who with muscular arm wielded the setting mall, handled the trowel, and wore their sheep-skin aprons with unaffected grace. And to operative Masons, who know the use of plumb lines and squares, shovels and common gavels, rough ashler, perfect ashler, and trestle board, the ceremonies of Masonry may in some parts be delightful and profitable. Such will enjoy the lines placed at the head of this chapter. True Masons know the meaning of the lines, and relish them. But pretended Masons, ignorant of the art, would understand, "True your joints break," in a literal sense; and so pretend broken limbs. "Take care that you follow your leaders," they would separate from all connexion with operative Masonry, and apply it as a rule to obey the grand officers. that would be to them the secret: a mystery inexplicable. "And be sure that you fill up your headers," would be understood in a convivial sense. A thousand times worse perverted is Free Masonry. Having come into the hands of lords and gentlemen and tailors, most of whom have not the smallest idea of the pedestal, column and entablature; the plinth, the die and the surbase; and finding the terms of Masonry either vulgar, as brick and mortar, or obscure, as "ledgers and putlocks," they think the very brick and mortar has some hidden meaning, known only to the gifted Mason; and "the ledgers and putlocks," (pudlogs. Walker,) are terms of the universal language, which has come down to Masons uncorrupted from the plains of Shinar; and which they, poor fellows, have not had opportunity to learn yet; and so it is that the plain noun Masonry, which every child knows to mean the art of building with brick, and stone, and mortar, is made to come from the Greek, Mirgavca; SUM in medio Coeli; Anglicé, I am in the midst of heaven. (Hutchinson's Sp. Mas. p. 15.) or, as Smith gives it, p. 35., "The original names of Masons and Masonry may probably be derived from Musngo, res arcana, mystery, and Muras, sacris initiatus, mysta, those initiated into sacred mysteries.”* The humble origin of Free Masonry does not suit with the high notions of its white handed professors; and is used as an argument even to prove the heavenly mystery of the order. "Were we claimants," says Mr. Hutchinson, "only of the title of mechanics, we might have chosen as ancient, and a more honourable branch of the arts or sciences." p. 159. No doubt we might, and if it were to do over again, should; but it is done, and we must bear it. Mr. H. will not bear it, however; he asserts, in the face of all the insignia of the lodge, and the trowels of the chart, and aprons of the craft together, that "our mysteries are totally abstracted from the rules of mechanics; they are not furnished with any type, symbol, or character, but what appertains to demonstrate the servants and devotees of the great Meosgavew.”Sp. Mas. p. 159. "Gavel, gauge, and plumb, and level, But who is this Mr. Hutchinson, that holds the truth so * "The words mason and masonry, are but corruptions of other words, having no relation to edifices. Mason is, by some, derived from the Greek word, mas and soan, (quæro salvum,) I desire life or salvation, and supposed to allude to the situation of the candidate during some period of the ancient ceremonies. The term masonry seems but a slight variation of the Greek Mergavεw, (esse in medio coeli) I am in the midst of heaven.”—Greenleaf's Brief Inquiry into the Origin and Principles of Free Masonry, p. 44. "The name of mason is not to be considered in the contracted sense of a builder of habitations; but figuratively, one, who by gradual advances in sublime truths, and the various arts and sciences, which Free Masonry inculcates, is raised by regular courses to such a degree of perfection, as to be replete with happiness himself, and extensively beneficial to others." (Calcoll's Disquisitions, p. 76.) lightly? Is he some Jachin and Boaz, disowned by the fraternity? Did the Masons kill him for a disgrace to the craft? No, no; what Mr. Hutchinson has written, was esteemed "for her profit and praise," and is prefaced with the following แ SANCTION. "Whereas brother William Hutchinson has compiled a work, entitled, 'The Spirit of Masonry ;' and has requested our sanction for the publication thereof; we, having perused the said book, and finding it will be of use to this society, do recommend the same. Lord Petre is well known in the annals of Masonry, as Grand Master of England, from 1772 to 1777; under whose administration, the corner stone of Free Masons' Hall, London, was laid.-Whew! Whew! Of what use is reason to such men; or argument against such folly? "Having perused the book, do recommend the same." sonry answer it. Let Ma The copy in my hands is an edition published at NewYork in 1800, and here follows a passage which the Lord Petre and his grand officers must have read, and which shows with what a determined spirit Mr. Hutchinson closed his eyes to the truth, and hardened his heart in transgression, while he would prove Masonry to belong to Heaven, and not to bricks and mortar. "Our antiquity is in our principles, maxims, language, learning, and religion; these we derive from Eden, (the language of Eden in the lodges!) from the patriarchs, and from the sages of the east, all which are made perfect under the Christian dispensation. The light and doctrines which we possess, are derived from the beginning of time, and have descended through this long succession of ages uncorrupted; but our modes and manners are deduced from the different eras of paradise, the building of the temple at Jerusalem, and the Christian revelation." Three eras, one for each of the three degrees. If Mr. Hutchinson was mad, my Lord Petre, and Mr. Holt, and Mr. Noel, &c. ought not to have recommended his labour, and Mr. Preston should not have quoted his work as follows: "Mr. Hutchinson, in his ingenious treatise entitled, The Spirit of Masonry." * And, if Mr. H. were in his right mind, he should not have asked the following questions, p. 170. "If our ceremonies mean not the matter which I have expressed; if they imply not the moral and religious principles which I have endeavoured to unveil ; I ask you, MASONS, what they do imply, import or indicate?" (Because they are senseless and ridiculous, he thinks they must be unearthly, heavenly, divine.) "Can we presume so many learned and noble personages would, for many successive ages, have been steady members of the fraternity, if the mysteries were unimportant, and the ceremonies unintelligible? It cannot be; take away their SPIRIT, and they become ridiculous."-Hutch. p. 171. To learn the spirit of these ceremonies, I turn back, and on p. 170. I find, "The Divinity looking down with an eye of commiseration upon the deplorable state of man, in his mercy and love, sent us a Redeemer and Mediator," &c. "In the MASTER'S ORDER this whole doctrine is symbo * And the Grand Lodge of Maryland. "The enlightened brother Hutchinson, in his elaborate work entitled the Spirit of Masonry," p. 180. F. M. Library. Again, p. 199., quoting from Mr. Hutchinson's Spirit of Masonry, he says, "I again introduce the most respectable authority which has ever fallen to my lot to peruse." Again, p. 190., "The erudite pen of the author of the Spirit of Masonry." lized, and the Christian conduct is by types preserved to us." Precisely as wind-mills were giants to the knight of La Mancha. Opportunity will offer more of Mr. H.'s views in the progress of this work. All comment upon them fails; their absurdity is unspeakable; yet he has a spark of sense left: "take away their SPIRIT," ," he says, from the ceremonies of Masonry, " and they become ridiculous." To save them from utter contempt, he persuades himself they are symbols of the Redeemer's cross! IN showing the perversions of Masonry, these lines will do well to head a chapter. In the mouth of a labouring Mason they would not very much err from the truth. Adam lived to a great age, and it is not impossible that he taught |