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Article OUR ARCHITECTURAL CHAPTER. Page 1 of 4 →
Note: This text has been automatically extracted via Optical Character Recognition (OCR) software.
Our Architectural Chapter.
QUE ARCHITECTURAL CHAPTER .
The Freemasons ' Magazine , as a faithful record of Craft news , embalms in its last number a dissertation hy a Paris correspondent of the New York Times , on the alleged discovery by a Mr . Henzlemann , a high Dutchman , of a lost Masonic secret . According to Mr . Henzlemann atid his believers , there was one grand mathematical secret which guided the great works of Jewish art , of Greek architecture , of Roman and of medieval architecture . This secret was known to architects and to Masons down to the fifteenth , perhaps to the sixteenth , century , and was then lost by them .
The ingenious promiMgator of this doetrine has either set down too little or tpo much . The word or secret , which he has recovered from the tomb , was divinely communicated to Moses , David Solomon ^ and Hiram , and by them graciously transmitted to Pythag'oras and others , and so handed down to the mediseval monks ; but whether the secret had worn out , or its divine or inspired originators had not adequately provided for its continued
transmission , Mi \ Henzlemann has not explained ; hut rtnluckily the secret was lost . When % —at the very period when it would best have worked—at the grand epoch of the revival of art and learning . This is passing strange ¦• but then Mr . Henzlemann , alone and uncompanioned , proceeds north , east , south , and west , to recover the lost secret , or it may be to find a new one , and this he affiinis is the right one .
Such is the trash which is put into circulation by visionaries to the discredit of the Masonic Order , and many a worthy man is kept from knocking at the door by the belief that such impostures and hallucinations are an integral part of Masonry . On the strength of the reputation enjoyed by the Craft , and on the evidence that whatever mysteries are held by it are in worthy keeping , there are persons who think that any concoction of false facts , false dates , and false reasoning can be foisted on the public faith , on the assertion that they are connected with Masonic mysteries .
In reference to this performance of Mr . Henzlemann , it may be as well to remark that he has no foundation for his assertion that there was such a mathematical secret in architecture or Masonry influencing the various eras of art , and which has been lost , or that Freemasonry has been unfaithful to its trust , and lost any secret which had been confided to it by Hiram
or any one else . Ihose who are so ready—as the French authorities are supposed to be—to admit Mr . Henzlemann as the authentic recoverer of this secret may as well inquire by what mission Mr . Henzlemann has gained the inheritance or representation of the Masonic brotherhood throughout the world , and is commissioned to divulge the secret so recovered to the profane , It will readily occur to the Minister of Public
Works , that had Mr . Henzlemann so discovered this secret on Masonic inspiration , it would have been his first duty to restore it to his Brethren ; and the minister would have inquired of the illustrious Grand Master of France , or of the Grand Orient , Whether Mr . Henzlemann had so restored
to the Order its lapsed prerogative—a service which the highest ranks of the French ritual would not bo found too high to acknowledge . It is scarcely necessary to say that the Grand Orient of France know nothing of the new interpreter and promulgator of Masonic mysteries . No decent ( student of architecture is so ill-informed as not to know there
is no mathematical secret « which gives a singular harmony to the works of the Jewish , the various Greek , 45 the Roman , the Byzantine , the Norman , 4 €
Note: This text has been automatically extracted via Optical Character Recognition (OCR) software.
Our Architectural Chapter.
QUE ARCHITECTURAL CHAPTER .
The Freemasons ' Magazine , as a faithful record of Craft news , embalms in its last number a dissertation hy a Paris correspondent of the New York Times , on the alleged discovery by a Mr . Henzlemann , a high Dutchman , of a lost Masonic secret . According to Mr . Henzlemann atid his believers , there was one grand mathematical secret which guided the great works of Jewish art , of Greek architecture , of Roman and of medieval architecture . This secret was known to architects and to Masons down to the fifteenth , perhaps to the sixteenth , century , and was then lost by them .
The ingenious promiMgator of this doetrine has either set down too little or tpo much . The word or secret , which he has recovered from the tomb , was divinely communicated to Moses , David Solomon ^ and Hiram , and by them graciously transmitted to Pythag'oras and others , and so handed down to the mediseval monks ; but whether the secret had worn out , or its divine or inspired originators had not adequately provided for its continued
transmission , Mi \ Henzlemann has not explained ; hut rtnluckily the secret was lost . When % —at the very period when it would best have worked—at the grand epoch of the revival of art and learning . This is passing strange ¦• but then Mr . Henzlemann , alone and uncompanioned , proceeds north , east , south , and west , to recover the lost secret , or it may be to find a new one , and this he affiinis is the right one .
Such is the trash which is put into circulation by visionaries to the discredit of the Masonic Order , and many a worthy man is kept from knocking at the door by the belief that such impostures and hallucinations are an integral part of Masonry . On the strength of the reputation enjoyed by the Craft , and on the evidence that whatever mysteries are held by it are in worthy keeping , there are persons who think that any concoction of false facts , false dates , and false reasoning can be foisted on the public faith , on the assertion that they are connected with Masonic mysteries .
In reference to this performance of Mr . Henzlemann , it may be as well to remark that he has no foundation for his assertion that there was such a mathematical secret in architecture or Masonry influencing the various eras of art , and which has been lost , or that Freemasonry has been unfaithful to its trust , and lost any secret which had been confided to it by Hiram
or any one else . Ihose who are so ready—as the French authorities are supposed to be—to admit Mr . Henzlemann as the authentic recoverer of this secret may as well inquire by what mission Mr . Henzlemann has gained the inheritance or representation of the Masonic brotherhood throughout the world , and is commissioned to divulge the secret so recovered to the profane , It will readily occur to the Minister of Public
Works , that had Mr . Henzlemann so discovered this secret on Masonic inspiration , it would have been his first duty to restore it to his Brethren ; and the minister would have inquired of the illustrious Grand Master of France , or of the Grand Orient , Whether Mr . Henzlemann had so restored
to the Order its lapsed prerogative—a service which the highest ranks of the French ritual would not bo found too high to acknowledge . It is scarcely necessary to say that the Grand Orient of France know nothing of the new interpreter and promulgator of Masonic mysteries . No decent ( student of architecture is so ill-informed as not to know there
is no mathematical secret « which gives a singular harmony to the works of the Jewish , the various Greek , 45 the Roman , the Byzantine , the Norman , 4 €