Pre-Historic Freemasonry.

to invest it with a romantic glamour , by showing a descent from the learned and mystical societies of the ancient world , and a fabulous history was constructed to support the theories thus advanced . Its genealogy was traced , with ingenious details and lucid explanations , from the commencement of time , and imagination filled the gaps and bridged the chasms during the long

ages that were supposed to have intervened . In a few instances some gifted seer , more wise than his fellows , with retrospective vision pierced the ever deepening shadows of the past and revealed the actual time ancl place of its birth ; others , less bold but equally imaginative , have beon content with

finding it already in active life in the ancient mysteries of the far East , but , as a rule , the veracious historian has silenced cavil and carefully concealed his own lack of knowledge by ascribing to it an origin which " is lost in the dim mists of antiquity . "

It is nofc strange that in this enlightened age the repetition of these old tales should have produced in many a feeling of revulsion and a general tendency to discredit all claims of ancient lineage and descent . Indeed , I have frequently heard it asserted , by many of the moro skeptically inclined , that the assembly of 1717 was not a revival , but a birth ; that the four old

London Lodges were but a pleasant fiction , and that from the fertile brains of Anderson and his confreres was evolved a social club , which unforeseen circumstances subsequently developed into a vast , far-reaching Fraternity

and so , between the Scylla of blind credulity and the Charybdis of open skepticism the student of Masonic history must carefully feel his way with but little , I regret to say , to guide his steps or throw light upon his investigations .

Yet , notwithstanding the assertions of the skeptics on the one hand , and despite the fairy tales of the writers of imagination on the other , Freemasonry has a past ; it has , to some extent , an authentic history , and its existence does extend to a time " whereof the memory of man runneth not to the contrary . "

There are few subjects of historical inquiry thafc present to the investigator at any one period or point of time so wide and well defined a line of demarkation between the unquestioned and authentic and the doubtful or

unknown , as that afforded by the so-called revival of Masonry in 1717 . Since that time a fairly well established line of evidence supports fche general features of an accepted history , and but little room is left for disputation , but beyond it lies the debatable land .

For nearly two centuries Masons of all rites and degrees have been exploring this terra incognita , penetrating its concealed recesses and sounding its ; abysmal depths ; but the sum total of all the discoveries thus far reported , exclusive of those graphic delineations drawn wholly from the inner cothsciousness of the writers , are a few manuscript constitutions of uncertain

ajge , with here and there a causal reference in contemporary documents , iput if fche direct line of search has yielded little to reward the efforts of the ( seeker after facts , collateral inquiry has thrown upon the meagie data thus far attained a strong side light that goes far to clear the mists of the past and enable us to form some adequate ideas of Masonry as it existed prior to the historic revival . And one of tho most significant of the lessons taught is ,

that we shall seek in vain for the lost records of a former grandeur or the missing evidence that shall connect us with an illustrious past , and while the proud boast of a noble ancestry may still be made , it is yet the nobility of labour and our highest titles came to us through tho long heritage of toil .

I have no desire fco pose as an iconoclast , nor fco parade my humble opinions in opposition to those of the wise and the great who have preceded me , * therefore , I do not say that Masonry has not existed in unbroken continuity for countless ages ; that the Dionysian artificers were not our progenitors ; that the Roman Colleges were not of our Fraternity in fche direct line of

succession , nor that we are not legitimately descended from them . Indeed , a positive denial of these statements does not lie in the mouth of any man , hut I can safely assert that no proof to sustain this pedigree has ever been produced , and that fcho tendency ot modern discovery leads fco a contrary conclusion .

Our views and opinions respecting the antiquity of the Fraternity must , in a large measure , be shaped by the old manuscript constitutions to which I have alluded , and of which at least sixty are now known to be in existence . These are the only authentic memorials that have come down to us from the early Freemasons , and from the internal evidence which they afford much oi

our present knowledge is derived . These constitutions aro all similar in general characteristics , and consist in the main of two parts , the first being a recital of legendary history , now called , for want of a better name , fche " legend of the Craft , " and the second consisting of what are popularly known as the " Ancient Charges , " or the general regulations of the Craft . Thoy are

written on strips of parchment or vellum and are of various dates known or surmised , from 1390 until the commencement of the eighteenth century . The majority of these interesting documents show signs of long and active Use , and would seem to have been actually employed in the work of the prehistoric Lodges and to have been read to candidates at the time of fcheir

initiation . They prove beyond a doubt that tho society , during the three hundred years which preceded the revival of 1717 , was not an ordinary guild like the livery companies or other strictly operative associations , but

professed to teach , and bound its members to the practice of , a high morality , obligating them to be true men , not only in their relations to one another and those around them , but also in the observance of their duties to God , the Church and the King . They contain much fchafc unmistakably stamps fchem

¦ ra emanating from an operative society , however , and fche conclusion now ^¦ oerally accepted is that they represent the transition period , when Masonry gc *^^ nassing from a strictly operative to a purely speculative condition . was ^^^ L

Pre-Historic Freemasonry.

