Freemasonry : Its Origin, Its History, And Its Design.

fanciful and legendary speculations of the old writers are gradually giving place to the well-supported statements , and the logical deductions of the authentic school . By most of the leaders of this school the complex question of the origin of

Freemasonry is being solved in the following way : — There existed in Home from the first days of the kingdom , and all through the times of the republic and of the empire , until its final decay , certain guilds or

corporations of workmen , which are well known in history as the Roman colleges of artificers . Numa , who is said to have founded these guilds , established only nine , but their number subsequently greatly increased . From the Koman writers who have treated of the form and organization

of these colleges , we learn enough to show us that there was a great analogy in their government to that of the modern Blasonic lodges , and this , especially in their character as a great societ }' , and in their initiations and esoteric instructions to which candidates for admission and the

younger members were subjected . Of these guilds the one to which Masons particularly refer , is that which consisted of architects or builders . The authentic school of Masonry does not claim , as this mythical most probably would have done

, that the Uoman colleges of architects were lodges of Freemasons . They simply contend that the facts of history exhibit a regular and uninterrupted derivation of the Freemasonry of this day from these Roman guilds , although the course of the

succession was affected by various important changes . But these changes have not been sufficient to altogether obliterate the evidence of the relationship . This relationship is thus indicated . From a very early period the Roman people were distinguished by an active spirit ot colonization . No

sooner bad their victorious legions subdued the semi-barbarous tribes of Spain , of Gaul , of Germany , ami of Biitain . than they began to establish colonies aud to build cities . To evury legion that went forth to conquer and to colonizewas attached a

, guild or college of architects , whose numbers , taken from the great body at Homo , marched and encamped with the legion , aud when a colony was founded , remain there to cultivate the seeds of Roman civilization , to inculcate the princi ples of

Romau art , and to erect temples of worship aud houses for the accommodation of the inhabitants . In the course of time the proud mistress of the world became extinct as a power of the earth , and the colonies which she had scattered over the Continent became independent kingdoms and

principalities . The descendants of the Roman colleges of artificers established schools of architecture , and taught and practised the art of building among the newly enfranchised people . A principal seat of this body of architects was at Omo , a city of

Lombardy , where a school was founded which acquired so much reputation that the masons and bricklayers of that city received the appellation of masters of Como , and architects of all nations flocked to the place to acquire the correct

principles of their profession . From this school of Lombard builders proceeded that society of architects who were known at that time by the appellation of Freemasons , and who from the tenth to the sixteenth century traversed the Continent

of Europe engaged almost exclusively in the construction of religious edifices , such as cathedrals , churches and monasteries . The monastic orders formed an alliance

with them , so that the convents frequently became their domiciles , and the }' instructed the monks in the secret principles of their art . The Popes took them under their protection , and granted them charters of monopoly as ecclesiastical architects , and invested them with many important and

exclusive privileges . Dissevering the ties which bound them to the monks , these Freemasons ( so called to distinguish them from the rough masons , who were of an inferior grade and not members of the corporation ) subsequently established the

guilds of stonemasons , which existed until the end of the seventeenth century in Germany , France , England and Scotland . These stonemasons , or , as they continue to call themselves , Freemasons , had one peculiarity in their organization which is

uecesssary to be considered if we should comprehend the relation that exists between them and the Freemasons of the present day . 'The society was necessarily an operative one , whose members were actually engaged in the manual labour of building , as well as in the more intellectual occupation of architectural designing . This with the fact of their previous connec-