo the earth was descended not from the so-called pious race of Seth , bufc from that of the so-called accursed Cain .

I think chapter iv . originally contained , as ifc now does , the generations of Cain ; chapter v . only that of Seth , that is to say from Enos to Jared . Chapter iv . contains no mention of the family of Seth , because it only professes to give that of Cain ; but chapter v ., " The book of the

generations of Adam , " has no mention either of Cain , Abel , or Cain's son Enoch ; verses 25 and 26 of chapter iv . I take to be an addition to that chapter for the purpose , through the similarity of the names of Enoch and Enos , that it might be said that in the days of the latter men began to

call on tbe name of the Lord . If the opinion of Maimonides that I have read to you be correct , then men did not call on tbe Lord in the days of Enos . And what says the Talmud : — " Seth lived 105 years , and begat Enos . Then the people increased , and grew many upon the face of the

earth , aud they polluted their souls by sin and rebellion against the Lord . Their wickedness and transgressions increased day by day . They forgot tho Eternal wbo had formed them , and given them the earth as a possession . They made images of copper and iron , of wood and of stone ,

to which they prostrated themselves in worship . During the entire lifetime of Enoch the people continued thus unrighteous . During this time there was neither sowing or reaping . There was a grievous famine in the land , for when the people became corrupt the land was also corrupted , and

instead of fruit for men's subsistence it brought forth thistles . ' Yet another statement ; Eusebius attributes to tbe people of thoso days " a brutal and disorderly mode of life . They wandered lawless through the desert like savage and fierce

animals , destroying the intellectuality of man , and exterminating tho very seeds of reason and culture of the human mind by the excesses of determined wickedness , and by a total surrender of themselves to every species of iniquity . " If theso statements have even but a small stratum of truth

in their foundation , it materially helps my theory that the city of Enoch was the firsfc refuge , and a rallying point for those who worshipped God Most High , and who cultivated " the seeds of reason , " from which grew thafc which wo now call Freemasonry . We must put from our minds a

not uncommon idea that Adam ' s family for an unusually long period consisted only of Cain and Abel . Early writers , or traditionalists , for they appear to have been nearly one and the same , say that bis family comprised thirty-three sons and twenty-seven daughters , and

certainly Cain ' s expression , " every one that findeth me shall slay me , " requires some such explanation ; and " every one " can only allude either to children begat by Abel , or of brethren of Cain and Abel and their tribes or families , who execrated the crime and he who committed it .

Mr . Whiston made a calculation that afc the period of tbe Deluge the population of the world had increased to hundreds of millions . Historians of these times appear to agree that the family and followers of the " wicked " Cain dwelled in the plains , the pious children of the pious Seth ,

one of whom was Enos , dwelt in the mountains , and I presume a blood feud existed between them . We are told that consequent npon the death of Abel , Cain with his wife and adherents had been driven from the altars of Adam , and he bad become a wanderer . The Talmud says

of this : — " And Cain went forth a wanderer from the presence of his Maker , forth to fche land on the east of Eden . Now , after this time , when God began to give Cain rest , " ( which I take fco mean mental rest , or greater quietude to his troubled conscience ) , " his wife conceived and bare a

son , and Cain called his son Enoch , because God had at last given him rest upon the earth . " The feud , after lasting very many years , was at last healed , as feuds have been often healed since those antique times , by the beauty of woman and the love of pleasures . An Arabian writer , cited by Selden , says that the children of Seth had sworn by the blood of