Time Immemorial Lodges.

Chapel ) , the seceders being composed of Masons in the Canoncrate and Leith . ° The first actual encroachment upon the monopoly was made by the Journeymen Lodge , No . 8 ( also an offshoot of No . i ) , in 1707 , but some of the members were master builders and the

sons of burgesses , and therefore privileged . Liberty to give the Mason Word was the principal point in dispute between Mary ' s Chapel and the Journeymen , which was settled by the " Decreet Arbitral " in 1715 , empowering the latter " to meet together as a society for giving the Mason Word . " Several lodges meeting

in the Canongate ( which was then a Burgh of Regality—not a Royal Burgh ) , then fell into line , and changed their names , for example , Canongate from Leith , No . 3 6 ( 1739 ) , to St . David ' s ;

and Scots Lodge in Canongate , No . 48 ( 1745 ) , to Edinburgh St . Andrew . The history of No . 8 , by Bro . VVilliam Hunter , appeared in the " Freemasons' Magazine" of 1858 , and as a separate publication in 1 S 84 . ( To be continued . )

Provincial Grand Lodge Of Gloucestershire.

PROVINCIAL GRAND LODGE OF GLOUCESTERSHIRE .

The annual meeting of the above Prov . G . Lodge was held on the 5 th instant at Gloucester by the Prov . G . Master , Bro . the Right Hon . Sir Michael E . Hicks-Beach , Bart . It is five years since the city had the opportunity of extending its fraternal greeting to the brethren assembled for the Prov . G . Lodge , and the arrangements made by the three lodges of Gloucester for their reception followed very closely the programme in 1895 .

Before the assembly of Prov . G . Lodge , " lodges of recreation and instruction , " arranged by Bro . the Dean of Gloucester , P . G . Chap . Eng ., were enjoyed . These included an organ recital by Bro . A . H . Brewer , the Cathedral organist , and the privilege of listening to the musical treat provided in the grand old church was embraced by a large number . The programme rendered included the Overture to " Athalie " ( Mendelssohn ) , Barcarolle , from 4 'h Concerto ( Bennett ) , and a suite by Lemmens , viz .,

( a ) MarcheTriomphale , ( b ) Cantabile , and ( c ) Finale . The Dean himself acted as guide and lecturer to those brethren—there were many—who desirtd to make a more detailed inspection of the monuments , of whose history Dr . Spence has made a life-study , and whose care he has specially identified himself with . Naturally not the least interesting were those sectkns ol the fabric which had been selected by the province in previous years for restoration and repair .

The Prov . G . Lodge itself assembled at two o ' clock under the presidency of the Prov . G . Master , who was accompanied by his Deputy ( Bro . R . V . Vassar-Smith ) . The other officers of Prov . G . Lodge present were Bros , the Rev . H . lvenrick Adkin , P . G . Chap . ; W . C . Ferris , P . G . Reg . ; H . R . J . Braine , P . S . G . D . ; M . W . Di / nscombe , P . G . Supt . of Works ; W . C . Bannister , PiG . D . C . ; Harry Stallard , P . G . Std . Br . ; A . Jotcham ,

P . G . S . B . j W . H . Morgan , P . G . Org . ; W . Crosbie Coles and T . Hobbs , P . G . Stwcs . ; James B . Winterbotliam , P . G . Sec ; Llewellyn Evans , P . A . G . Sec . ; and William Window , P . G . Tyler . The brethren upon the dais included Bro . the Very Rev . the Dean of Gloucester , P . G . Chap ., and other members of Grand Lodge , while the attendance of brethren from the various lodges in the province overtaxed the seating accommodation of the historic Chapter House .

Prov . G . Lodge having been opened , adjournment was at once made to the Cathedral , the procession forming in order of seniority , juniors leading , and passing through the cloisters up the nave into the choir . The service was choral , and brightly rendered . The sermon was preached by Bro . Dean Si'ENCE , who prefaced his discourse as follows :

Brethren of the Order , —Our annual meeting is always a solemn occasion , but this occasion will perhaps stand out in th < e annals of our Order as the most important , the most momentous for us Mason s , who are loyal of the loyal , the most staunch defenders of the Throne . It is indeed a striking coincidence that at the very time we were entering this great House of God tin- news was being flashed to England that the flag of this nation was waving over the capital of our

enemy . The news was flashed from the Field Marshal himself , so there is no doubt of it . Now , we do not receive this news with feelings of exultation or of triumph , but only with the sense of deep thankfulness—thankfulness that God still remains over , still protects , this our England as He has aforetime , that He reserves to us a greater and a mightier work e ven in the future than we have effected in the past . And now to my subject . To the Brotherhood of

