The Increase Of Lodges.

English jurisdiction , however widely its " stakes" are extended , however lengthened its roil call appear . Never certainly at any time has our Executive been in a greater

state of efficiency and energy ; never has the now abnormal correspondence at headquarters been more carefully attended to , more speedily answered and dealt with . Some of us who can still recall the

complaints of " other days , " the formidable "laches" of older officials , the animadversions of the " Masonic Observer , " or the din of somewhat angry controversies , rejoice to observe the peace and unity existing in

our Order to-day , and the entire absence of any ground for complaint , in smallest measure ; rather the uncontroverted prevalence of full-voiced and unanimous and hearty commendation .

In no language of adulation , as that would be unfitting and . unwelcome here , we say the transaction of our Masonio business to-day reflects the highest credit on the Grand Secretary and his obliging and attentive staff . Thus it will

be noted that we are entirely in favour or that striking , yet reasonable increase of Lodges which our present Masonic generation has witnessed . Believing in Freemasonry , holding its teaching to be sound , valuable and beneficial

observing how it speeds on its beneficent career in peace and Charity , toleration and goodwill to all , we hail every new Lodge as another little link in the great electric chain

of Freemasonry , which will one day encompass the world with a loving message of Charity and Loyalty for the Brotherhood , and of sympathy and goodwill for mankind .

Phoenician Influence Upon Freemasonry.

PHOENICIAN INFLUENCE UPON FREEMASONRY .

BEO . Sir Charles Warren and tho Rov . Bro . A . F . A . Woodford , M . A ., recently intimated that traces of ancient Phoenician influence might be discerned in

Freemasonry . We think the suggestion can be abundantlyproved-to be well-ofunded , and we invite our readers ' attention to what we conceivo to be evidence in support of this belief .

The traditions and lectures of the Craft allege the existence of Freemasonry since the earliest ages of the world , but expressly refer to the building of Kino-Solomon ' s Temple as a remarkable event in fraternal

achievement . We have never been of the number of those who attribute tbe origin of Masonry to Solomon , mnch less to any other personage at a later clay . We credit too highly the Biblical statements and our Masonic traditions in this regard . Solomon said to Hiram , King of Tyre

( 1 Kings v . 6 ) "thou knowest that there is not

amonous any that have skill to hew timber like unto the Sidonians . " This was true , and the Jews , who were also unskilled in the working of metals and stone , without the aid of the Sidonians or Tyrians could never have built

Solomon s Temple . Now who were these foreign Craftsmen ? They were Phoenicians . And who were the Phoenicians ? They were , according to Sir William Betham and other scholars , " the shrewdest and most

acute of mankind , skilled in science , literature , and art " the inventors of the alphabet , of the art of navigation and of the science of astronomy . Pomponius relates that Phoenician navigators sailed the fleets of Solomon to Ophir

( Arabia ) and Tarshish ( Spain ) . Italy was their first great colony , their monuments being found to-day in Etruria , and they sailed the seas over , settled Cyprus , Sicily and Sardinia , penetrated to all the coasts of the

Mediterranean , founded Utica and Carthage in Africa , and Cadiz , in Spain , passed beyond the Pillars of Hercules , at Gibraltar , and colonised Great Britain and Ireland . As builders they were famous for their Cyclopean

architecture , of which there are remains in Etruria and elsewhere . This was the charactar of the foundations of Solomon ' s Temple : " The foundation ivas of coBtly stones , even great

stones , stones of ten cubits ( fifteen feet ) and eight cubits " ( twelve feet ) . ( 1 Kings vii . 10 ) . King Hiram ' s Cyclopean builders laid those foundations .

