the mean time, keep mounting up the ladder, from mystery to mystery, till he arrives at the forty-third degree of perfection: which, however, in my opinion, cannot be of the least possible advantage to him here or hereafter, any further than the consequence it may give him. As to those who serve in the ranks, they probably consider themselves sufficiently honoured by being hailed as Brothers by those whom they think their superiors, and permitted to parade the streets with ribbands and white aprons, to the amazement of the profane vulgar.

Notwithstanding the remarks I have made, I am by no means inimical to the Masonic Society for I believe it to be a liberal, social institution, in which persons of the most opposite opinions on religious and political subjects associate in the utmost harmony. By these friendly meetings, it is to be presumed, that party spirit, both in politics and religion, loses much of its asperity among the members; and that those, who otherwise might have entertained hostile feelings towards each other, become friends. In this point of view, the Society deserves to be held in the highest estimation. For however laudable zeal may be in a just cause, when carried to excess, so as to excite personal ill-will towards others of contrary opinions, it degenerates into its kindred vice, leading to hatred and persecution. No good reason can be given why men of the same or similar societies should entertain greater partiality for one another, than for others of their fellow-men, any further than their merits when known may dessrve; and to this it is generally limited among men of sense; still, in consequence of the obligations by which Masons are bound to each other, and a sort of bigotry in many, this partiality has had its good effects in mitigating the evils of war; and, for men who travel, a diploma from a Lodge has sed as a letter of recommendation in foreign countries.

pas

As a charitable institution, the Masonic Society ought to be held in high consideration. The relief it grants to its members and their families in distress, is very considerable. But, unfortunately, as I am told, its means are very much exhausted by expenses incurred for refreshments at the regular meetings. If each member were required to pay for what he consumes at those meetings, the Society, in consequence of its numbers, by its income arising from annual contributions, fees of initiation, &c., would be enabled to do more in charity, perhaps, than any private society in existence.

As to what Mr. Paine has said upon this abstruce subject, I take the liberty of observing, that, in my opinion, notwithstanding the talents he has bestowed upon it, and the interest he has given to it, his remarks, made doubtless in the utmost sincerity, are calculated to perplex and embarrass readers not conversant in these matters, more than those of any other author, whose design was to involve it in unintelligible mystery.

"In thoughts more elevate, he reasoned high,
But found no end, in wand'ring mazes lost."

ORIGIN OF FREE-MASONRY.

It is always understood that Free-Masons have a secret which they carefully conceal; but from every thing that can be collected from their own accounts of Masonary, their real secret is no other than their origin, which but few of them understand; and those who do, envelope it in mystery.

The Society of Masons are distinguished into three classes or degrees. 1st. The Entered Apprentice. 2d. The Fellow-Craft. 3d. The Master Mason.

The entered apprentice knows but little more of Masonry, than the use of signs and tokens, and certain steps and words, by which Masons can recognize each other, without being discovered by a person who is not a Mason. The fellow-craft is not much better instructed in Masonary, than the entered apprentice. It is only in the Master Mason's lodge, that whatever knowledge remain of the origin of Masonary is preserved and conceled.

In 1730, Samuel Pritchard, member of a constituted lodge in England, published a treatise entitled Masonry Dissected; and made oath before the Lord Mayor of London, that it was a true copy

"Samuel Pritchard maketh oath that the copy hereunto annexed is a true and genuine copy in every particular.'

In his work he has given the catechism, or examination, in question and answer, of the apprentices, the fellow-craft, and the Master Mason. There was no difficulty in doing this, as it is mere form.

In his introduction he says, "the original institution of Masonry consisted in the foundation of the liberal arts and sciences, but more especially in Geometry, for at the building of the Tower of Babel, the art and mystery of Masonry was first introduced, and from thence handed down by Euclid, a worthy and excellent mathematician of the Egyptians; and he communicated it to Hiram, the Master Mason concerned in building Solomon's Temple in Jerusalem."

Besides the absurdity of deriving Masonry from the building of Babel, where according to the story, the confusion of languages prevented builders understanding each other, and consequently of communicating any knowledge they had, there is a glaring contradiction in point of chronology in the account he gives.

Solomon's Temple was built and dedicated 1004 years before

the Christian era; and Euclid, as may be seen in the tables of chronology, lived 277 years before the same era. It was threfore impossibly that Euclid could communicate any thing to Hiram, since Euclid did not live till 700 years after the time of Hiram.

In 1783, Captain George Smith, inspector of the Royal Artillery Academy at Woolwhich, in England, and Provincial Grand Master of Masonry for the county of Kent, published a treatise entitled, The Use and Abuse of Free-Masonry.

In his chapter of the antiquity of Masonry, he makes it to be coeval with creation. 64 When," says he, "the sovereign architect raised on Masonic principles the beauteous globe, and commanded that master science, Geometry, to lay the planetary world, and to regulate by its laws the whole stupendous system in just unerring proportion, rolling round the central sun."

But," continues he, "I am not at liberty publicly to undraw the curtain, and thereby to descant on this head; it is sacred, and will ever remain so; those who are honoured with the trust will not reveal it, and those who are ignorant of it cannot betray it." By this last part of the phrase, Smith means the two inferior classes, the fellow-craft and the entered apprentice, for he says, in the next page of his work, " It is not every one that is barely initiated into Free-Masonry that is entrusted with all the mysteries thereto belonging; they are not attainable as things of course, nor by every capacity.

