The True History Of Freemasonry In England.

calities of our Lodges , from first to last , point to one operative basis , and are derived from the actual working tools and customs of purely operative and mechanical masonry . And if , above all , this connection is actually proveable by evidence , and supplies the best historical account of our Order , we surely need not be so tenacious as to the mere respectability and mere sensational orig in , of our fraternity , which some would claim for our Order , as to reject a simple and natural account of cause and of effect , of origin

and of progress . Bather , I think , we shall adopt the words of a non-Masonic writer , and say" Their labours , Time to Death can never give , And in the sculptured stone their memories live . " From the earliest times in the annals of civilised man , architecture was deemed almost a sacred artand its professors treated with marked respect . They , on the other hand

, , seem also to have regarded it not only as a sacred , but as a secret science . I am , therefore , not at all disposed to quarrel with that traditional history of Freemasonry alluded to by Anderson and Preston , which makes Freemasons builders in a literal sense of those wonderful constructions

" erected by the world's primeval sires , The mighty relics of mysterious days . " Among the Egyptians it was so , there can be little doubt , and from the Egyptians civilisation , and the arts of civilisation , spread gradually , as we know , into Palestine , and Greece , and Italy . Whether or no Egypt was the cradle of such secret associations , or merely the medium of their transmissionhaving originally received them from

, India , as some writers think , matters little for the purpose of this inquiry . Moses , we are expressly told , was learned in all the wisdom of the Egyptians , and we may , I think , fairly believe that portion of our own annals which tells us that Moses handed on , among the laws , the secret lore of the Egyptian mysteries . Among the Greeks there were bodies of architects , who formed themselves into corporations and brotherhoods , with words and signsand secret initiation and solemn ceremoniesand who admitted

, , honorary members . But it is with a later period of Jewish history that our traditions so closely connect themselves . There seems to be little reason to doubt that our own peculiar and unchanging tradition of a secret bond of union between the Jewish aud Tyrian Masons , who together raised the glorious Temple of King Solomon , is in itself perfectly true . Bishop Heber has beautifully

said" Yet here fair Science nurs d her infant fire , Fann'd by the artist aid of friendly Tyre ; Then tower'd the palace , then , in awful state , The Temple rear'd its everlasting gate . ¦ No workman steel—no ponderous axes rung—Like some tall palm the noiseless fabric sprung . " ( To be Continued . )

Forgive And Forget.

FORGIVE AND FORGET .

FOUGIVE and forget—it is better To fling every feeling aside , Than allow the deep cankering fetter Of revenge in thy breast to abide . For thy steps through life ' s paths shall be lighter , When the load from thy bosom is cast ; And tho sky that's above thee bo brighter , When the cloud of displeasure has passed .