Freemasons—to us who have firm faith that our Order makes for peace , good feeling , charity , chivalry , and especially for religious earnestness ; that it is a strong bulwark of order and stability ; that in the great England you and I know , and in the yet greater England beyond the sea , the greater England with which the late events have forged a bond of friendship a-nd of union stronger even than had existed before ; that it is in the two Englancls a mighty power , a power that

will grow as time rolls on , because it is founded upon the religion we love—to us English Masons who have this faith in our grant Order , any contribution to the story of the Craft is valuable and interesting . That is why I have ventured today—when we Gloucestershire Masons are me t together to praise the Great Architect of the Universe in our proud cathedral—to piece together a little tapestry of Masonic lore . I do so with diffidence , if not with trembling , for to some of my hearers my tapestried story may set m fanciful , although it is based

upon what I dare to call scientific history . It ca n , of course , only be a sketchhut a little introduction to a great subject . We often ask what ore Freemasons , what is our story ? Some eighteen hundred year s ago , when the great Emperors of Rome—such as Augustus , such as Vespasian and Titus—such as the noble Antonines—were reigning over the Roman world , there existed in Rome and in other mighty cities of the empire , colleges , as they were called , guilds perhaps would be a better term , composed of workers Jn different crafts . Among these the Colleges of Architects , Builders , and the many artisans who carried out the

Provincial Grand Lodge Of Gloucestershire.

plans and designs of the Masters of the Craft were well known . The Imperial Government ever looked somewhat jealously upon these confraternities . There were various and stringent Imperial regulations which these confraternities had to comply with — they were watched with extreme care . But that they existed , and were a powerful factor in Roman society , is now undisputed . Scholars are gradually now coming to know more and more of these great and popular Guilds . The Guild of Architects

and Builders was an influential one—it had many secrets which were not divulged outside its members . The glorious matchless piles we read of , the ruins of some of which we gaze at still with wondering admiration in the Eternal City , were their work . Witness the enormous system of aqueducts , stretching still in picturesque ruin miles " and miles over the vast and desolate Campagna . Witness the lordly Temples , the mighty piles of Imperial ruin on the storied Palatine , the Colosseum , the Pantheon , the Tomb of Hadrian—just to take a few well-known

examples . Into the great popular Guild which created these immemorial piles fell the seed of the preaching of the Cross , and many of the Guilds became Christian Brothers . When Diocletian reigned in the last years of the fourth century , so runs the old Church legend—it was , no doubt , founded on fact , and here in passing I would note how the work of arch ; eologists and historians every year strangely supports the substantial truth of many of these old stories , which some had come to doubt—when Diocletian , the Emperor , who hated the Christians and

bitterly persecuted them , reigned , a little group of painters and sculptors , members of the Collegium or Guild , refused to exercise their art and craft for the Pagan . They said to the heathen Emperor— " We cannot build a te . nple or shape images in wood or stone for false gods . " They were in consequence cruelly put to death , their names are preserved in the Church of the Four Holy Crowned Ones— " the Quatuor Coronati" at the foot of the Coelian Hill—now , alas , neglected and almost in ruins . This persecution of Diocletian apparently began that dispersion

of the famous Guild . Not quite a century later , the troubles from the Barbarian invasions fell on Rome , and for several hundred years the metropolis of the world was an unsafe dwelling place , successively pillaged , sacked , and burnt by different hordes of invaders . We hear nothing after this troublous period began of the Collegium or Guild of Architects . Strangely enough the Guild re-appears in the little island of Comacina , on the lake of Coino , in the sixth century . Comacina is spoken of as the only free spot in Italy when the Roman Empire was dying

under the successive inroads of Goth and Vandal . It was to this little town , little known , that the Guild seems to have fled , and there in silence and obscurity for a period preserved their legendary knowledge , handed down to them from Greek and Roman sources—some say even from Solomon ' s builders of the Great Temple of Jerusalem . One of the conquering races who settled in North Italy—the Lombards—in the sixth century , adopted Christianity as their religion , and alone among the northern invaders who ruined the Roman Empire

became zealous as church builders . The Lombard churches in the seventh and eighth centuries were famous in all the western world j they are with us still . But the Lombards had among them the old Masonic Guild of Rome . We now come upon the term in architectural history of the Comacina Masters . These were the inheritors of the secrets of the Craft whose career we have been roughly tracing . Under the Lombard Sovereigns , the Guild of Masons became powerful , and highly organised . There seems to have been at the head of the

