actual death, burial, and resurrection. Those who held this opinion contended that the assumed designation of the three guilty conspirators was but an exemplification of the name of the traitor Judas; and further urged, as the ground of their belief, that the five signs of the Royal Arch were established on a reference to this event, and that the primitive Lecture contained an abbreviated view of Adam's transgression, penitence, and pardon, sealed by the promise of redemption; whence originated the FIDUCIAL sign of the degree.

Others again sought an interpretation of the parable in the death of Abel by his brother, with the crime, sentence, and punishment of the murderer; and it is certain that in one of the foreign ELU degrees the name of the principal delinquent is stated to be CAIN. Hutchinson, however, interpreted the three degrees by the three religious dispensations-the Patriarchal, the Levitical, and the Christian.

On the other hand, it was a favourite theory amongst a certain section of the Craft, that the allusion was intended to refer politically to the death of Charles I.; while others ascribed its origin to Cromwell, who, they say, "conducted his candidates at their initiation into a dark room, denominated the preparing room, where, by means of long prayers, he prepared them to believe that he held an intimate communion with the blessed spirits. Out of this dark room they were conducted into another, called the Lodge of Reception, or Holy Place, in which were represented upon the floor the ruins of

Solomon's Temple. They were then passed into the inner Lodge, or Sanctum Sanctorum, where the usual ceremonies were performed." Such, according to this testimony, was the origin of the Masonic Order.

Some entertained an idea that the degree and its legend were both fabricated by the Jesuit adherents of King James II., at the Lodge of St. Germains, where several novel ceremonies were undoubtedly introduced and new degrees invented, which were emblematical of the dethronement, captivity, and escape of that monarch. But, as I have before observed, by far the largest number of Brethren implicitly believe that the legend records a series of veracious events which actually occurred at the building of Solomon's Temple.

LECTURE

XLVII.

DISCREPANCIES.

"Not far a rising hillock stood in view,
Sharp myrtles on the sides and cornels grew ;
There, while I went to crop the sylvan scenes,
And shade our altar with the leafy greens,
1 pull'd a plant; with horror I relate
A prodigy so strange and full of fate,

Scarce dare I tell the sequel. From the womb
Of wounded earth, and caverns of the tomb,

A groan, as of a troubled ghost, renew'd

My fright; and then these dreadful words ensued :— 'Why dost thou thus my buried body rend?

O, spare the corpse of thy unhappy friend!'"

-DRYDEN'S VIRGIL.

"The sprig of evergreen, that emblem of immortality, constantly reminds the Mason that another state of existence awaits him. And when he realizes the consciousness that his soul is purified and fitted as a living stone for that celestial temple on high, though he may mourn the loss of such as were dear to him here, he sorrows not without hope. The ties which bound him to earth, as they have been dissolved one after another, have taken root in a better soil, enjoying the rays of a better sun, and breathing an atmosphere untainted by miasma; and with fondest anticipation he looks forward to the day which shall restore him to the society of those loved ones who have long since been called from labour to refreshment."-BRO. LEVERT, U.S.

IF I had not found certain unmistakable indications of a "Master's Part" at an earlier date than the period when the Chevalier Ramsay flourished, I

should have assigned the invention of this legend to him, as he was probably the fabricator of the degrees called "Ineffable," which exemplify and complete the allegory of H A B; and if judiciously managed, might together have formed a pleasing fiction. But unfortunately, from some unknown cause, the arrangement is defective, the unities are disregarded, and altogether it contains an absolute violation of the rules of dramatic composition, as well as the verities of historic truth. For instance, we are told that when the Temple was nearly finished, it was customary, at the hour of H. xii, when the men were called from labour to refreshment,1 for HAB to retire to the Most Holy Place to draw his plans and designs, and offer up his orisons, &c. But how could this be accomplished before the Sanctum Sanctorum was built? And if finished, he would not have been permitted to enter it; for one living person alone possessed that privilege, viz. the High Priest, and he only once a year. Besides, when a work is nearly completed, the necessity of plans and designs ceases altogether. But we are assured that not only were the plans drawn and the specifications approved, but every other preparation was made for completing the work before the foundations were laid; even the stone and timber were carved, marked, and numbered before they were removed

This portion of the legend varies considerably from the statement of Dr. Anderson, who was probably one of its original fabricators, for he says (Const. 1738, p. 14), that the death of HA B took place after the temple was finished, and, consequently, the men dismissed.

from the quarry and the forest; and hence nothing was required, when the materials were conveyed to Jerusalem, but skilled labour to make it perfect and complete from foundation to cope-stone.

Again, some of the rituals taught that H A B divided the operatives into three classes; viz. Apprentices, Fellow-crafts, and Masters; paying the wages of the former at the pillar of B, the Fellow-crafts at that of J, and the Masters in the Middle Chamber. Now, as in the former case, this arrangement would be impossible before the pillars were erected or the Middle Chamber built; and if it be pretended that any such plan was adopted after they were finished, the tragic drama could not be true, because it professes to have been enacted before the Temple was completed.3

And finally the veracity of the legend is completely ignored by a reference to the Holy Scriptures, which constitute our authority for affirming that no such event ever happened; for H A B not only lived to finish all the work, in whatever capacity he might have been engaged, but also, according to the testimony of Josephus, who calls him ABDEMON, he returned to Tyre and died there at a good old age. It follows, therefore, that the tomb and obelisk, the urn and green cord, in the degree of Perfect Master, the crimes of the three J-s, who are not so much as named in the earlier versions of the legend, and

2 Chron. viii. 16.

3 The legitimate words are, "Finding that the temple was nearly completed," &c.

4 1 Kings, vi. 9, vii. 14, 40, 51; 2 Chron. v. 1.