A Lecture.

Europe to search out the origin of our Craft , ancl lay aside all hope of finding any carved or written records created for the purpose of informing succeeding generations of mankind of our history or our doings , our principles or our internal polity . It is not by direct evidence , but only by induction , that we can arrive at a probable solution of the question—Whence are Ave ? I do not for a moment suppose that Freemasonry in its present formand

, adapted as it now is to embrace all nations , kindreds , creeds , and languages in one common brotherhood , has been exactly what it IIOAV is from the commencement . Progress ancl change are inseparable from all human institutions , ancl development is a laAV of nature ; but I do maintain that the main principles ancl leading features of the Order have been handed down to modern times unaltered and unimpairedancl with graduallincreasing improvements and

, y more widely spreading adaptability , from the ancient fathers of our race , AVIIO flourished , taught , and believed before the birth of Grecian refinement ancl art , ancl long before Roman jurisprudence created corporate bodies or craftsmen ' s guilds . All the records of antiquity , Avhether mythical , poetical , or sacerdotal , tend

to prove that among all nations in the earliest times there Avere men Avho , using the reason God had given them , had logically inferred from long-continued observation of the phenomena of nature , ancl the wonderful adaptation of all created things to the purposes they had to serve , that such a state of things , and that such an universe so beautifully constructed , must have had an originator , a one great Architect , endoAved with a poAver , a will , and an intelligence far beyond our poor intellects to conceive . To the minds of such

men the idea of more than one such Architect was impossible , ancl the conclusion that only one such existed must have been as clear to them as to the Avell-known Paley , or the authors of the BridgeAvater Treatises . We have a Avell known instance of such a man in Socrates , ancl may well be certain that he was but a modern in comparison Avith many of his predecessors . To men AA'I IO thought out this problemancl AVIIO looked upon the state of human

,, affairs around them , it must have been equally plain that the great First Cause must be as good ancl benificent as powerful , and that , as a result of his goodness , it AA'as absolutely necessary to belieA'e in a resurrection and a future life , Avithout which justice AVOUM not be clone to those who in this life suffered inordinately , or upon those who here flourished and prospered beyond their deserts , or in spite of their demerits .

To us , Avho are IIOAV reaping the fruits of the experience ancl thought and research of thousands of generations of our race , all this may naturally appear but truisms ; but it was far different in the infancy of mankind . Then the race was in its childhood , and , like a child , it dealt far more with fancy than with hard reason . The childlike commonalty of the ancient world looked upon the sun ancl the moon ancl the stars , and all the host of heaven , Avith wonder ancl with awe . They could not but notice the wonderful power of the sun in

causing their crops to groAV and their fruits to ripen ; the increase and the multiplication , not only of men , but of animals ancl plants , were to them the most wonderful phonomena in nature , and the power which caused reproduction appeared to their minds the greatest and most inscrutable . Mingling reason ancl fanciful speculation , they elaborated from this idea , not only sun ancl moon Avorship , but the worshi p of innumerable other so-called

deitiessome benign and some malignant— -as either they or their symbolic representatives favoured or prevented the increase of plants , animals , or men , or tempered or embittered the seasons upon which so much depended . Among a race of children with the stature and passions of men , such as these ancient ancestors of ours , those feAV who , as I have already said , had reasoned out , with the help of exceptional intellectual strength , the conclusions arrived at by modern Avriters upon natural reli gion ; those few , I say , must have , by sheer force of brain power , acquired influence and predominance