Mysticism.

There was , nevertheless , a great number of minds whom materialism could not satisfy , but who , without rejecting religious tradition , desired to maintain a respect for it , a certain liberty of discussion and interpretation . These persons founded the first Masonic association which gave their fame to the popular corporations , and to what we call to-day , " compaginonage . " Freemasonry established the most exalted of these institutions in Scotland

, and it was on account of the relations of Franco with that country , from Mary Stuart until Louis XIV ., that we saw so strongly implanted in France the mystic institutions which preceded the Rose Croix . During this time Italy had seen , from the date of the fourteenth century , a long series of hardy thinkers established , among whom we must rank Marsilins Ficinus , Picus de la Mirandola , Meursius , Nicholas de Cusa , Giordano

Bruno , and other great minds favorized by the toleration of the Medici , and whom we may now term the " Neoplatonicians of Florence . " The taking of Constantinople , in exiling so many illustrious " savants , " whom Italy welcomed , also exercised a great influence on this philosophical movement which brought the Alexandrian ideas , and led again to the study of Plotinnsof Proclnsof Porph etc . the first assailants of rising

, , yry , , Christianity . We ought to observe here , that the greater part of the learned medical men and materialists of the middle age , such as Paracelsus , Albert the Great , Jerome Cardan , Roger Bacon , and others , had attached themselves more or less to this teaching , which gave a new " formula " to that which was then called " occult science , " that is to say , astrology , the cabala , chiromancy , alchemy , physiognomy , etc .

It is from these diverse elements , and in part also from Hebraic science , which spread itself from the date of the "Renaissance , " that those different mystic schools were formed which were seen to develop themselves at the end of the seventeenth century , the Rose Croix especially , of whom the Abbe Villars was tho indiscreet disciple , and later , as some say , the victim . Subsequently , the Convulsionaries and certain sects of Jansenists appeared ; while towards 1770 , the Martinists , the Swedenborgians , and lastly the Illumines , whose doctrines , founded originally in Germany by Weishanpt , soon spread itself in France , where it was absorbed in the Masonic institution . *

Was Shakespeare A Freemason ?

WAS SHAKESPEARE A FREEMASON ?

( Concluded from page 384 . ) TJASSING other references to " Aprons , Rules , and Hammers , " it will be pro-- * - fitable to examine well the references to Masonic emblems , showing as they do not only a thorough knowledge of the symbolic teaching conveyed , but an equall y thorough appreciation of their lessons , which are strengthened and enforced with singular effect and beauty of expression . Turn to Antony and

Cleopatra . What can be finer , clearer , or more in harmony with Masonic interpretation than Antony ' s reply to Octavia—I have not kept my square ; but that to come Shall all be done by rule .