Freemasonry's Fruitage.

here . As you have inbreathed into these walls your faith in the sublime teachings of Masonry , they shall be a record of tho unwritten histories of brotherly love , relief and truth .

AGE AND OUIOIN OI < MASONRY . Architecture was not tho creation of tho savage or halfcivilised j the same may be said of Masonry . Architecture was conceived and developed and flourished under law and order in those places where the worship of God , in somo of

its forms , was accepted and regulated by authority . In such portions of the globe Masonry is found in its fulness and its teachings are best understood ancl appreciated . Into its Lodges it gathered the useful , the brave and the just . It taught a knowledge of one God , and the necessity for

the observance of the moral law . How old then is Masonry ? Ifc counts its great age by tho centuries . It has its history . All along the centuries we may read the faithful records if wo will ; for it has not lived in a corner nor hid its light under a bushel .

Prior to the Christian era , history tells us of Operative Masonry organised into colleges , and thc novitiates graded according to the skill of the workman . Into these colleges mon were initiated- Those were Operative Masons . In these associations were taught tlio practical lessons of

Masonry . Was this all ? Think you the education began and ended here ? Moral and religious lessons wero as important as the practical . Need I toll you thafc in these schools were taught the knowledge of ono God , obedience to the moral law ? Whence originated thoso teachings ?

" Once more search with me . ' The truth of history demonstrates itself . Prior to the flight of Demeter to Eleusis , down to the eighteenth century , he who publicly taught ; the existence of one only God , and views of religion at variance with the established

notions of the state , too often had his name enrolled with fche martyrs . A pure life , devotion to duty , never palliated the offence of unbelief against established religion . The Greeks condemned Anaxagoras to death because he taught that Mount Olympus was not tbe throne of God ; that the

lightning and the thunder were not produced by the shaking of the iEgis of Zeus , but wero natural phenomena . Socrates was compelled to drink hemlock because he taught the existence of one God and thereby corrupted the youths of Athens ! So I might follow down the long list , for their name is legion .

India , Assyria , Egypt , Greece , Rome , all hacl gods * so many , indeed , that names could not he found applicable to describe their qualities . In Athens Paul found ono monument to the " Unknown God . " He who openly taught that God had imparted divine qualities to man was regarded as an enemy to the state and to religion .

Can you realise , therefore , how schools were established with closed doors ; and that the knowledge of the unity of God and His attributes were revealed only tothe initiated p This was true of the Eleusiniau and Egyptian mysteries . Into the first and second degrees of the Elensinian

mysteries all the people of Greece were eligible , and all joined in celebrating its feasts . Tothe third , or Epopsis , only those who were qualified ever became Epoptse . Its esoteric teachings were handed down by tradition , written only on the memory of the initiated . What wns there

taught was m symbols * and of it we only know in a fragmentary way . Of one fact we are certain—the teachings of Aryan origin , afc variance wifch the established religion of the stato and its sacrificial forms of worship , and consequently were proscribed .

The supreme power of the state in that earl y day had not learned , as it has since , that penalties , however severe , fail to fetter human thonght . When we take a retrospective view of the great struggle for free thought , which began so far back its date is lost ia traditions , the intense

dee-ire of the soul to get nearer the divine , to enlarge its knowledge of God , ancl man ' s endeavour to learn what God demands of him , beyond sacrifices on altars of stono ; when we realise how far from satisfying the thoughtful

and contemplative were thc religious' ceremonies of India , Egypt , Greece and Rome , is ifc a wonder that men organised secret associations and gave their holiest endeavours , if possible to find oufc God ?

Into these mysteries were initiated Pythagoras , Solon Socrates , Aristotle , Sophocles , Plato , Pindar , Plutarch Isocrates , Diodorus , and a cloud of great men , who , in various ways , left the record of their belief in the purity ,

Freemasonry's Fruitage.

