well known that the celebrated artist was living at Tyre many years after the Temple was completed. Did Preston, in his account of the Emperor Carausius and St. Alban, intend to infer that these celebrated personages were speculative Masons like ourselves? Certainly not. He merely recorded facts which had been repeatedly endorsed by successive Grand Lodges. Or is it to be believed that with all my Masonic experience, I myself gave the eighth and ninth lectures of my theocratic philosophy of Masonry, as an exemplification of the Mark degrees, under the impression that they recorded a series of unquestionable facts? The idea is too absurd to be entertained. Why I have distinctly affirmed them to be mere traditions and nothing more, and to be received quantum valeat, as they are not proveable by any credible authority, and were promulgated long before I became a Mason, and therefore I cannot be responsible for them, or for many other fables and legends which are scattered throughout my voluminous Masonic works, and which were in existence long before I came into the world. That the time is come for their removal, no one can doubt. let individual Brethren beware how they meddle with them. It is a work which the authorities alone are competent to deal with. Whoever would remove Freemasonry out of the category as an allegorical institution, might as well destroy its existence, for in no other character would it be able to hold its own. But LECTURE XLVI. THE LEGEND. "In the third degree of Masonry we have abundant reason to contemplate death. We must all taste of it. The blows of the destroyer will, sooner or later, fall heavy and fast, and must prove fatal; and into the grave we must go. The earth will be heaped in upon us. Dust will be cast upon our heads; for dust we are, and unto dust shall we return."-SCOTT. "To the praiseworthy three Deep in our hearts." -MASONIC SONG. I HAVE already expressed my persuasion that the legend of the third degree was intended by its fabricators to be nothing more than an allegory, although when given as a naked and unexplained fact, and recited with all the solemnity of truth, ninety-nine out of every hundred candidates believe it implicitly, and would esteem it a casus belli if any one were to express a doubt respecting the most improbable particulars which it professes to record. And when first initiated at an early age, I confess that such were my own impressions. M. Ragon thus refers to it: "All the fables which are introduced into the third degree to excite the wonder and astonishment of the neophyte, and repeated as undoubted facts, preserved by ancient and accredited tradition, may be termed fanciful (grossières; in another place he calls them monstruosités), because the Holy Scriptures tacitly disprove them; for they contain no reference whatever to the circumstances which constitute the legend of initiation." It is, indeed, indefensible as a sober matter of history; and the most rational application of it which the W.M. could make at the conclusion of the ceremony would be, to explain to the candidate that the drama in which he has sustained so conspicuous a part, is merely symbolical; and then subjoin the reference, if our rulers can agree upon any satisfactory explanation of the legend. This course would be plausible, and prevent the candidate from leaving the Lodge-room either with a fallacy on his mind, if he believes it to be true, or with a conviction that a clumsy and unworthy imposition has been practised upon him, which from a better knowledge of the facts he at once repudiates with a combined feeling of pity and disgust. The earliest historical notice we have of this story is in Dr. Anderson's admirable "Defence,” published A.D. 1730; and he explains it thus :-"The accident by which the body of Master Hiram was found after his death seems to allude to a beautiful passage in the sixth book of Virgil's Æneid.' Anchises had been dead for some time, and Eneas his son professed so much duty to his departed father that he consulted with the Cumaan sibyl whether it was possible for him to descend into the shades below in order to speak with him. The pro phetess encouraged him to go; but told him that he could not succeed unless he went into a certain place and plucked a golden bough or shrub, which he should carry in his hand, and by that means obtain directions where he should find his father. ***** Nor could Hiram, the Grand Master of Masonry, have been found but by the direction of a shrub, which came easily up. And in like manner the occasion of the Brethren searching so diligently for their Master was to receive from him the secret Word of Masonry, which should be delivered down to their Fraternity in after ages." 1 An old-established institution, of whatever nature it may be, will have all its Landmarks well defined, and not liable to cavil or dispute, because its details having become fixed by time and uniform practice, will absolutely exclude all puerile doubts or vexatious objections. But the Master's legend was so far from being received in its integrity at the beginning of the eighteenth century that it was replete with discrepancies which appeared irreconcileable. The Craft were not agreed about the veracity or correct application of its leading principles. For instance, while one doubted whether a mere worker in brass and metal was competent to plan and superintend such a vast and magnificent edifice as the Temple of Solomon, another positively asserted that it was a mistake to attribute the undertaking to him at all, because in reality he had nothing to do with it, except in the metallic 1 "Gold. Rem.," vol. i. pp. 68, 69. portions of the work, viz. the brazen columns of the porch, the bases, the lavers, the candlesticks, altars, curtains, and other ornamental details of the fabric; for the name of the chief architect or builder was ADONIRAM, called by Josephus Adoram, a very different person from either the King of Tyre or the skilful worker in metals. Others repudiated the legend altogether, on the ground that there is no trace of it in any accredited history, either sacred or profane. Nor were the Craft agreed about the interpretation of the fable. Some thought it was a new version of the allegorical romance which distinguished the mysteries of paganism, and ascribed its origin to a period very little posterior to the general Deluge, of which, according to this hypothesis, it was an antitypical memorial. One writer, in alluding to this view of the case, affirms that "the legend is a purely astronomical allegory, because it is quite certain that the pretended adventures of H A B,” which he denominates the exoteric doctrine of Freemasonry, "are fabulous; and that the real or esoteric meaning can only be attained by a reference to certain configurations of the celestial bodies." Others refer the apologue to the Christian doctrine of death in Adam and life in Christ, as it was undoubtedly fabricated by Protestant Christians; to Adam as the type-including his fall, which was a moral death, his expulsion from Paradise, and revival or readmission to God's favour by repentance, signified by the gracious promise of a Redeemer; and to Christ as the antitype, in his |