The Guildhall And The Charters Of The Corporation.

its stained g lass and monuments , and massive open roof of oak , presented a o-rand and dignified appearance , which need fear comparison with no similar structure . Many supposed that the original hall was roofed in a not very dissimilar manner , and a statement existed , recorded by an eye-witness , that on the night of Tuesday , September 4 th , 1666 , " the sig ht of Guildhall was a fearful spectaclewhich stood the whole body of it together in view for several

, hours , after the fire had taken it , without flames ( I supposed , because the timber was of such solid oake ) in a bright shining coale , as if it had been a palkce . of gold or a great building of burnished brass . " Others held that the buildinghad , or was intended to have , stone ribs , as at Mayfield in Sussex , and other buildings well known , if not numerous , of that period . The crypt was one of the most ancient and perhaps the finest example of the kind existing in London .

It extended only under the eastern portion of the hall . It was divided into three aisles of equal width by two rows of piers , wliich were clusters of four small pillars , with plain capitals , from which the arches and groins spread over the roof . The bosses at the intersection of the arches were many of them very large , bearing shields of the arms of Edward the Confessor , the City , and some well-sculptured roses .

Masonic Symbolism*

MASONIC SYMBOLISM *

A Paper read , before Landmark Lodge , No . 422 , A . F . and A . M ., Chicago , by IF . I . Culver . EVERYONE who has passed to the degree of Fellow Craft in Masonry has been instructed that " the lapse of time , the ruthless hand of ignorance

, and the devastations of war , have laid waste and destroyed many valuable monuments of an antiquity on which the utmost exertions of human genius have been employed . Even the Temple of Solomon , so spacious and magnificent , and constructed b y so many celebrated artists escaped not the unsparing ravages of barbarous force . " Yet to these same monuments , or to such of them as have survived the

ravages of time , we are indebted for all that is really known of those ages between the creation of man and the beginning of authentic history . By the deciphering of symbols inscribed upon them by pre-historic nations who have lived and died upon the earth , leaving behind them neither literature nor tradition , the veil of oblivion has been in part withdrawn from races of men who roseflourishedand sank into obscurity away beyond the borders of

, , human history . In ruins brought to light after centuries of entombment we have evidences of amazing architecture , a development of civilization and material progress truly wonderful , but it is to the hieroglyphics and other symbols found upon their monumental records , in their sepulchres , and on their edifices , that we look for a knowledge of the people themselves . These memorials of past time reveal to us the names and histories of monarchs and

peoples who lived fifty centuries before the Christian Era . One author says : " It is now as certain as anything else in ancient history that Egypt existed as a civilized country not less than 5000 years earlier than the birth of Christ . "