Order a Grand Master . The Order was divided into many lodges , with a Mister ruling over each lodge . Each lodge had three classes of members— 'Master Masons , Working Brethren , and Novices . The whole organisation and nomen < clature with which we are so familiar , was in actual working form in the Coma ' cina Guild under the Lombard rulers in the sixth , seventh , and eighth centuries . They began to be termed Freemasons because they were builders of a privileged class , absolved from taxes and servitude , free to travel where they pleased in the

times when feudal custom and restriction , and almost feudal servitude , every * where prevailed . The term was largely applied to them both in England and in Germany after the time of Charlemagne . They spread with curious rapidity over most of the countries of Europe . They were largely protected by the ecclesiastical powers . Many of the Popes conferred on this great Guild the privileges they had obtained under their natural sovereigns . Ecclesiastics of high degree were frequently enrolled in the company of these Freemas ons as members .

It is difficult to trace how many of the great buildings of Europe , from the eighth century onward , were designed and built b y the great fraternity of Free * masons , many of which have perished , and others have been so altered and restored in different ages as to bear few of the original signs of their origin , One who has made acarefulstudyof their work traces to these Comacina Freemasons , the successors of the old Roman Guild , driven out of the Imperial City by Diocletian , A . D . 302 , in the course of his terrible persecutions of Christians , and recruited

by others of the same Guild when Rome became no home for Arts and Crafts , when the Goths and Vandals had worked their wild will upon the immemorial city—traces to these Comacina Freemasons all that was architecturall y good in Italy during the dark Barbarian period lasting well-nigh 503 years . Their hand is visible in the noble Lombard Basilicas . Their work is to be seen still in very many , if not in all , the grand churches of France , Spain , Germany , and England of the early Middle Ages . But I must hurry on , remembering this is but a sketch

Whence now did this strange and marvellous Guild derive the mighty secrets of their Craft ? The Roman Collegium or Guild to which the martyred crowned ones belonged , possessed them . But they were not the kindlers of the Divine fire ; they only kept the bright lamp burning . Had they learned their wondrous secret skill from Greece , from Pheidias and Praxiteles from the unknown builders of the glorious temples and shrines of Athens , the bright and happy , the immemorial Athens of the Violet Crown ? Or in our quest must we

go to yet older , to yet higher and grander sources still ? You Masons catch my meaning quickly . Very familiar to the brothers of the Craft is another and sublimer cradle of true practical Masonry . Nor is it only tradition . The Comacina Freemasons of very eai ly days had a special mark—a loved signature . Hard indetd , is it to find a church , an altar , a pulpit even of these early Masons with ' out the famous mark upon it—that beautiful device of a single strand mysteriously interlaced—the sign of the one God—of His inscrutable and infinite ways whose

nature is Unity . It is known as Solomon ' s knot . This signature is very , very old . The other Comacina signature—somewhat later—is a lion—the lion of the Tribe of Judah ; the lion of God of whom Isaiah sings in his pathetic story this , too , we find in a hundred ways woven into their lovel y work . This mighty Guild ceased to be in the 15 th century . A tew great spirits such as Brunelleschi , of Florence , and Michael Angelo , of Rome , had learned the traditions of the glorious past , and worked on . But they died , as you and I shall die , and then the

lamp went out . The " new learning , ' as it is sometimes called , killed it and men did other things , beautiful things , perhaps noble things , useful things . ' But they didn ' t build ; they have never built since I We of the Craft inherit their traditions , though we use them now in a different way . We keep alive a memory a vury glorious memory . We bear a great name , we are heirs of a noble inheri ' lai . ci-, » c aiu entrusted with a great work . We have a task before us a fair

example of faith and of patient industry to follow , and , brethren , " whatsoever things are true , whatsoever things are honest , whatsoever things are just , whatsoever things are pure , whatsoever things are lovely , whatsoever things are of good report—it there be any virtue , if there be any praise—think on those things , " Then , and then only , will you be good Masons in the truest , noblest sense of tha word as we teach Masonry now in England . The service closed with the hymn , " 0 God our help . " During thq