Antecedents Of Freemasonry.

such overseers as had charge of the Craft . Divine instructions were also given as to the several apartments of the temple , leaving the dimensions of the materials of which such apartments should be composed to be designated by draft or otherwise , as the master architect should choose to prescribe . Furthermore , as all the materials were wrought in the forests and quarries , it would seem that misapplication in place or apartment could only be avoided

by affixing some distinctive mark or character to each block , by which to designate its place and thereby avoid inevitable confusion . Indeed no building as magnificent , spacious , and complex in workmanship as the temple was , could at the present day be built without fault , under all the circumstances involved in that inimitable work of art . Thus far there is no denying the succession of operative Craft

workmen from the remotest antiquity down to the completion of the temple , any more than the existence of human habitations . 'This class of men also , whether they wrought individually or otherwise , were in all languages called masons , and their craft work , masonry .

Effects Of The Crusades.

EFFECTS OF THE CRUSADES .

AMONG the effects oi the Crusades , the most striking was the awakening and the giving a higher life to the spirit of chivalry : The principles of honour , it is true , the exercise of arms , and the whole code of knightly maxims and manners , were long before brought into established forms , classed in gradations , and connected with certain outward ceremonies , and thereby the peculiar system of chivalry already instituted . This received its highest however

development , , in the military orders , when the knight , devoted by a solemn vow to the great business of all Christendom , felt himself free from feudal dependence , and even exalted above the restraints of nationality , as the immediate warrior and vassal of God and universal Christeudom . The three great military orders , for which Europe is indebted to the east , and to the Crusadersarc the science and model of all other orders of

, knighthood . They arc the Kni ghts of St . John , who , even to the latest times , have preserved the ori ginal spirit of chivalry in their struggle with the Mahomedans ; the Teutonic Kni g hts , who in Prussia founded the most powerful and flourishing German colony on the Baltic ; aud the order of Templars , which after a brief enjoyment of great power , was annihilated in so cruel a manner by the rapacity of the French king . In respect to any

influence which the cast may have exercised upon ideas in Europe , that against the heretical Albigenses had been carried on and , m precisely those districts in which during the reign of Louis XIV ., the Crusaders , persecuted for their reli gion , were driven to despair , and finally exterminated after an obstinate struggle , in France , also , occurred the cruel persecution of the order of the Templars , whose ruin , terminating in the execution of the last

Grand Master , De Molay— so venerated for his virtues—neither the king , nor the pope who had yielded to him , long survived . \ Vhat _ the ideas were that prevailed in the order , what portion of their object was not publicl y known , could not be brought to light in a proceeding like this , so unjust in its very form ; at the most this—that there were secrets in the order , was shown , but not with any distinctness what those secrets were . The order was exterminated

in France onl y ; in other countries , although the sentence of dissolution pronounced by the pope was carried into effect , yet it was done with forbearance- , in some the Templars were incorporated with other newl y established military orders , and to these their property was transferred . The spirit of the order was not extinguished ; it lived and worked on in silence , aud , brief as was the period it filled a place m history , it may j ^ ct be numbered among the most remarkable phenomena of the world . —From Schl & jd .

I ' liEjuwcrs AXD TRUTH . —Some texts of Scripture have been eagerly appealed to and made ( in one sense ) too much of ; they have been taken by force into the service of received opinions and beliefs ; texts of the other class have been either unnoticed or explained away . Consider , for example , the extraordinary and unreasonable importance attached to single words , sometimes of doubtful meaning , in reference to any of the following subjects : —1 , Divorce ; 2 , Marriage with a Wife ' s Sister ; 3 , Inspirationithe Personality of the HolSirit 5 Infant JSaptisni

; , y p ; , ; H , Episcopacy ; 7 , . Divine Bight of Kings ; S , Original Sin . There is , indeed , a kind of mystery in the way in which the chance words of a simple narrative , the occurrence of some accidental event , the use even of a figure of speech , or a mistranslation of a word in Latin or English , have affected the thoughts ot" future ages and distant countries . Nothing so slight that it has not been caught at ; nothing so plain that it way not be explained away . —Profcmr Jomtt .