The learned, but unfortunate Doctor Dodd, Grand Chaplain of Masonry, in his oration at the dedication of Free-Mason's-Hall, London, traces Masonry through a variety of stages. Masons, says he, are well informed from their own private and interior records, that the building of Solomon's Temple is an important era. from whence they derive many mysteries of their art. "Now (says he), be it remembered that this great event took place above 1000 years before the Christian era, and consequently more than a century before Homer, the first of the Grecian Poets, wrote; and above five centuaries before Pythagoras brought from the east his sublime system of truly masonic instruction to illuminate our western world.

"But remote as this period is, we date not from thence the commencement of our art. For though it might owe to the wise and glorious King of Israel, some of its many mystic forms and hieroglyphic ceremonies, yet certainly the art itself is coeval with man, the great subject of it.

the most distant, We find it amongst

"We trace," continues he," its footsteps in the most remote ages and nations of the world. the first and most celebrated civilizers of the East. We deduce it regularly from the first astronomers on the plains of Chaldea, to he wise and mystic kings and priests of Egypt, the sages of Greece, and the philosophers of Rome."

From these reports and declarations of Masons of the highest order in the institution, we see that Masonry, without publicly declaring so, lays claim to some divine communication from the Creator, in a manner different from, and unconnected with, the book which the Christians call the Bible; and the natural result from this is, that Masonry is derived from some very ancient religion, wholly independent of, and unconnected with that book.

To come then at once to the point, Masonry (as I shall shew from the customs, ceremonies, hieroglyphics, and chronology of Masonry) is derived, ini is the remains of the religion of the ancient Druids; who, like the magi of Persia and the priests of Heliopolis in Egypt, were priests of the Sun. They paid worship to this great luminary, as the great visible agent of a great invisible first cause, whom they stiled, Time without limits.

The Christian religion and Masonry have one and the same common origin, both are derived from the worship of the sun; the difference between their origin is, that the Christian religion is a parody on the worship of the sun, in which they put a man whom they call Christ, in the place of the sun, and pay him the same adoration which was originally paid to the sun, as I have shewn in the chapter on the origin of the Christian religion.*

In Masonry many of the ceremonies of the Druids are preserved in their original state, at least without any parody. With them the sun is still the sun; and his image in the form of the sun, is the great emblametical ornament of Masonic Lodges and Masonic dresses. It is the central figure on their aprons, and they wear it also pendant on the breast in their lodges, and in their processions. It has the figure of a man, as at the head of the sun, as Christ is always represented.

At what period of antiquity, or in what nation, this religion was first established, is lost in the labyrinth of unrecorded times. It is generally ascribed to the ancient Egyptians, the Babylonians and Chaldeans, and reduced afterwards to a system regulated by the apparant progress of the sun through the twelve signs of zodiac by Zoraster the lawgiver of Persia, from whence Pythagoras brought it into Greece. It is to these matters Dr. Dodd' refers in the passage already quoted from bis oration.

The worship of the sun, as the great visible agent of a great invisible first cause, time without limits, spread itself over a considerable part of Asia and Africa, from thence to Greece and Rome, though all ancient Gaul, and into Britain and Ireland.

Smith, in his chapter on the antiquity of Masonry in Britain, says, that "notwithstanding the obscurity which envelopes masonic his

* Referring to an unpublished portion of this work of which this chapter forms a part.

297

tory in that country, various circumstances contribute to prove that Free-Masonry was introduced into Britain about 1030 years before Christ."

It cannot be Masonry in its present state that Smith here alludes to. The Druids flourished in Britain at the period he speaks of, and it is from them that Masonry is descended. Smith has put the child in the place of the parent.

It sometimes happens, as well in writing as in conversation, that a person lets slip an expression that serves to unravel what he intends to conceal, and this is the case with Smith, for in the same chapter he says, "The Druids, when they committed any thing to writing, used the Greek alphabet, and I am bold to assert that the most perfect remains of the Druids' rites and ceremonies are proved in the customs and ceremonies of the Masons that are to be found existing among mankind. "My bretheren" says he, "may be able to trace them with greater exactness than I am at liberty to explain to the public.'

This is a confession from a Master Mason, without intending it to be so understood by the public, that Masonry is the remains of the religion of the Druids; the reasons for the Masons keeping this a secret I shall explain in the course of this work.

As the study and contemplation of the Creator in the works of the creation, of which, the sun as the great visible agent of that Being, was the visible object of the adoration of Druids, all their religious rights and ceremonies had reference to the apparent progress of the sun through the twelve signs of the Zodiac, and his influence the earth. The Masons adopt the same practices. The roof of upon their temples or lodges is ornamented with a sun, and the floor is a representation of the variagated face of the earth, either by carpeting or by Mosaic work.

Free-Masons' Hall, in Great Queen-street, Lincolin's Inn Fields, London, is a magnificent building, and cost upwards of 12,000 pounds sterling. Smith in speaking of this building, says, (page 152.) "The roof of this magnificent hall is, in all probability the highest piece of finished architecture in Europe. roof, a most resplendent sun is represented in burnished gold, surIn the centre of this rounded with the twelve signs of the Zodiac, with their respective characters:

Aries
8 Taurus
II Gemini

Cancer

& Leo

my Virgo

Libra m Scorpio

↑ Sagittarius

V Capricornus

* Aquarius

* Pisces

After giving this description, he says, "The emblematical mean

ing of the sun is well known to the enlightened and inquisitive Free

21