From West To East—From East To West.*

with the bright beams of revelation , and to dispel the primitive darkness of ignorance , snpestition , and error . But all these illustration , of the custom of travelling from West to East for instruction , throw no light whatever on . the anomaly of hailing from the Lodge

of St . John , which , though omitted in tbe present code of English Lectures , must not be altogether lost sight of , for it undoubtedly constituted a Landmark of Ancient Masonry , distinctly recorded in the primitive Ritual . JNow , as regards ourselves , this lodis situated in the East instead of the West ;

ge and being a place of greater traditional light and knowledge than can be found elsewhere , is very unlikely to send out its acolytes to other quarters for instruction .

In our earliest . Lectures . we nnd it recorded that every Freemason ' s Lodge was , hj dedication , a Lodge of St . John ; f and therefore to reconcile the anomaly under discussion , it will only be necessary to omit the locality , and the indefinite article . The respondent will then intelligibly state that he is travelling from a Lodge of St . John in tlie West to

another in tlie East , ia search of instruction ; for the East being the seat of Light and Wisdom , and Jerusalem the chief city of God ' s peculiar people , and the locality ivhere all the typical celebrations by which our lodges ( as antitypes of the Tabernacle and Temple ) were consummated would necessarily be a

place peculiarly adapted for Masonic instruction . I commit this conjecture to the consideration of the Craft . It is a fact corroborated by Masonic history and tradition that the privilege of hailing from Jerusalem amongst Solomon ' s Masons served as a certificate of recommendation ; and whoever possessed that testimonial was freely engaged in all the countries where

the craft might seek employment . Hence the custom might pass traditionally through successive ages till it reached the times of our primitive brethren , the Christian architects of the mediteval ages , and was adopted by them as a formula technically necessary to ensure the kind reception of a sojourner amongst strangers .

It is no valid answer to this reason that the St . John ' s have been ignored by the English system , and their place occupied by two Jews—Moses the lawgiver , and Solomon , the king of Israel—because all other existing Grand Lodges retain the landmark , and still acknowledge the two St . Johns as the patrons and

parallels of Masonry ; whose names form a substantial basis , from which all speculations on its nature and tendency ought to radiate . The Scottish Grand Lodge has raised an effectual bar to this modern innovation by denominating the Order specifically and exclusively " St . JOHN ' S MASONEX , " which is a very correct appellation ; and the observance of their ritual may be tbenee considered as the true practice of tbe genuine Ancient Craft .

Architectural Development Abstractedly Considered.

ARCHITECTURAL DEVELOPMENT ABSTRACTEDLY CONSIDERED .

( Continued from page 446 . ) "History , " says Dionysius , is " Philosophy teaching by examples , " which is a truism equally applicable to the history of Architecture . The farther we pursue our considerations , the more we are convinced of the truth , that the results of the pastin Architectureare pregnant with teaching for the

, , future ; and that they are the only sources from which to expect either a new Architecture , or even the rudiments of one . We have endeavoured , at the risk of tiring our readers' attention , to show those national , and other influences , which havo helped to shape previous developments , as well as those circumstances which have been most favourable to them . These we sntnmed up ,

under the national , intellectual , and mechanical expressions , or qualities of Architecture , and glanced at the main processes , or means , by which they are induced . We will now try to exemplify still more pur views , and in a more abstract manner . If history furnishes us with the proof of ono truth stronger than an otherit is the undeniable onethat the

, , growth of Architecture has always been the result of the growth of nations ; that it has always kept pace with the nationalities and habits of different civilisations , and become their exponent . Styles of art may be considered the fashions , which successive nations shaped ; each style the creation of various circumstances combined ; never the offspring of

one or two creative imaginations , however gifted . A style must be developed by degrees , out of previous elements , by the soil which surrounds it ; by external and internal influences ; and it must , as we have before said , spontaneously , or voluntarily , consent , or yield , to these influences , never be forced suddenly by them , still less by individual efforts . It must either be the result of some developing principle , of the capabilities or

susceptibilities of the elements of a previous style ; or otherwise it must be derived from the combination or adaptation of some new principle of construction , as in the Roman and Early Pointed styles . Of both these instances , introduced features were the origin ; in the case of the Pointed arch , the introduction was by slow degrees , and in many of the earliest specimens of Early

English the transition from the Norman was so susceptible as to be hardly noticed . ( See Temple Church ; Earring-don , Berkshire ; St . Cross , Hampshire . ) The generalities of previous styles have always been thought of , and the salient or common features of them known , before new principles were grafted on them . The two great primeval civilisations- —the E tian

gyp and the Assyrian—which contemporaneously used the beam construction , may be said to have worked out this sy stem ( independently . There can be little doubt , however , —whether the Egyptians in the 13 th dynasty ever held Assyria in subjection for some centuries , or not , —that the remains we have belonging to the period , from Ninus about the 14 th

century B . C . to the time of Alexander the Great , or the 4 th century cn ., show unmistakeable traces of Egyptian features ; the most brilliant age of this long period , being towards the latter end of the Assyrian Empire , or from the time of Arbaces 821 B . C ., to the taking of Nineveh , by Nebuchadnezzar 600 B . C . The ruins of the palaces of Nineveh and Babylon , the palaces of Khorsabad by

Sargon , and Niinrood by Essorhaddon , the remains at Passargadae , the remains of the halls and palaces of Darius and Xerxes at Persepolis—though the full-grown examples of a mature development—manifest more or less Egyptian peculiarities , though the later Persian examples are tinctured by Grecian and Eoman taste . The tumuli , and Lyeian tombs of Asia Minor , the latter evidencing a wooden origin , were contemporary with Persian architecture , and however much Persian influence