Among the Phoenicians were two classes of men gathered into secret societies akin to Freemasonry , viz ., the Dionysian Architects , and the Cabiri . The former were a fraternity of builders in Asia Minor , linked by the secret ties of the Dionysian Mysteries . The latter were sometimes styled " SOUB of Vulcan , " from their proficiency in

Phoenician Influence Upon Freemasonry.

the art of metallurgy . The Phoenicians or Tyrians were not idolaters . Mr . George Bawlinson says , " they did not worship images . In the temple of Melkarth , at Gades ( Cadiz ) there was no material emblem , of the God at all

with the exception of an ever-burning fire . So Betham tells us , concerning the Cabiri , that they taught in their Mysteries " tho unity of the godhead , " and they had " certain symbols and signs by which they were known to

each other and held together . " The Cabiri were philosophers , builders , miners and navigator ? , and " speculatives as woll as operatives . " "Tho account given of then-Mysteries of Samothrace , by Diodorus Siculus , is what the

Freemasous still say of themselves , and have always asserted . " The literary fragment known as " Sanehonathon , " compiled by Philo in the second century , informs ns that the Phoenician priests of the Mysteries allegorized

all the discoveries of learning , and taught alphabetical writing , which the initiated contemplated with wonder and awe , and also tho use of the mariner ' s compass . An

Etruscan compass , with eight points is now in the Museum at Florence . On it is this incription , in Etruscan characters : " In the night voyage , protection , out and home . "

Count Di Cesnola , iu his excavations on the island of Cyprus , unearthed a number of Phoenician tombs , "the Phoenician tombs being several feet below the Grecian , the Phoenician city having perished , and a Greek one

sprunoup , which in time silently entered its dark home , without suspecting that it reposed upon another and an older cit y of the dead . " Di Cesnola opened over eight thousand

tombs , and many of the Phoenician treasures he discovered are now preserved in the Metropolitan Museum of Art , in the Central Park of New York .

We will mention two leading Masonic symbols and usages of to-day which the Craft derived from the Phoenicians : — Herodotus wrote , B . C . 51 S , that he was told the Temple

of Hercules at Tyre was built two thousand three hundred years before his era . So much for its antiquity . From the Phoenicians Freemasonry appears to have derived ( 1 ) its

two famous Pillars , that stood at the entrance to the outer porch of King Solomon ' s Temple ; and ( 2 ) its observance of the clays now known as those of St . John the Baptist and St . John the Evangelist .

( 1 ) As to tho two Pillars . Herodotus says of the Temple of Hercules at Tyre : — " Being anxious to know as much as possible with certainty of these things , I sailed to Tyre in Phoenicia ,

because I had heard that in that city was a Temple dedicated to Hercules . I saw that Templo : it was euriched with many magnificent donations , and among others with two pillars , one of fine gold , the other of emerald . "

Sir William Betham , in his " Etruria Celtica , " says : " The existence of two pillars in the Temple of Hercules at Tyre , and the introduction of two into that of Solomon by Hiram the Tyrian , is striking , and could not have been accidental . "

( 2 ) As to the two St . John ' s Days . The two groat feasts of the Phoenician Hercules were observed at the periods of the summer and winter solstices , when the days are longest and shortest . We , to-day , observe the same seasons , but

style them St . John the Baptist's aud St . John the Evangelist ' s Days . These observances link the nineteenth century Freemasons with the initiates of the Mysteries of Cabiri , of three thousand years and more ago .

Another thought in this connection . Even in King Solomon ' s time Freemasonry was cosmopolitan , and not simply Jewish , since it bound together the Jews and Tynans . Here again we must quote Betham : " The

catholicity of Masonry is totally at variance with Jewish feelings and prejudices . * * * A system like Masonry which embraces all mankinds as Brethren , could not have

been formed ( alone ) by a people so exclusive and opposed to all contact with Gentile strangers . * * * In their dispersion they did not preserve the Craft among themselves . There is not even a tradition to that effect . "

Still another thought . Even at so remote a period as the Solomonic era , Freemasonry evidently included in its membership both Speculative and Operative Masters—our

two traditional Grand Masters , King Solomon and King Hiram , having been Speculative Masons , and Hiram the builder an operative Mason .

It is worthy of remark , in passing , that according to the legend upon which the Egyptian Mysteries of Osiris were founded , after the murder of Osiris his body was enclosed in a chest and thrown into the Nile , which con-