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Article ON FREEMASONRY. ← Page 3 of 9 →
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On Freemasonry.
excellence so great , that the most perfect gems of sculpture , which Time , loth to lay his hand upon perfection , has spared us , are the production of Artists who flourished during that period . The arch most probably was the invention of the Greeks ; we are undoubtedly indebted to
them for the Doric , Ionic , and Corinthian Orders . Two reasons have been assigned for the universal cnstoni amongst Freemasons of excluding from the participation ot their " rites all who are not free hy birth ; hence their term Free or Accepted . The first is that when Abraham drove and her son into the wildernessit was commanded ,
Hagar , in order to show that the son of a bondwoman could not inherit with the son of the free . The second , to which we are more particularly inclined , had its orig in in a law in Greece , that no slave should be permitted to learn the seven sciences of the freeborn , —namely , Grammar , Rhetoric ,
Logic , Arithmetic , Geometry , Music , and Astronomy . Now as geometry is the foundation of Masonry in a practical sense , tlie inference may be fairly drawn , that even in Greece the Brethren were distinguished by the name of Freemasons . The ancient rulers and sages of the Craft , considering that the beautiful proportions in architecture are taken from the that
proportions of the human body , wisely determined skilful painters and statuaries should be considered as architects and accepted as Brothers ; hence the union ofthe liberal arts in the Lodges of the Order , —a union cemented by Taste , Philosophy , and Truth . The Sicilians descended from the Greeksinherited from
, them a knowledge of Architecture , as practised by the Craft . The name of Archimedes , who defended Syracuse against the Romans , is held by all true Masons in the most profound respect . In Sicily and parts of Italy a peculiar branch of die Craft has been formed , connected with the circumstance of his deathandto perpetuate his systemit is called the
; , , Order of Knowledge , perhaps one of the most _ sublime degrees in Masonry ; happy should we be to hail its introduction in England , where at present we believe it is unknown . From Sicily we pass to Italy , where the Tuscans , who had learned from the Greeks the Three Orders , added
their own , the Tuscan , which the former people were unacquainted with . Turrenus , their last King , bequeathed his kingdom to the Romans , whose skill in architecture was so poor that they were obliged to employ that skilful people in building thecapilol , and the Cloaca Maxima , the remains ol
Note: This text has been automatically extracted via Optical Character Recognition (OCR) software.
On Freemasonry.
excellence so great , that the most perfect gems of sculpture , which Time , loth to lay his hand upon perfection , has spared us , are the production of Artists who flourished during that period . The arch most probably was the invention of the Greeks ; we are undoubtedly indebted to
them for the Doric , Ionic , and Corinthian Orders . Two reasons have been assigned for the universal cnstoni amongst Freemasons of excluding from the participation ot their " rites all who are not free hy birth ; hence their term Free or Accepted . The first is that when Abraham drove and her son into the wildernessit was commanded ,
Hagar , in order to show that the son of a bondwoman could not inherit with the son of the free . The second , to which we are more particularly inclined , had its orig in in a law in Greece , that no slave should be permitted to learn the seven sciences of the freeborn , —namely , Grammar , Rhetoric ,
Logic , Arithmetic , Geometry , Music , and Astronomy . Now as geometry is the foundation of Masonry in a practical sense , tlie inference may be fairly drawn , that even in Greece the Brethren were distinguished by the name of Freemasons . The ancient rulers and sages of the Craft , considering that the beautiful proportions in architecture are taken from the that
proportions of the human body , wisely determined skilful painters and statuaries should be considered as architects and accepted as Brothers ; hence the union ofthe liberal arts in the Lodges of the Order , —a union cemented by Taste , Philosophy , and Truth . The Sicilians descended from the Greeksinherited from
, them a knowledge of Architecture , as practised by the Craft . The name of Archimedes , who defended Syracuse against the Romans , is held by all true Masons in the most profound respect . In Sicily and parts of Italy a peculiar branch of die Craft has been formed , connected with the circumstance of his deathandto perpetuate his systemit is called the
; , , Order of Knowledge , perhaps one of the most _ sublime degrees in Masonry ; happy should we be to hail its introduction in England , where at present we believe it is unknown . From Sicily we pass to Italy , where the Tuscans , who had learned from the Greeks the Three Orders , added
their own , the Tuscan , which the former people were unacquainted with . Turrenus , their last King , bequeathed his kingdom to the Romans , whose skill in architecture was so poor that they were obliged to employ that skilful people in building thecapilol , and the Cloaca Maxima , the remains ol