BY THE REV. JOHN OSMOND DAKEYNE, M.A. The following Extract is copied from the Freemasons' Quarterly Review, for June, 1844, from the Speech of the Rev. J. Osmond Dakeyne, delivered on the occasion of his presiding at the Masonic Festival of the Oliver Testimonial at Lincoln, on the 9th of May, 1844. "I need not tell you, Brethren, what Freemasonry is: before I was initiated, now some twenty years ago, I had read a good deal about what it is not. I allude to a book published by Professor Robison, of Edinburgh, towards the close of the last century, entitled, 'Proofs of a Conspiracy,' &c., in which he, with great ingenuity and considerable ability, endeavoured to connect Freemasonry with the worst features of the Illuminati, &c., of the Continent. He was kind enough to say that he thought Masonry in England was, in some degree, free from the charges he had brought against it. And what were those charges? That we were disloyal, irreligious, and conspiring to overturn all sacred and settled institutions! This book made a great impression; but that impression is removed. And how? By these books which lie before me! [Great cheering as the Rev. Brother then held up splendidly bound copies of Dr. Oliver's Masonic Works.] These have dissipated for ever the accusations brought against our Craft. Disloyal! Why, at the very moment when Professor Robison published his book, who were the heads of our Order? The chivalrous Earl of Moira, George Prince of Wales, and Edward Duke of Kent! Disloyal! Was not George the Fourth our Grand Master? Was not William the Fourth our Brother and Patron? Our last Grand Master was a Royal Duke. The Duke of York was one of the Brotherhood. The King of Hanover is a Freemason! Would all these princes have belonged to a disloyal society? Are we conspirators to overthrow settled institutions? Who is the present head of the army? The Duke of Wellington? Ay, the Duke of Wellington is a Freemason! Are we irreligious? The Archbishop of Canterbury, the Primate of all England, is a Freemason, and was once Master of a Bristol Lodge! But I need not pursue these points; but sure I am that neither I nor my Rev. Brothers near me would be present were it possible to bring any such charges to bear against us. These facts, and above all these books, have set our order in its true light. And who wrote these books? Our friend and Brother and guest, whom we are now assembled to honour! They are the witnesses to his exertions—they are the vouchers for his services. Our Brother Goodacre has aptly alluded to the spreading of Masonry in the East, and, indeed, over the world. Wherever our principles have gone, thither also has passed the name of Dr. Oliver, the historian and the sage of Masonry; and contribu** this offering from distant climes prove in some unrecognized." ** See the end of thi his labours are Prefatory Address to the Fraternity. MY DEAR BRETHREN, AM Aм I correct in supposing that you will once more welcome a Masonic contribution from the pen of an old and faithful friend and Brother, who has spent the leisure of a long life in the exemplification of our noble Order, and in vindicating its purity, amidst evil report and good report, from the sneers, the taunts, and censure of cowans and anti-Masons? I am under no apprehension that my present wellmeant endeavour to diversify the business and lighten the labours of a Lodge will either be rejected or treated with indifference. I have condensed an abundance of valuable matter in small compass; and the subdivisions, though studiously brief and comprehensive, will be found to combine a fund of information on many interesting subjects connected with symbolical Masonry, which it would cost an individual Brother more time and research to acquire than he would be willing to bestow upon it. This, however, forms only a subordinate item in the design of the following pages. My chief intention is to enliven the legitimate proceedings of the Lodge by the introduction of an element which may be at once pleasing and instructive, without inconveniencing the W. Master, or taxing the forbearance of the Brethren. Indeed if I had not been fully impressed with a conviction that these Lectures would be both useful and entertaining, nothing should have induced me to publish them. It too often happens that when an intelligent Brother proposes to deliver an original Lecture in a Freemasons' Lodge, he forms an incorrect estimate of the extent of his hearers' patience; and, by inflicting on them a prosaic homily on some abstruse metaphysical subject of an hour or upwards in length, is surprised to find that, instead of interesting them by a series of appropriate illustrations, he has only succeeded in mesmerizing their faculties and indisposing them for a repetition of the experiment. To avoid this tedious error, I have limited these Lectures to an average duration of ten minutes; and by introducing subjects that are familiar to the Craft, and exhibiting them in a novel point of view, I trust that instead of fatiguing the mind they will prove an agreeable relaxation. I have no doubt, my dear friends, but many of you when occupying the Chair of a Lodge have occasionally felt some slight degree of embarrassment from the trivial circumstance of having ten minutes or a quarter of an hour on your hands, in the absence of business, which you have been at a loss how to dispose of. An eloquent man would meet the difficulty by an off-hand explanation of any one of the numerous symbols by which he is surrounded. But all our W. Masters are not eloquent, nor do the most fluent speakers always make the best rulers of a Lodge of Masons. And I have long been convinced |