History Of Freemasonry.

HISTORY OF FREEMASONRY .

ME . F . H . SKEINE delivered a lecture on Freemasonry , in the Hall of the Society for the Higher Training of Young

Men , Hindu School , Calcutta , on Wednesday , 21 st August , says the " Madras Mail . " The chair was taken by Mr . Longley , Master of the Trades' Association , and there was a very large attendance . The Chairman introduced the lecturer in a few well chosen words .

The lecturer deduced Freemasonry from the system of mercantile and Craft Guilds , which overspread Europe as soon as it began to shake off the paralysis which followed the downfall of the Roman Empire . These organisations controlled municipal government and directed the stream of commerce at their will . Each had a ruling body , which administered its

funds arid regulated the branch of trade which it represented . No one could , down to times within living memory , set up in any given handicraft without serving an apprenticeship under a Master who belonged to the guild of the Craft concerned , was " free " of it , as the technical phrase went . The Guilds had great economic value in times of political anarchy , for they presented a

firm and united front to the aggression of the warrior caste ; secured a market for the abilities of each member , * and assured to the consumer a reasonable degree of skill in all artifices . They had their day , and were broken up by the tide of industrial progress which succeeded the invention of tho steam-engine and swept down the feeble barriers by which they sought to

control human energy . ' They are now extinct , though then * pale ghosts hover above the great city which they once governed so well in the guise of the London Livery Companies . The Masons held the first place among the mediaeval Guilds . Their business requires a high degree of technical skill , and a proportionately long apprenticeship . And then , architecture was the

one fine art of those early times , just as war and the chase were their sole diversions . Under the influence of Christianity princes , warriors and merchants vied with each other in raising shrines to Him " who dwelleth not in temples made with hands . " Every town in Christendom saw , rising heaven-wards , a fane rich with delicate tracery , abaze with the glories of

painted glass , whose long-drawn aisles and fretted vaults are the wonder and despair of moderns . The great churches of Europe are something more than George Eliot called them , " petrified religion . " They are epic poems in stone , telling of an Age of Faith , when the genius , the enthusiasm and the resources of an entire nation conspired to hymn the glory of God . India , too , teems

with memorials oi a mighty pasfc , but her rock-cut temples with their solemn vistas and her domed sepulchres of saints and warriors are far from rivalling the majesty of our northern Cathedrals . It was during these times of a " faith that could move mountains " that the Masons' Guild attained its apogee . They were essentially a nomad race .

The news that the foundation stone of a great Abbey or Cathedral had been laid spread like wildfire over Europe , and attracted the confraternity from all directions . In order to identify newcomers a system of signs and passwords of great antiquity was rigidly enforced . The Masons lived in huts which nestled round the great edifice they were erecting and submitted

themselves to the authority of their Council , or " Lodge , " a word which recalls its temporary or provisional character . Their work was not only punctiliously conscientious ; they were" * artists as well as Crafsmen , and everywhere the Cathedrals reveal traces of that individuality of the contriver which is the surest test of genius .

The fifteenth century , when Gothic architecture was at its culmination , was the turning point in the history of the Craft . The discovery of the New World carried the dullest , minds far beyond the narrow confines of Europe . The invention of printing prodigiously increased the stock of human knowledge . No longer content with Biblical history and monkish legend men

delved eagerly into the literature of Greece and Rome , and revelled in the grace and beauty of the ancient models . Hence the genisis of tnat mighty movement known as the Renascence , which aimed at assimilating the old art and literature , and forming an eclectic school in both . Architecture soon felt the radical change in the current of thought . Its first stage downwards was

the Flamboyant style , where ornament was piled on ornament and details were worked out with microscopic minuteness . An example is King Henry VII ' s Chapel which crowns Westminster Abbey , and is the swan song of the old art . Then the influence of the classical models became more marked .

Michael Angelo , Palladio and a host of imitators covered Europe with correct but soulless reproductions of the temples and palaces of antiquity . The general upheaval extented to religion . The old faith was sapped , and the current of enthusiasm was divered from art to the sterner pursuits of war and the quest of freedom .

The lecturer then discussed the probable future of architecture . Is it a perfect art , or is it still capable of indefinite development ? It is true that the old builders of our . Cathedrals carried it as far as the materials and appliances at their command permitted . But with fche powers of nature our handmaidens , with metals and combinations of metals of incomparable

strength and lightness , ifc is clear that architecture is still in its infancy . The Man , the inspired genius , is wanting , not the elements which such a one could mould at his will . The poverty of invention , the unredeemed hideousness displayed by the most pretentious buildings of this century dwarf the nrinds and vitiate the taste of the rising generation .

