Freemasonry In The Seventeenth Century: Chester, 1650-1700.

On p . 59 of the same MS . it is recorded that " All Charters for Incorporation of Companyes are granted by the Maior the Aldermen his bretheren & Councill under Citty seale to enable them if any occation be , to sue by the name of M - & wardens or Aldr . & Stewards of such a Society . " As in the case of the Freemasons , Randle Holme gives lists of different dates of the members of the Companies of Chesterand in some instances their oaths . In a list

, of the trades in Harl . MS . No . 2104 , also by the third Randle Holme ( p . 4 ) , the seventh on the list are tlie " goldsmythes and masons " of Chester . Randle Holme , and probably many of the others , the wills of whom I here print in the appendix , * must be numbered in our list of Freemasons . What the fraternity was at that time , and why he joined it , it would be difficult now to explain ; perhaps his reason wasfollowing up the precept of Gerard Leih in

, g his Accedence of Armorie , f " I maruell what Science , Art or mysterie it were , that a Herauld shoulde haue none intelligence theoreof were it neuer so secrete or profound ? For if he haue not of all thinges some vnderstanding , as well as of seuerall languages he is not worthie to be an Herehaught . "

A Mason's Story.

A MASON'S STORY .

( Concluded from page 76 . )

WE left Penrhyn Falconer in our last considerably bewildered by the sudden appearance and solemn words of the old Hindoo Brahmin . It would be untrue to say that he , on mature reflection , was inclined to dismiss the matter as a dream or as an hallucination . On the contrary , the more he thought over the subject the more he became convinced that it was not by mere accident or pre-arranged ideas that he had experienced this remarkable nocturnal visit . In it he began to see a faint limmering of a providence

g ordaining everything for righteousness , and it was with this faint glimmer in his mind that he set out once more , with Lord Anglesea , to retrace his steps toward his native land . Again they are travelling through the quaint old cities of Continental Europe . They have stood where the mighty Emperor of Imperial Gaul stood when he witnessed the conflagration of the noble city , and beheld the

annihilation of his fairest hopes . They have sailed down the beautiful Rhine , with her castle-girt banks and verdant forests . They have glided through the picturesque fjords and the tiny creeks of the Norwegian coast , and drunk in all the glories of this beautiful earth , even to satiation ; and now they are stopping at the noble old cathedral city of Antwerp , with its red roofs , over which the spire of the mediaeval old church looks down with something akin

to a parent ' s watchful eye . The scene is a totally new one to our hero . He has never seen anything so quietly peaceful as this , where the phlegmatic old Dutchmen smoke their long churchwarden pipes , and quaff their ancient Hollands , as they recline in the doorways in the cool of the evening , while the big canal rolls by , heedless of the activity which all day long has been taking place on its banks . Not alone for this shall Antwerp fill a place in his memory in the days that shall come . Though he will look back at the old city and its associations in