The Life Of Bro. George Oliver, D.D.

will for ever remain as a monument of his vast research and his extensive reading . But it would be no brief task to enumerate merely the titles of the many works which he produced for the instruction of the Craft . A few of them must suffice .

These are the " Revelations of a Square , " a sort of Masonic romance , detailing in a fictitious form many of the usages of the last centuries , with . anecdotes of the principal Masons of that period ; "The Golden Remains of the Early Atasonic Writers "

, in five volumes , each of which contains an interesting introduction by the editor ; "The Book of the Lodge , " a useful manual , intended as a guide to the ceremonies of the Order ; "The Symbol of Glory , " intended to show the object and end of

Ireemasonry ; "A Mirror for the Johannite Masons , " in which ho discusses tho question of the dedication of lodges to the two Saints John ; "The Origin and Insignia of the Royal Arch Degree , " a title which explains itself ; "A Dictionary of

Symbolic Masonry , " by no means the best of his works . Almost , ins last contribution to Masonry was his " Institutes of Masonic Jurisprudence , " a book in which ho expressed views of law that did not meet with tho universal concurrence of his

English readers . Besides these elaborate works , Dr . Oliver -was a constant contributor to the earl y volumes of the London Freemasons' Quarter /// Review ^ and published one valuable article " On the York Constitutions " in the American Quarterltj Review of Freemasonri / .

The great error of Dr . Oliver , as a Masonic teacher was a too easy credit ] it }' , or a too great warmth of imagination , which led him to accept , without hesitation , the crude theories of previous writers , and to recognize documents and legends as

unquestionably authentic , whose truthfulness subsequent researches have led most Masonic scholars to doubt or to deny . His statements , therefore , as to the ori gin or the history of the order , have to be received with many grains of allowance . Yet

it must be acknowledged , that no writer in the English language has ever done so much to elevate the scientific character of Freemasonry . Dr . Oliver was , in fact , the founder of what may be called the Literary School of Masonry . Bringing to the stud y of the

Institution an amount of arclucological learning but seldom surpassed , an inexhaustible fund of multifarious reading , and all the laborious research of a genuine scholar , he gave to Freemasonry a literary and philosophic character , which has

induced many succeeding scholars to devote themselves to those studies which he had made so attractive . While his erroneous theories and his fanciful speculations will be . rejected , the form and direction that he has given to Masonic speculations will remain , and to him must be accredited the enviable title of the Father of Anglo-Saxon Masonic- Literature .

In reference to the personal character of Dr . Oliver , a contemporary journalist ( Stamford , Mercury ) has said , that he was of a kind and genial disposition , charitable in the highest souse of tho word , courteous , affable , self-denying and beneficent , humble ,

unassuming and unaffected , ever ready to oblige , easy of approach , and amiable 3 'et firm in the right . Dr . Oliver ' s theory of the system of Freemasonry may be briefly stated in these words : He believed that the Order was

to be found in the earliest periods of recorded history . It was taught by Seth to his descendants , and practised by them under the name of Primitive or Pure

Freemasonry . It passed over to Noah , and at the dispersion of mankind suffered a division into Pure and Spurious . ' The Pure Freemasonry descended through the Patriarchs to Solomon , and thence on to the present day . The Pagans , although they

had slight glimmerings of the Masonic truths which had been taught by Noah , greatly corrupted them , and presented in their mysteries a system of initiation to which lie gave the name of the Spurious Freemasonry of Antiquity . These views

he had developed and enlarged and adorned out of the similar but less definitelyexpressed teachings of Hutchinson . Like that writer , also , while freely admitting the principle of religious tolerance , he contended for tho strictly Christian character

of the Institution , and that too in the narrowest sectarian view ; since he believed that the earliest symbols taught the dogma of the Trinit } -, and that Christ was meant by the Masonic reference to the Deity by the title of Grand Architect of the Uiiiveise . —MaeJceif ' ts National Freemason .