The Craft Lectures, Of Fifteen Sections.

others , who were the mere exponents of other men ' s ideas , whilst such really gifted men as Dunckerley and Preston are cast aside . In' Hutchinson ' s time , while he was spreading Ms system in the North , one of the greatest

benefactors Freemasonry can count arose in the South . William Preston , whose Illustrations of Masonry has passed through nearly tAventy editions in England ,: and been translated into every language where Freemasonry flourishes , coalesced with

Hutchinson and produced a system Avhich , for nearly half a century , has been regarded as the best yet produced , and his lectures and his book may be proudly looked to as being the inauguration of a new era in esoteric Freemasonry .

We now come to the last authorised revision upon the union of the ancient and modern lodges , in 1813 , Avhen Dr . Hemming was entrusted to revise our lectures , but OAving to a failure in his health before completing his allotted task , Bro .

Williams , Prov . G . M . for Dorsetshire , a Freemason of some eminence , Avas invited to do so . Apparently too proud to complete Avhat another had begun , he commenced de novo , and the result of . the labours of these two brethren , both systems

being allowed to be disseminated , was to deteriorate the language , turn the Preston system upside doAvn , and produce a jargon which is remarkable only for retaining some feAV good passages from pre \ ious systems , linked together by

ideas in which poverty of diction , the absence of a knoAvledge of craft symbolism , and general want of erudition , are mainly conspicuous .

We hear that the lectures are to be again reraed , and that the matter is to be settled betAveen the two instructors of East and West-end fame . Let every Freemason oppose such an utter absurdit y , for Ave are too far advanced in the 19 th century to

take for gospel all that the disci ples of one or two men Avould force upon us , and it will be better to stick to the ills Ave have than fl y to those of Avhich we cannot imagine the cost to our order .

When our lectures are again revised , before they are accepted by the craft , or receive any authority from the Grand Lodge or Grand Master , we trust they will be submitted to the consideration of a board of gentlemen and scholars , who will be

capable of expunging the anachronisms and the false grammar with which they at present abound —at least , as usuall y given in the majority of so called Lodges of Instruction .

On" Geometrical And Other Symbols.

ON" GEOMETRICAL AND OTHER SYMBOLS .

THE PSYCHOLOGICAL KEY . ( From Hie Builder . ) It appears , then , that Freemasonic symbols , such as the hexalpha ; the square and compasses crossed ; the cross itselfand the symbolical Nin all their varied

, , modifications ; with many others , relate , or at least must have originally related , to " the architecture of the heart , " or "the inward man , " as " the temple " of the illuminative Spirit of God ; which Spirit , when it shines as the light in its temple , crucifies the flesh , or so transfigures and entrances the man as to make

him dead in the flesh ( by the shadow , or semblance , of a voluntary death , as the coffin symbolises ) ; hut quickened by the Spirit , * as is denoted by other emblematical formulte , such as hy the sudden relief from blind folding , in the light of holy night and of the new birth ; and by the refreshment and

recreation of the Free and Accepted Masons with wine or spirits . And as Freemasonry and ancient religious mysteries in general , —on both of which the consideration of Masons' marks has obliged me to enlarge much more than I intended at the outset , —are believed to have been identical in their nature and

purpose ; and as the invocation of the oracular and divine Spirit in high and ecstatic entraneement , or in the semblance of a voluntary death , appears to haA e been a leading feature in these mysteries ; we thus have indicated to us something still more definite as

to those 2 irecise regions of the inward man to which Freemasonry and its coffin ; its blindfolding 1 ; its ultranatural " " Light" aud " Spirit" of the high noon oi * nigbb ; aud its Jachiii and Boaz—its work-life and its rest-life and refreshment in the Spirit ; as also Itsgeometrical symbols of the inward church or temple ; engraven on so many outward churches— -all

ex-, plicitly point our attention ; and not merely to moral perfection therefore , but to the very roots and foundations of life itself ; as involving a mystery to be yet revealed ; and as being the source of a neAV and higher developement of hman life , to be yet evolved into physical and divine perfection , as Avell as into

moral and intellectual . The tenets of the Freemasons , in fact , as Indicated in their initiations and their symbols , agree with those of the hierophanta of the ancient mysteries , as well as with mystical Christian doctrine , in regard to mystical as well as' to mental and moral developement , maturization , or perfeetnienfc ,

and immortalization , by the efficacious means of that entrancing and illuminative Spirit , or inward "Light , " which , —till evoked , or invoked , hy ( true and not merely by figurative or emblematical ) initiation , — smoulders or slumbers in the human temple of the Divinity , as the sleeping God in the Avaking man ( according to the Brahrainical doctrine ) ,: ready for sudden transfiguration , by entraneement , into " the waking God in the sleeping man ; " as I have ' shown iu