Why Bro. Gould Discredits Wren's Connection With Freemasonry.

by relating the real cause of such neglect . The famous Sir Christopher Wren , Knight Grand Master of the most antient and honourable Fraternity of Free and Accepted Masons , having served the crown up wards of fifty years , was ( at the age of ninety ) displaced

from employment , in favour of Mr . William B-ns-n , who was made surveyor of the buildings , & c ., to his Majesty King George the First . The first specimen of Mr . B-ns-n ' s skill in architecture was a report to the House of Lords that their house and the painted chamber adjoining were in an

immediate danger of falling ; whereupon the Lords met in Committee , to appoint some place to sit in while the Houso should be taken down , but it being proposed to cause some

other builders to inspect it , they found it in very good condition The Earl of Sunderland , then Secretary , gave them [ the indignant Lords ] assurance that His Majesty would remove him [ viz ., Bunsen ] .

w Such usage , added to Sir Christopher ' s great age , was more than enough to make him decliue all public assemblies , and the Master Masons then in London were so much disgusted at the treatment of their old and most

excellent Grand Master , that they would not meet , nor hold any communication under the sanction of his successor , Mr . B-ns-n . In short , the brethren were struck with lethargy , which seemed to threaten the London Lodges with a final dissolution . "

Now , the joke is , the dismissal of St . Christopher from the office of surveyor did not take place uutil 1718 , that is a year after the Grand Lodge of England was constituted , and with regard to the " Multa Paucis" statement about Sir Christopher ' s infirmities , Bro . Gould shows that

Wren was a member of Parliament until 1712 ; in 1713 he published a reply to an anonymous attack made upon him in a pamphlet called " Frauds and Abuses of St . Paul ' s . " The same year he surveyed Westminster Abbey , and wrote an excellent and scientific report on its structure

and defects . In the year 1717 , the year the Grand Lodge was formed , he wrote a reply to the Commissioners for rebuilding St . Paul ' s . In 1718 ( says his biographer Elmes ) , " witnessed the disgraceful fall of Sir Christopher Wren ,

in the ei ghty-sixth year of his age , and forty-ninth of his office as Surveyor-General of the Royal buildings ; his mental faculties unimpaired , and his bodily health equal to the finishing as the head of the office the work he had BO ably begun . "

Preston ' s evidence about Wren was also sifted by Bro . Gould . The "Illustrations of Masonry" by Preston was printed in 1772 , and in 1812 the twelfth editition of that work was printed during the author ' s lifetime , and each successive edition was of course enlarged . Comparing

the successive editions of his [ Preston ' s ] works [ says Bro . Gould ] , we find such glaring discrepancies that , unless we believe that his information was acquired , as he inserts it , piecemeal , or , like Mahomet and Joseph Smith , each fresh

effort was preceded by a special revelation , we must refuse credence to statements which are unsupported by authority , contradictory to all known testimony , and even inconsistent with each other . "

Besides publishing the " Illustrations , " Preston delivered a course of lectures in 1774 , all of which raised his reputation and made him famous among Masons . On the 15 th June 1774 , he was elected member and W . M . by the Lodge of Antiquity . This compliment he endeavoured to repay

by puffing up the early importance of the said Lodge . In 1779 the said Lodge got into dispute with the Grand Lodge , and the 1781 of Preston ' s edition received , among other new matter , the following resolution , which he claimed was passed by the Grand Lodge of England in 1717 , or so , viz ,:

" That every privilege which they [ the four old Lodges ] collectively enjoyed by virtue of their immemorial ri ghts , they still continue to enjoy , and that no Jaw , rule or

regulation , to be hereafter made or passed in Grand Lodge shonld ever deprive them of such privilege , or encroach on any landmark which was at that time established as the standard of Masonic government . "

Strange to say , the above " compact" was never doubted , and even our Bro . Gould quoted that very compact a few years ago , as a matter of fact , when we happened to pitch into and demolish Bro . Gould ' s arguments ,

by proving to bis own satisfaction that the so-called com pact , originated in Preston ' s brains . In conseqnence of the dispute of the old Lodge with the Grand Lodge , the old Lod ge seceded from the jurisdiction of the Grand Lodge , and with the sanction and approbation of the fossil

Why Bro. Gould Discredits Wren's Connection With Freemasonry.

