Saved From Prison.

action during a battle fought somewhere in Virginia . As a lawyer , he was eminent ; as a friend , warm-hearted and true ; as a man and Mason , none excelled him . Dr . William Quail was surgeon to Col . Black ' s regiment in the Mexican warand

, for many years was an active member and an officer of the Grand Lodge of Pennsylvania . Like Bro . Black , he was held in high esteem by all who knew him . All honour to them both . —Masonic Review .

The Solomonic Origin Of Freemasonry.

THE SOLOMONIC ORIGIN OF FREEMASONRY .

( 'Continued from page 190 ., ) Among these legends , one of the most important is that which finds the actual , historical origin of our Order in the Temple of Solomon . Of all the mythical

narratives connected with the history of Freemasonry , this is the one which it will be the most difficult to eradicate , because it is the most intimately connected , from beginning to end , with the entire system of Masonic symbolism .

Forty years ago , Chemin Dupontes , one of the most philosophical of the French Masonic writers , had said : "The opinion which supposes that we are the direct descendants of the workmen at the Temple of Solomon is one which I shall presume to call superstitious and vulgar ; and yet it is taught in many Masonic works , in poems

which are not destitute of merit , and is the ordinary text of the discourses of most of the orators of our lodges . It may , in fact , be called the conventional error of Freemasonry . " He rejects the theory , of course , and recalls to mind that there were other associations with which the idea uf a

temple was familiar . Thus , the knights of the Middle Ages called the institution of chivalry a " Temple of Honour , " and he mentions one society in particular , which existed at Rennes , in France , in 1784 and which was named the " Temple

, of the Country , " a society consisting of many of the nobility and men of letters of the province . The object of the society may be best gathered from the inscri ption placed in front of the presiding officer : " Here God is served without hypocrisy ,

the King without venality , and the country without ambition . " In all of these , and similar instances , the temple , says Dupontes , was but a figure , and so it is with us ; and he therefore expresses his surprise that modern Masonic books should so seriously enter into the complex details , and

repeat so many mystical stories on the subject of the material construction of the Temple at Jerusalem . In the four decades that have passed since the French philosopher wrote these words , the sentiment which they express

has been gradually but perceptibly gaining strength . And now it is scarcely to be doubted that no Masonic scholar of any reputation would risk that reputation by a serious attempt to defend the Solomonic theory of the origin of Freemasonry .

And yet there has been and there can be no abandonment of the Temple legend . It is still retained , and must ever be retained , in the ritual . It is and must ever be referred to as the most important , the most philosophical , and the most attractive source of our system of symbolism . The historical and the mythical elements of Freemasonry are so intimately connected ,

so closely interwoven with each other , that the one is essentially necessary to the other , and both are required to make up the complete and perfect whole that makes Masonry what it is and always has been . They are like the Siamese twins , into the connecting cord of whom so much of the

vital organization of each had entered that there could be no separation without imminent , and indeed positive , death to each . Then , as regards Freemasonry , the Temple of Solomon is a myth and not a history . To claim that the formerwith its present

, organization , with its lodges , and its degrees , comes in a direct , uninterrupted , and unchanged descent from the latter , is to claim what cannot be proved , and which , if not impossible , is at least so imjn-obable and so contrary to the current of historical

evidence , as to be unworthy of serious discussion . To the Mason the Temple of Solomon is a spiritual idea , and as such it forms an indispensable part of his system . The Freemasonry of the present day is built on the symbolic idea of that great

Temple which , of all the relig ious edifices of the ancient world , was the only one that was dedicated to the worship of the true God .