The Rise And Purposes Of Speculative Masonry.

municated to him . Grand lodges were nominally Hield quarterly , but often only at irregular and distant intervals , and you will therefore readily conceive that the number of Master Masons was very few . Care was , however , taken that the

Order should always comprise a greater or lesser number of brethren of good position in society , who , attracted , perhaps , by a love of architecture , or by a desire to share in the scientific researches pursued within the tyled recesses of the

fellowcrafts' lodges , or more than all , it may be , by what was rumoured of the beautiful symbolic morality of the Craft , voluntarily underwent the trials of initiation . Such non-operative brethren were termed " accepted " Masons ; whence our

present designation of "free and accepted" Masons . In particular was some noble or other highly influential brother always selected for the office of Grand Master , who , to quote again the . Antient

Charges , did not need to be , prior to election , above the second degree . From all which it comes , that at the present day neither the Grand Master nor Provincial Grand Masters ( an office not instituted until 1726 ) require to have served Master of a

private lodge . If they have not done so , they are admitted to the secrets ofthe chair , when installed and hornaged as Grand Master , or as Provincial Grand Masters ; but all deputies must have previously served as Masters of private lodges ; and the ground

of distinction is obvious . During the first decades of the seventeeth century the Craft languished greatly , but in the year 1637 a Grand Lodge was held , with the Earl of St . Alban's as Grand Master , at which several useful regulations were enacted

and the necessity of certificates of initiation first enjoined . In 1666 , after the destruction of London by the Great Fire , architecture , both practical and symbolical , again flourished . The foundation stone of St . Paul ' s Cathedral was

laid by Freemasons m loVo , and that edifice was completed in 1710 . During the latter and longer portion of this period . Sir Christopher Wren was Grand Master , and in 1690 King William III . was initiated . But upon the accession of King George

I ., that monarch deprived Sir 0 . Wren of his Grand Mastership , and appointed an obscure brother , one Benson , to that high oflice , which being contrary to all the time-honoured regulations , practices , and customs of the Craft , led to

such almost entire disuetude on its part , that a certain Dr . Plot , author of a work entitled " The Natural History of Staffordshire , " conceived him-

The Rise And Purposes Of Speculative Masonry.

self to have , by some strictures therein , given Freemasonry its death blow . Little did the worthy doctor dream that those very attacks upon our eternal order have preserved his own name from perhaps complete oblivion .

Yet , brethreu , the darkest hour is ever that which just precedes the dawn . The bright star of the morning was about to rise upon that estimable institution on which we are taught at initiation that the sun never sets ; and when we consider

its progress , and remember that within the present year a second lodge has been opened in -Japan , we may , I trust , rely with a firm yet humble confidence that upon it that effulgent luminary never will set until the last great trump shall summon us to

that Grand Lodge above , where the world's Great Architect reigns for evermore . About the year 1714 , Dr . Theophilus Desaguliers , the son of a French pastor , educated in England , a clergyman , a philosopher , and a- savant of great celebrity in his day , was made a Mason in the old lodge held at the Goose and Gridiron in St . Paul ' s

Churchyard , and now known as the Lodge of Antiquity , No . 2 . In the words of our brother , Dr . Oliver , " the peculiar principles of the Craft struck Bro . Desaguliers as being eminently calculated to contribute to the benefit of society at large , if they

could be redirected into the channel from which they had been recently diverted . From this moment the doctor determined to revive Freemasonry , and to restore it to its primitive importance . " At this period the only lodges

existing in England were the Antient York Lodge , which had pretensions to the designation of a mother lodge , and four others in London , respectively held at the signs of the Goose and Gridiron , the Crown , the Appletree , and the Rummer and

Grapes . To continue the words of Brother Oliver : "Bro . Desaguliers no sooner intimated his intention of renovating the Order than he found himself supported by a party of active and zealous brethren , whose names merit preservation . They

were Sayer , Payne , Lamball , Elliott , Gofton , Cordwell , De Noyer , Maurice , Calvert , Lumley , Ware , and Madden . These included the Masters and Wardens of the four lodges just enumerated , and they succeeded in

forming themselves into a Grand Lodge , and resumed the quarterly communications , which had been discontinued for many years ; and having thus replanted the tree , it soon extended its stately branches to every quarter of the globe . There