Note: This text has been automatically extracted via Optical Character Recognition (OCR) software.
Liberorum Latomorum Primordia Et Recentiora Vera.
it ivould form a book of itself , and we shall , therefore , give only some of the more prominent heads . After a preface of twenty pages , in which the author mentions ancl laments the pervading and mournful ignorance of Masons generally on the origin of Masonry , of its history , and of the sources of the authority by which they are governed ,
he shows the necessity of uniformity , ancl the want of it in the differing action of the various countries he has visited , as the unhappy result of this ignorance . He declares Masonry to be one , ancl its starting-points for all nations to be also one ( "La Mac ; onnerie est une , son point de depart un" ) , as a neglected truism .
Had this French author been sufficiently versed in our English literature , and with Pope ' s * sublime hymn , " The Universal Prayer , " he might here have pressed into his service that verse , with slight variation , which so well suits a Mason ' s view of T . G . A . 0 . T . U ., and his own fervency for unity .
"To THEE , whose Temple is all space , Whose altar , earth , sea , skies ; One psean let all nations raise , One cloud of incense rise . " The first chapter ( p . 21 ) tells us , that after the cruel and complete eradication of Druidism and the Druids in Gaul by Julius Cfesartheir initiations were suspendedand a sleep of
, , fifteen centuries succeeded . " Historians of practical Masonry ( de Maeonnerie pratique ) speak of corporations of builders , which the senate of the Gauls sent after the Eoman armies to rebuild the eight hundred cities which , according to Pliny , Ca * sar had destroyed , with all their Celtic and Druidical monuments . These builders might be able to restore the precincts , and to rebuild the edifices ; they could not refound the initiative colleges . "
Philosophic Masonry , the author continues , did not exist before 1646 , when it was instituted by Elias Ashmole , who restored the ancient institutions ( p . 28 ) , and from the 24 th June , 1717 , moral Masonry dates its existence , public and regular , under the Grand Lodge of England . It is here , as from a centre , that the Masonic world has received the light which illumines its labours . It knows not , practises not , any but the three Symbolical Degrees which alone constitute true Masonry ,
Note: This text has been automatically extracted via Optical Character Recognition (OCR) software.
Liberorum Latomorum Primordia Et Recentiora Vera.
it ivould form a book of itself , and we shall , therefore , give only some of the more prominent heads . After a preface of twenty pages , in which the author mentions ancl laments the pervading and mournful ignorance of Masons generally on the origin of Masonry , of its history , and of the sources of the authority by which they are governed ,
he shows the necessity of uniformity , ancl the want of it in the differing action of the various countries he has visited , as the unhappy result of this ignorance . He declares Masonry to be one , ancl its starting-points for all nations to be also one ( "La Mac ; onnerie est une , son point de depart un" ) , as a neglected truism .
Had this French author been sufficiently versed in our English literature , and with Pope ' s * sublime hymn , " The Universal Prayer , " he might here have pressed into his service that verse , with slight variation , which so well suits a Mason ' s view of T . G . A . 0 . T . U ., and his own fervency for unity .
"To THEE , whose Temple is all space , Whose altar , earth , sea , skies ; One psean let all nations raise , One cloud of incense rise . " The first chapter ( p . 21 ) tells us , that after the cruel and complete eradication of Druidism and the Druids in Gaul by Julius Cfesartheir initiations were suspendedand a sleep of
, , fifteen centuries succeeded . " Historians of practical Masonry ( de Maeonnerie pratique ) speak of corporations of builders , which the senate of the Gauls sent after the Eoman armies to rebuild the eight hundred cities which , according to Pliny , Ca * sar had destroyed , with all their Celtic and Druidical monuments . These builders might be able to restore the precincts , and to rebuild the edifices ; they could not refound the initiative colleges . "
Philosophic Masonry , the author continues , did not exist before 1646 , when it was instituted by Elias Ashmole , who restored the ancient institutions ( p . 28 ) , and from the 24 th June , 1717 , moral Masonry dates its existence , public and regular , under the Grand Lodge of England . It is here , as from a centre , that the Masonic world has received the light which illumines its labours . It knows not , practises not , any but the three Symbolical Degrees which alone constitute true Masonry ,