Illustrations Of The History Of The Craft.—No. 2.

Laurie —• and especially by German writers , * and though ifc may be true , that the terminology of the operative guild theory has only of late years assumed its present development and position among Masonic writers , yet we are bound , as it

appears to me , to accord in justice to Anderson and Preston , the credit of asserting and maintaining the true theory of the operative origin of

Freemasonry . A great deal of ridicule has been cast upon Anderson , especially , for the high-flown language in which he claims to carry up the antiquity of our Order to the earliest ages of the world , and for the free use he has undoubtedly made of even patriarchal

names-Yet it should be borne m mind , that he probably intended after all by such , language , only to state '¦ jaraphrasticaliy the old teaching of the connection supposed to exist between Freemasonry and the primajval and later mysteries . t

Accepting this view , that the early mysteries were the depositories of sacred truth , though by degrees debased and corrupted , Anderson with many others seems to have held that Freemasonry still retains in its carefully preserved inner

teaching some traces of these earlier mysteries , and that it was in itself therefore as old as the patriarchs , and coeval with the first germs of civilisation amono- mankind !

It must however fairly be admitted , that he has unwisely claimed " nominatim " as patrons and members of our Order , many whose affiliation to Freemasonry could be only at the best but a legendary tradition , and that he has allowed the influence of this old and attractive theory to outweigh the more sober claims of historical evidence

and practical accuracy . Let ns , however , return to the more immediate subject matter . There are three views apparently of the guild vheory , which merit our present and careful consideration : —

1 . —There is the view for instance , of our ' earned German brother . Dr . Findel , to which we ¦ vill give our first attention . If we understand his words rightly in his very valuable and interesting History of Freemasonry , he accepts without reserve the guild theory , and

Illustrations Of The History Of The Craft.—No. 2.

looks upon our modern Order as the direct continuation , though somewhat developed and expanded by the revival of 1717 , of the operative guilds . He advocates distinctly and "without doubt the operative origin of Freemasonry ; and though it

is not quite clear from his valuable work whether he accepts our modern ritual and organisation as identical in all respects with that of the operative fraternity , yet he seems to do so , inasmuch as he more than once advocates the view I have

often contended for , that the ritual and ceremonies and oral teaching and mystic symbolism of the purely operative lodges were to a great extent under the direction and approval of the monastic orders .

The great value of our learned brother ' s history to the Masonic student consists in this , that he so ably points out the real operative origin of Freemasonry ; that he introduces with great clearness in support of his argument , the rules and

regulations , the customs and traditions of the operative German Masons , clearly proving a similarity of usage and identity of symbols between them and our Speculative brotherhood to-day . The peculiarity of Bro . Finders view consists

in this , that he assigns the origin of the Masonic Order , as an operative institution only , to the German " Steinnietzen , " or stonemasons of the middle ages , and ^ seems to fix on the beginning of the 11 th century as the epoch when we have

for the first time satisfactory evidence of their existence and proceedings and purpose . And though it must be ever most interesting to all Freemasons , thus to be able to trace the history of the German operative " Bauhiifcten " or lodges

through several centuries , yet it would be , I venture to think , most unsafe as it is in truth impossible to contend , or seriously for one moment to suppose , that Preemasonry could have thus sprung up all of a sudden in the history

of the world—could with all its old legends and tim e-honoured traditions andmysterioussymbolism , have been alone the product of the ingenuity and skill of German' stonemasons , and transplanted from Germany to England .

Our learned brother ' s argument , that because he finds the legend of the " Four Crowned Martyrs " in our earliest known Masonic MS ., and traces , as he thinks , of " Vehmic " usages in the Sloane MS . 8329 * therefore our English Free-