— - — - ¦¦ ¦ - — : — ' 11 r truthfulness and value of the mysteries of tbe Epopsif . If Plutarch may be taken as authority , it required a long philosophical training , a sincere religions and prayerful frame of mind , to comprehend the fulness and importance

of theso Elensinian mysteries as taught in the third degree . A further insig ht into tho early religion of the primitive Aryans , commands onr admiration . Ifc taught a belief in one great ineffable God , a boing whose greatness no human mind was capable of understanding ; no language

contained words wherewith to describe His attributes . Ho was , therefore , a Deity without a temple , and beyond the thought of human worship . In contemplating such a

beino * , tho human stood in silence , and the worshipper , by his " attitude alone , acknowledged God's goodness and o-reatness . It was in the belief in such a Supreme Being that the Aryans had absolute faith and trust .

Following these mysteries , full of food for reflection , through a period of Israelitish history , we reach tho time when Solomon determined to build the temple . How was it to be built ? Not by calling on the fathers and elders of

Israel . They were nofc skilled in such work . He therefore sent to Hiram , King of Tyre . " And behold I propose to build an house unto the name of the Lord my God . " " Send me now therefore a man cunning to work . "

Thus wo find three important characters , brought together by Solomon , actively engaged in directing the work of building the temple—Solomon , King of Israel ; Hiram King of Tyre ; and Hiram , the widow ' s son . The artizans principally were Phoenicians , who were skilled

workmen . The city of Tyre was at that date an ancient city , seventeen hundred and forty-five years old . Its people were far advanced in the knowledge of architecture and

ship-building . In such a country there were system , order , workmen , educated artists ; there were workers in glass ; weavers in fine linen and purple ; ship-builders and architects ; stone-ma ? ons and workers in brass .

In building the temple , how necessary this labour should be organised ; masters , skilled workmen ( fellow crafts ) , and bearers of burdens ( apprentices ) . These divisions naturally grouped themselves together , according to their rank and class , with rules for the government of each .

Such , tradition tells us , was the fact . The social life and ceremonies incident to tbe passing out of one class into a hig her are all left out of the record . But it is natural to suppose that these steps were preceded by some sort of ceremony because , less than three centuries later , we have

architects—Operative Masons—with civil rights , ceremonies , festival celebrations , in the principal cities of the East , as well as at Rome . Athelstan , grandson of Alfred the Great , issued to them charters ; and York was the seat of the Grand Master of this body of Operative Masons

in England . From this period the history of this Order of organised Masons is as well authenticated as any other fact in history . In 1703 Sir Christopher Wren was Grand Master of the Order in England . In his construction of St . Paul ' s cathedral the members of

this Order were the skilled workmen employed . During his period as Grand Master he used his great influence to bar admission to membership of any but Operative Masons . Upon his death this objection was removed , and Speculative Masons were received into fellowship ; gradually ,

thereafter , it ceased to be practical , and became wholly speculative . Its great work henceforth was directed to moral and religious teachings . The teachings were symbolical . The plumb , the level and square , the rough ashlar , the perfect ashlar , and the trestleboard , each to

symbolize a great truth essential to man ' s perfect knowledge of himself and of his Maker . But if the operative work has ceased , the Soul of the Order haa survived with all its speculative teachings that were ever part of its life , indeed the grander portion of its mission , as it has come down the centuries .

Why these organizations ? What were their purposes and objects ? Think yon they were mere labour machines , composed of men with no higher aim than to earn wages for

day ' s labour ? Did they live out of the world of thought ? Did these men have no aspirations beyond mere existence ? How long weuld snch association last , " cabin'd , cribb'd , confined , " within the narrow limits of a tread-mill .

It may be said that all trades and professions in those early days were organized into associations in the same manner as the Operative Masons ; that these trades' artizans had their Masters , Past Masters , Wardens and other Officers . To this point the similarity of theso anions may be admitted , and it does not weaken the claim set np for