erecting stately piles of building under the patronage of great and wealthy princes, many of whom were accepted as Members and Brothers of the Order; and became Grand Masters, each in his own dominions, in imitation of King Solomon, whose memory as a Mason was reverenced by all other peoples, and will be till architecture shall be consumed in the general conflagration.1

It follows, therefore, that the above formula was strictly correct when applied to Solomon's Masons, for they proceeded literally from the West to the East, hailing from the Lodges at Jerusalem, which constituted the undoubted origin of this peculiar phraseology, and, having been embodied in our primitive Rituals, still applies with accurate consistency to the practice of the Fraternity in India and the Australian Islands. But how is it borne out in countries westward of Jerusalem? That is the question to be considered.

The discrepancy in the phrase from West to East, starting from the Lodge of St. John at Jerusalem, as it was expressed in the ordinary Ritual of the last century, and applied to the several countries of Europe and America, where the institution at the present time flourishes in its greatest purity, appears to have entered into the deliberations of the Committee appointed, in 1814, to reconstruct the Lodge Lectures; and being unable to solve the difficulty, like Alexander, they cut the knot by utterly repudiating both St. John (who is styled by Preston

1 See Anderson's "Const.," pp. 16, 17, ed. 1738.

"our ancient and venerable patron") and his Lodges, and expunging his honoured name from the Ritual, although it was probably introduced at the formation of the York Grand Lodge; and not only acknowledged by Calcott, Dunckerley, and Hutchinson, but advisedly embodied by Preston in his version of the Lectures, which contain a plain record of the fact. But the misfortune is, that the alteration was accompanied by no certain clue to direct us how to account for the anomaly. The Lectures simply stated that the Visitor, or more correctly the Senior Warden of the Lodge, who was the actual respondent, came from the West for instruction; and when the name of his Lodge was demanded, he distinctly replied, "the Holy Lodge of St. John at Jerusalem," with a recommendation from "the Right Worthy and Worshipful Brothers and Fellows of that Lodge, who sent their hearty greeting." But the Lodge of St. John at Jerusalem lies geographically eastward of this country; and therefore the sojourner in his course from thence to Europe or the new world, would not literally proceed from West to East, but from East to West. is the difficulty. How is it to be reconciled? The solution of this problem will form the subject of another Lecture.

This

LECTURE XXI.

FROM EAST TO WEST.

"If you are a Master Mason, as I suppose you be, I trust you are not ignorant of the rule of three. The rule of three I understand, for the key of this Lodge is at my command. The NAME shall make you free; and what you want in Masonry shall be made known to thee. Good Masonry I understand, for the key of all Lodges is at my command. You speak boldly. From whence come you? From the EAST. Whither going? To the West."-FROM AN ANCIENT RITUAL. "More than a hundred years ago, Numbering but twelve in all, They met within a little room,

And, ere the night was gone,

Had work'd a good Masonic Lodge,

And named it for ST. JOHN."-VAN ZAndt.

"To all worthy Masons, wheresoever dispersed under the wide and lofty canopy of heaven."-SECTIONAL CHARGE.

IN forming speculative Masonry into a system, its founders, whoever they may have been, evidently intended to advance gradually through the existing degrees in a well-regulated climax. For this purpose, with great ingenuity, they constructed a series of Landmarks on a corresponding principle; amongst which must be included the references to the equatorial points of the compass. Thus the E. A. P. is taught to say that he comes from West to East for instruction; the F. C. that he travels, or rather

that his forefathers travelled, East and West; those who went eastward sought for instruction, and when they journeyed westward, it was to propagate the same in various parts of the world; and the M.M. is represented as going from East to West, in search of something that had been lost, and which, according to the primitive system, he finds; although modern interpretation makes him unsuccessful, and furnishes certain substitutes which fall infinitely short of the thing required. Hence this reference to the cardinal points was formerly a literal and grammatical climax, which the alterations of Dr. Hemming and his associates have utterly destroyed.

Now it is clear that a great many precedents, from a remote period of time, might be adduced as prototypes of the custom of proceeding from West to East, and from East to West. At the dispersion from the plains of Shinar, for instance, the migrating tribes spread themselves over the earth towards all the four quarters of the compass. I have already observed that Solomon's Masons, when the Temple was finished, travelled from West to East in search of employment. The sun, the glory of the firmament, apparently travels from East to West, but in reality it is the earth that proceeds in its diurnal rotation from West to East. The camp of the Israelites, as well as the Tabernacle, which was a type of our Lodges, was placed due East and West. The Magi, conducted by the Blazing Star, travelled from the East to the West in search of the expected Deliverer; and evangelical and moral truth had their origin in the East, and travelled westward to

enlighten mankind with the bright beams of revelation, and to dispel the primitive darkness of ignorance, superstition, and error.

But all these illustrations 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 the 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. Now, as regards ourselves, this Lodge is situated in the East instead of the West; 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.

1

In our earliest Lectures we find it recorded that every Freemason's Lodge was, by dedication, a Lodge of St. John; 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

1 Thus, in the ritual used in the time of Sir C. Wren, we find the following passage :—“What Lodge are you of? The Lodge of St. John." And the Continental formula used about the same period is correspondent thereto. "Comment s'appelle cette Loge? La Loge de S. Jean." And this explanation was appended :— “Il faut toujours répondre ainsi, lorsqu'on vous catechise, parce que c'est le nom de toutes les Loges." Whence the old charge at the end of the fifth section of the E. A. P. Lecture :-"To the pious memory of the two St. Johns, the two great parallels in Masonry; may we follow their precepts and profit by their example."