Freemasonry , like the art which gave it birth , suffered a long eclipse . Scotland alone kept the lamp dimly burning . At the end of the sixteenth century a Master Mason , named Shaw , re-organised the Craft . Under his auspice-, a convention was held at Edinburgh , in which three " head Lodges "

History Of Freemasonry.

were formed at the Capital , Stirling , and Kilwinning . The revival in the southern Kingdom was deferred till 1717 , a period when , strange to say , architecture was at its nadir in England . Then , under the influence of some unknown man of genius , the great fabric arose of Speculative Masonry . That its founder possessed the divine spark , the growth and constitution of

the Craft plainly testify . For the " note" of mediaeval Masonry was Christianity , while that which arose from its ashes is a monotheistic system , based on self-culture and Brotherly love . Had Freemasonry been refounded on a narrower platform , it would never have survived through nearly two centuries of profound social and political change , nor have overspread the world as it has done .

After glancing at the history of the Craft from the date of the foundation of the Grand Lodge of England down to the present day , the lecturer concluded by forecasting its future . In India , he said , prospects were most hopeful . He trusted that he would see the day when every town throughout the Empire would havo its little body of adepts banded together in the bonds

of Brotherly love . These are times , he remarked , when all who have the welfare of this great country at heart should forget animosities and acciden tal difference of creed and colour , and march shoulder to shoulder in the van of progress . We are passing through a period of transition , when tact and sympathy alone can reconcile claims , apparently conflicting to social and

political equality . Freemasonry may be made a powerful factor in uniting forces which , rightly directed , would give healthy civic life to the dense masses of ignorance and prejudice that surround us . That ifc is destined to thrive and develop throughout the world at large is equally certain . In the age of teeming populations , of a daily increasing struggle for existence , of

the ruthless oppression of the weak by the strong , the Lodge is a haven of peace for the bewildered unit in this human hive . There , at least , the din of competition without sounds softly ; there his eyes rest only on friendly faces ; there he is conscious that all are animated by the maxim , " Every man for his Brother and God for all . "

Mr . Longley said that all must have listened "with pleasure to the lecture , which was full of research and told them much which the oldest Masons present , of whom he was one , could hardly be aware of as regards fche history of the free and accepted Craft .

Mr . J . W . Browne , as a Mason of forty-two years standing , proposed a vote of thanks to the chairman . Dr . E . S . Macdonald seconded , and said that the lecture proved not only Mr . Skrine ' s ability , of which all were aware , but

his warm sympathy wifch the people of the country . He was not a Mason himself and did not mean to be one , but he appreciated the principles which govern the Craft , and he sympathised with them when they were unjustly attacked some years ago ia Calcutta .

Professor C . E . Wilson said thafc another lesson fco be derived from what they had heard was the necessity of combination . As Secretary of the Society , he was constantly preaching on the text ; and was glad to find its vien so fully borne oufc by fche lecturer .

Royal Arch.

EOYAL AECH .

— : o : — LONDESBOROUGH CHAPTER , No . 734 .

THE members met at the Masonic Hall , Bridlington , on the llth , Comp . J . R . Ansdell P . Z . P . P . G . S . B . presiding , for the purpose of installing the M . E . Z .-elect , and investing the Officers for the ensuing year . In addition to a good gathering of local Companions , there were several Visitors .

The installation ceremony was performed by Companion R . R . Hawley P . P . G . N ., Comp . Henry Watson P . P . G . A . S . being placed in the principal chair . After the ceremony " high tea" was provided afc the Londesborough Hotel .

HALF-DAY TRIPS TO SHAKESPEARE'S COUNTRY .

THE London and North-Western Railway Company announce that owing to the continued success of the half-day trips to Shakespeare ' s Country , they have decided to run another excursion to Stratford-on-Avon on Thursday next , 26 th inst . The train will leave Euston Station 12-30 p . m ., Chalk Farm 12-9 noon , Kilburn 12-15 noon , Chelsea 11-52 a . m ., West Brompton 11-56

a . m ., Kensington ( Addison Road ) 12 * 12 noon , Uxbndge Road 12 * 14 noon , Willesden Junction 12 * 40 p . m ., Clapham Junction 11 * 46 a . m ., Battersea 11 * 49 a . m ., and arrive at Stratford-on-Avon at 3-30 p . m . The return train will leave Stratford-on-Avon at 7-40 p . m ., and arrive at London ( Euston ) 10-40 p . m . The third class return fare is 3 s 6 d .

The Editor of " Cassell ' s Saturday Journal " announces that a special commissioner of that paper has been sufficiently brave and hardy to recently undergo the ordeal of living for fifty days the actual every-day life of the homeless and destitute in the metropolis . The startling facts thus obtained will be set forth in a series of realistic papers to be commenced in the first number of a new volume , readv on the 18 th inst . A new and original serial story by Frank Barrett , entitled " An Angel in Black , " will also be commenced in the same number .

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