The internal evidence so presented has itself been the subject of much speculation and widely differing opinion . Thus these parts , which , by way of introduction to the charges , recite the so called " legend of the Craft , " have been seized upon by fcho fiction writers as fully substantiating the traditions of our esoteric ceremonies , and to the casual observer this assertion

may not seem altogether unfounded . The legend in question purports to be a history of tlie manner in which " this worthy Craffc of Masonry , " was founded and afterwards . maintained , commencing wifch tho sons of Adam and continuing down to the times of tho later Saxon kings of England . But this " history , " as will he seen on closer inspection , does not purport to be that of

a society or guild , but is rather a summary , and nofc a very accurate one afc thafc , of the general course of the building art or geometry , and attempts to describe its vicissitudes in much the same manner as might be done in the case of music , astronomy , or any other of the seven liberal arts and sciences . Indeed , it is not claimed in these old chonicles fchafc a formal institution of

the Masonic guild was effected until the time of King Athelstan , who at the traditionary assembly at York in the tenth century , is said to have given them a charter , and at which time the charges and rules for the government of the Craft were formulated . Here then is the genesis of Masonry as revealed by its own writings ; whether it be true or false I do not now assume to decide ,

but can only say that secular history verifies the time , if not the manner of its institution . From the tenth to fourteenth century ifc remained a workingman's guild , differing probably in no essential feature from the other Craft guilds of the period , and with nothing of an esoteric character , so far as known , except its trade secrets . During all these years it left no sign , and

for all of our information concerning it we are dependent on general history . In 1356 was enacted the first Statute of Labourers whioh forbade the congregation of artisans , who , it was alleged , were thereby incited to unjust and illegal demands , contrary to the spirit of the English Constitution . At this time , then , must be dated the first change in the character of the guild ,

and the earliest written memorial which we possess , the Regius Poem , is ascribed to a period ahout forty years later . It was not until 1424 , however , that effective measures were taken to suppress trade organisations or

assemblies of workmen , and from this period may be observed the speculative character and the growing tendency towards that system of symbolic philosophy which culminated in the formation of the Grand Lodge of 1717 .

There are those , and fcheir learning and ability command ior them the highest respect for their opinions , who , while repudiating the traditionary origin of the Craft , nevertheless contend that the old constitutions clearly point to the existence of a symbolic or speculative society at the earliest date from whence they assume to speak . According to fche theory of these savants

it would seem that aa early as the fourteenth century ( the date of the earliest known manuscript ) , there was a guild or Fraternity commemorating the science , but without practicing the art , of Masonry ; fchafc such guild was not composed of operative Masons ; that the persons to whom the text of these manuoripts waa recited were a society from whom all but the memory or

tradition of its ancient trade had departed , and that certain passages may be held to indicate rather the absorption of a Craft legend by a social guild than a gradual transition from operative to speculative Masonry by a Craft or Fraternity composed in the first instance of practical builders . It must be

admitted that thero is something very fascinating about this theory , but the view is not considered tenable by the majority of Masonic students , and finds its adherants mainly among thoso who seek to avoid the very evidentplebeian birth of fche institution .

But whatever may have been the origin or anterior purpose of this fraternity matters little at this time . Whether in its rude and primitive form it fulfilled the merely utilitarian purposes of trades union , or whether rising to a higher plain it taught fche workman that the tools with which he wrought

were endowed with a symbolic significance in the shaping of his own life and character , is , after all , of bufc a trivial inquiry compared with fche momentous question—what is Freemasonry to-day ? The pre-historic age lies far behind us , never to return ; the present is ours and the future will be , and the record which we make to-day will itself become history to-morrow .

So Jet us live and act fchafc by the Masonic application of the tools of our art we shall raise for ourselves an imperishabe monument of virtue aud morality , and when this living present shall have become the dead and distant

past , the student of Masonic lore , standing as I do now , and discoursing to the generations yet unborn , shall find in us an example worthy of all imitation , and derive a new inspiration from the contemplation of the faded but not forgotten glories of an historic past . — " Voice of Masonry . "

The March Of Masonry.

THE MARCH OF MASONRY

IN many respects Masonry is one of the wonders of the world , for , kindred wifch the primitive ages , its antiquity has made ifc venerable , without fossilisation , or the detriment of organic feebleness . It has travelled down along with the ages as a favoured child of time , as simple and modest in its

pretensions as it has ever been in its movements and practical chanties . It has witnessed the rise of kingdoms with dignity and complacency , and seen their fall without a single relative injury . Revolutions have not convulsed it , or in any sense scattered it in any of its vital parts . Even in the darkest storms of thc nation it has stood unshorn in the raiments of its own moral

beauty , and under all vicissitudes dispensed its charities to the destitute with an unselfish but cautious frugality . Never intermingling with the bigotry of political chicanery , or with the intolerance of speculative theology , it has escaped the mutations of the one