Grand Lodge at York , the Lodge of Antiquity declared itself an independent Grand Lodge ; Preston then oforth began to puff up the importance of the York Grand Lodgo , styling it " The Grand Lodge of All England , " and quoted lots of history from the old York records . Bro . Gould

says : " In the use , however , of the word ' records , ' the author of the ' Illustrations' sets an example which has been closely followed by Dr . Oliver , and whenever either of these writers presents a statement requiring for its acceptanco

more than ordinary credulity , it will invariably bo found to rest upon the authority in the one case of an old record , and in the other on a mcuiMsert ' of of tho Society . " And again , " Thus records of the Society aro cited by Preston in proof

of the initiation of Humphrey , Duke of Gloucester , and Henry VI ., and the latter , on the same authority , is said to have perused tho ancient charges , revised the Constitutions , and with the consent of his Council honoured them with his sanction . "

Tbe reader can now form an opinion on Preston ' s powers of invention . We shall therefore content ourselves with giving merely Bro . Gould's brief summing np of Preston ' s successive historic additions , thus : In 1775 , it is first stated that Wren presided over tho

old Lodge of St . Paul during the building of the Cathedral . Between 1775 ancl 1778 , the only noteworthy circumstance recorded is the possession by the said Lodge of the histoiic mallet employed to lay the foundation stone of St . Paul ' s . In 1792 , however , a mass of information is

forthcoming , viz ., that Wren patronised the Lodge of Antiquity for eighteen years , that he presented it with three candlesticks during the period of his Mastership , and ' lodged' with the same body—of which Gabriel Cibber and Edward Strong were members—the mallet so often alluded to . "

Thus Anderson and Preston falsified Masonic history : the former , in order to puff up the importance of the old Craft , and the latter to puff up the importance of his Lodge . We see no indication that Brother Gould had access to the records of tbe Lodge of Antiquity ;

but from other sources he shows that the members of the said Lodge in 1717 held a lower social rank than the members of the fourth Lodge . Now , if Wren had been connected with the said Lodge up to 1710 , or even if Wren , Colonel Goodric , " and divers others , "

had joined the said Lodge in 1691 , as asserted by Aubrey , the membership of that Lodge in 1717 , would have consisted of the highest respectabilities in the Craft , and it would have furnished the premier Grand Master in 1717 . Dr . Oliver , indeed , made Sayer the G . M . of 1717 , a

member of the first Lodge . But Bro . Gould shows that he belonged to the third Lodge ; and with the exception of Sayer , and two members of the first Lodge , who were Wardens in 1718 and 1721 , all the remaining dignitaries who then figured in the Grand Lodge belonged to

No . 4 . Again , in 1723 No . 1 had twenty-two members ; No . 2 , twenty-one ; No . 3 , fourteen-, and No . 4 had seventy-one . The three senior Lodges had no member of sufficient rank to be described as " Esquire , " while No . 4 had ten noblemen , three honourables , four baronets or

knights , seven colonels , two clergymen , viz ., Desaguhers and Anderson , and twenty-two esquires . Previous to the formation of the Grand Lodge , it was the custom for the oldest Master Mason to preside over the Lodge . At the preliminary meeting of the four Lodges in 1716 , as well as

in 1717 , previous to the election of the Grand Master , Anderson informs us that upon each occasion " the oldest Master Mason , now Master of a Lodge , " presided over the two assemblies . The said Master Mason was probably a member of the oldest Lodge , and we can imagine no better reason for the omission of his name than his social

inferiority . Bro . Gould further shows that members of No . 1 visited a Lodge in 1730 , and the visitors consisted of operatives . With all due deference , therefore , to the defenders of Wren ' s Masonry , it is our firm belief that if the said

defenders were jurors in a case involving a certain sum of money , and the claimant ' s evidence consisted of a newspaper statement , and a paragraph written down by a "credulous gossip , " such as Aubrey is described to have

been , while , on the other hand , there was a mass of negative evidence to show the improbability of the claimant s testimony , as just-minded men we believe the said jurors would decide against the claimant ; and unless some new evidence should turn up on the question at issue , all that