when the object of these Lectures is simply to make a plain statement of facts as they are connected with the existing system of practice. It is a general opinion amongst the Craft that in the present state of Masonic progress, it ought not to be impeded by hypothetical obstructions; and many worthy Brethren contend that the Order would be benefited by a free and ample discussion of first principles, unshackled by imaginary precedence in any possible form. "Let it once be understood what are Landmarks and what are not," they say, " and all objections will be for ever silenced. But until some such general agreement amongst the several Grand Lodges of the world be accomplished, we are grovelling in darkness, and all our boasted accessions of light are no better than the glimmerings of reason compared with the full blaze of divine revelation."

If there be anomalies, these Brethren urge, let them be swept away; but to persist with such pertinacity from age to age in the fiction that Landmarks are unalterable, with certain irrefragable facts before us to repudiate the assertion, is unworthy of a great institution. We live in an age of reform, and if there be anything in Freemasonry that needs excision, the sooner the Grand Lodge take the bull by the horns the better. Malus usus abolendus est. H.R.H. the late Grand Master, whose authority on this subject will scarcely be questioned by any living Mason, contended that "obedience, however vigorously observed, does not prevent us from investigating the inconvenience of laws which at the time they were framed may have been prudent, and

even necessary; but now, from a total change of circumstances and events, may have become unjust, oppressive, and useless. Justinian declares that he violates the law who, confining himself to the letter, acts contrary to the spirit of it."

And it is evicentury enterIt will not do

If the above reasoning be sound, these conclusions will be clearly deducible from it. Freemasonry is evidently in a state of transition. If what are usually esteemed Landmarks offer an obstacle to its onward progress; if they clog and imperil the institution, or apply solely to another phase of society, there is no valid reason, in the opinion of the late Grand Master, why they should not give way when the interests of the Craft require it. dent that the Fraternity in the last tained a somewhat similar opinion. to be continually tinkering; stopping one hole and making two. A comprehensive scheme of reform is of more value than a thousand pieces of patchwork. Let the question be settled at once and for ever. Either wholly draw aside the veil or let it not be touched. Name the Landmarks that are unalterable, and make it penal to violate them; and then it may be truly said, that "it is not in the power of any man or body of men to make any alteration or innovation in the body of Masonry." In such case we may have some chance of avoiding litigation, for our own time at least.

LECTURE IV.

SPURIOUS

LANDMARKS.

"The sciences in which the Arabs made original discoveries, and in which, next after the Greeks, they have been the instructors of the moderns, were mathematics, astronomy, astrology, medicine, materia medica, and chemistry. Now, it is very possible that from the Arabs may have originally proceeded the conceit of physical mysteries without the aid of magic, such as the art of gold-making, the invention of a panacea, the philosopher's stone, and other chimeras of alchemy which afterwards haunted the heads of the Rosicrucians and the elder Freemasons.” -DE QUINCEY.

"That in Freemasonry there is neither magic, theurgic, nor theosophy, is well known to every brother; but, alas! there is too much reason to believe that in former ages these vagaries of the mind were thought to be found amongst us. Under the hieroglyphics of our royal art many have sought for that secret which, like the possession of Solomon's seal, would enable them to govern the world of spirits."—GADICKE.

OUR continental Brethren in the eighteenth century were disposed to reject the hypothesis which traces Freemasonry as a science back to the building of King Solomon's Temple. And I think they were correct in principle, although they erroneously endeavoured to substantiate their opinions by the use of a series of spurious Landmarks which had no existence but in their own imagination. With this end in view they contended that its pristine design, as a mediæval institution of no higher antiquity

than the advent of the Stuart family in England, was to further the purpose of the Rosicrucians, and to regenerate the world by means of the philosopher's stone and the elixir of life, which constituted the visionary Landmarks on which the theory was founded.

They also taught that in furtherance of this plan, a few learned Englishmen embraced the doctrine promulgated by Lord Bacon in his new Atlantis, in which he assumed that a certain monarch built a magnificent edifice at Bensalem (Jerusalem), which he called Solomon's Temple, and formed themselves into an exclusive society for the purpose of following out the principle, which was the origin of the Royal Society. That, in addition to this, another institution was at length established for a similar purpose, which differed essentially from the former, and consisted principally of men who expected to attain a knowledge of the occult secrets of nature by alchemical operations; amongst whom were Elias Ashmole, Lily, and others, who had some preliminary meetings at Warrington, on the pretence of reconstructing, in a symbolical manner, Bacon's visionary Temple of Solomon. For this purpose they erected a pair of emblematical pillars, which they called the pillars of Hermes, and thence advancing by a ladder of seven steps to a chequered pavement, they exhibited symbols of the creation, the secrets of which it was their aim and purpose to fathom.

To conceal their mysterious meetings they procured admission into the Masons' company in London, and assumed the denomination of Freemasons,

and adopted the implements of operative labour as their chief symbols. And, as most of its members were strongly opposed to the principles of Puritanism, their meetings, though ostensibly intended for scientific investigations, were secretly directed to the purpose of restoring Charles II. to the throne of England after the execution of his father. With a further view to secrecy they assumed the denomination of SONS OF A BEREFT WIFE, in allusion to the widowed queen; bewailed the death of their murdered master, and adopted a sign of recognition to commemorate that tragical occurrence. They further sought for the recovery of a LOST WORD, meaning the legitimate title of king, then lost to the nation. At a later period, as their histories tell us, the character of the institution underwent a radical change by the intervention of Sir Christopher Wren, and assumed its present position of morality, charity, and truth.1

It will be unnecessary to comment on this absurd attempt to explain the origin and design of Freemasonry by a reference to any political movement, although it undoubtedly constituted the specious will-o'-the-wisp by which many well-intentioned antimasons have been misled, and induced to ascribe the invention of Masonry to the Rosicrucians, instead of the Cyclopean builders of antiquity and their successors, the FREE AND MASTER MASONS, who erected those superb monuments of high art,-the churches and cathedrals of the medieval era.

1 See more of this in the Freemasons' Magazine for December, 1853.

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