Archæology.

ARCH ? OLOGY .

LONDON AND MIDDLESEX ARCHAEOLOGICAL ASSOCTATION " . A general meeting of the members of this society was held on Thursday , the 12 th hist ., by special permission of the Masters of the Bench of the Honourable Societies of the Inner and Middle Temple , in the Middle Temple Hall . The spacious hall was well filleda large proportion of the assemblage being ladies . The chair

, was taken shortly after twelve o'clock , by Archdeacon Robinson , Master of the Temple . The Rev . Chairman , in opening the proceedings , bore testimony to the value of archaeology as a science , and declared how thoroughly he sympathised in the objects of the society . In years long past , he said , in the hall in which they were then assembled , the chivalry of the Templars was wont to be seen , and

certainly those were times which deserved to he rescued from the comparative darkness in which they now lay , in order that we might thoroughly understand one of the most remarkable , if not one of the proudest periods in English history . And though the Masters of the Temple of those days had a more g littering throng around them of arms and of pageants , yet , resting under the shadow of their prestige , he did not think that a greater distinction could have fallen on them than that which was devolved on

him m being called to the chair an that occasion . The Rev . Thomas Hugo read the following interesting paper , descriptive of " Domesday Book : "— "We are favoured by the Master of the Rolls ( he said ) with permission to-day to inspect what may be considered the noblest of the treasures committed to his guardianship , the venerable record of Domesday . I may therefore he doing a service to some of our members if I present

them with a brief account of this most remarkable compilation , which will be likely to make their inspection of the original more instructive and valuable . The sources from which my information is principally derived are , besides some considerable knowledge of the record itself , the works of Bishop Kcnuett , Sir Harris Nicolas , and Sir Henry Ellis , the latter of whom , in bis most excellent introduction to Domesday , has presented us with a vast amount of

information , derived from a study of many years of the precious original , and whose words I shall use on several occasions from a consciousness that no better could be employed . Domesday was commenced about the year 1081 , and completed 10 SG . It was formed by a transcript or abstract of the breviates , which were in the first place compiled from local information in the different counties , and subsequently forwarded by the justiciaries to Winchester

, where the ) ' were copied , rather , as it would appear , in a more contracted form than the returns actually furnished , and placed in a consecutive series . The justiciaries or commissioners had been appointed with full powers to collect information . Those for the Midland counties were , Reinigius , Bishop of Lincoln ; Walter Giftard , Earl of Buckingham ; Henry de Fcrers , and Adam , the brother of Eudo Dapifer . Before I enter into the

mode by which these commissioners obtained the matter of their returns , a word may be necessary respecting the name of the record itself . It has at various times borne various appellations , as ' Liber dc Wintoniu , ' ' Rotulus Wintonia ; , ' and ' Liber Regis . ' Its English name of 'Domesday' has been variously interpreted . By some it has been held to allude to the day of doom , from the minuteness and unsparing nature of its details — ' Qnai mini parcit sicut nee magnus dies Judic ' u : while by others it has been said to derive its name from the fact that it

was deposited in the king's treasury in the church of Winchester or Westminster , and in a particular place in one of those churches , called Domus Dei . It was greatly valued , and kept under three locks and keys in the custody of the auditor , chamberlain , and deputy-chamberlain of the Exchequer . Soon after its completion it was removed to Westminster ; was in 1690 placed in the chapter-house , and down to a very recent period remained there ,

till it has found a better aud safer place of deposit in the new record house attached to the Rolls chapel . The following was the mode of compilation . The inquisitor , upon the oath of the sheriff , the lords of each manor , the presbyter of every church , the reves of every hundred , the bailiff and six villans of every village , were to inquire into their several particulars—the name of the placewho held it in the time of King Edwardwho was

, , the present possessor , how many hides there were in the manor , how many earraucatcs in the demesne , how many homagers , how many villans , how many cotterii , how many scrivi , what free men , how many tenants in soccage , what quantity of wood , how much meadow and pasture , what mills and fishponds , how much added or taken away , what the gross value in King Edward ' s time , wmit the present value , and how much each freeman or