Concerning Lord Carnarvon's Speech At The Installation.

CONCERNING LORD CARNARVON'S SPEECH AT THE INSTALLATION .

WE refrain from criticising tlie letter of Bro . W . P . Buchan which appeared last week in our columns . Though the remarks of the Pro Grand Master need no defence , wo cannot allow Bro . Buchan ' s attack to pass without a commentary . Bro . Buchan says that , " according to the records he has perused , our Freemasonry is not of

great antiquity , for no evidence has been produced of its existence even so recently as two hundred years ago . " He probably intends this assertion to be taken in the spirit ,

not in the letter , for he must have read the record of Ashmole's initiation ( A . D . 164 G ) and the strictures of Dr . Plot ( A . D . 1686 ) , which prove Freemasonry to have been in active operation two hundred years ago .

Painstaking investigators have of late endeavoured to clear away all rubbish from the history of our Order . Some have made a clean sweep of all which does not bear the word Freemasonry , written or printed ; others , conceding a certain antiquity to the title , deny that the Freemasonry of

to-day is the same thing , and say that whereas wo are speculative , the earlier Freemasons were operative only . Upon reviewing the vast scientific knowledge of the old artificers , the moral doctrines symbolised by them in stone , and the natural secrets which remain thinly veiled in our

ceremonial , we rest convinced that the pregnant symbolism common to them and to us must always have been speculatively applied . The name Freemasonry but not the system , might be of

modern origin ; the detail of our Ritual , but not its tenour we know to have been altered ; symbols may have been degraded or promoted , but their meaning is tho same which was understood ages ago .

The nature of a secret Society has not been sufficiently allowed for by some of its critics . The fate of its records was no concern of any State or Municipal body ; the chain of its vitality was oral , and not written ; any significant

scrap which may have been recorded , it was the duty of the members to destroy . The tests applicable to ordinary history are useless tuith respect to Freemasonry : we might as well direct a microscope to the stars .

Our case stands thus : JNumerous recorded symbols of important truths may be traced back " to a great antiquity —an antiquity ascending into the sphere of immemorial tradition ; " their expression and meaning are attested by a variety of independent evidence and by monuments

which cannot lie . That these symbols , with tho moral doctrines they involve , have been the property of certain associations of artificers in every age , is equally demonstrable . Names may change with language , ceremonies be modified by opinion , formuke be distorted ; but all we can

learn of the ceremonies and organisation of the Dionysiacs , the Architectonici , the Steinmetzen , Freemasons , & c . show a relationship which cannot be attributed to chance , whilst their symbols and moral doctrines are so similar that in most respects they appear identical .

Rank and file there must always have been , ignorant of the designs they helped to execute , but the Architects were evidentl y masters of that speculative symbolism which knits all science into itself , confirming harmonial proportion in both operative and speculative rule . The pyramid

was a gigantic symmetry , it was also an instrument of geometry and astronomy . Stonehenge is a marvel of engineering , not less' so of mathematical precision as an observatory . More than one ancient edifice displays the two columns of our speculative Temple in such manner as

Concerning Lord Carnarvon's Speech At The Installation.

not to be mistaken for anything except those expressly designated in our Lodges . Other significant indications abound . The Architects of King ' s College , Cambridge ( called Freemasons upon the building contracts ) produced

a roof which was the despair of Wren . These we cite to show that scientific secrets were handed down and that , though some are lost their framework survives , which we call SPECULATIVE FREEMASONRY .

There is ampler evidence of the antiquity of our Society than of other institutions which have survived the lapse of time , but the class of evidence is dissimilar . The

philosopher will not refuse to admit the force of special proof for special subjects . The sophistry which ignores it , is capable of denying tho Christianity of to-day to be a lineal descendant of tho early Church .

To conclude—the Church of Rome is an unwilling witness . It brands us as a survival of a sect of the Manichceans . * Being well aware that our system was taught in secret long ere its Pontiffs arrogated a monopoly of moral truth , and that our symbols are keys which unlock the

same treasure as does the tri ple cross , it has never relaxed deadly hostility . Had it the power , it would exterminate us as unsparingly as it did the Waldenses and Albigenses ; the cruel sufferings of our brethren in Germany , Spain ,

Portugal , and Italy are fresh in onr remembrance ; and only the secular power is wanting , to enable our enemy to continue that barbarous persecution , even in the face of the public opinion of an enlightened age .

It would be painful for us to wield a pen in aught that resembles controversy with a Brother who when in Lodge will think with us . Whilst trusting with reverence that the magnitude of objects in the past may not lead us to

overlook facts which are before us , wo would warn that short sight which discerns only objects in immediate proximity , and for which tho glories of the landscape have no existence .

Masonry And The Outer World.

MASONRY AND THE OUTER WORLD .

IT is , perhaps , natural that the Installation of the Grand Master should have attracted much public attention to an Order the scope and aims of which are but little understood by the outer world . The old vulgar misconceptiona are , indeed , passing away , but instead of them others are

rising up , which , though totally unfounded , may , if not contradicted , pass for truth . Masons , indeed , do not care much for public opinion ; they are fully conscious that the principles of the Craft are strictl y in accord with religion and morality , and they do not trouble themselves to meet or refute all the idle rumours to which the uninitiated have

given currency . It is , however , our duty , as Masonic journalists , to notice anything which may be of interest to the Craft , and it has been our pleasure recently to quote opinions of the press in reference to the Installation ceremony , which , in some degree , reflect the prevailing ideas in

the popular mind . We might , indeed , have quoted coarser diatribes than those of the Saturday Review , but it is not necessary to search the sink-holes of journalism for

opinions . The general tone of the public mind is hi ghly favourable to the claims of Masonry , as a valuable institution for the promotion of charitable objects and fraternal feelings amongst mankind , Yet , in some quarters an im-