PREFACE.

ON commencing his undertaking, the Editor intended to have adopted the title of Brother Preston's work, with such additions as English Masonry demands; but as the "Illustrations of Masonry" has, since the volume was put to press, been reproduced, it was but just to abandon the title originally proposed.

To comprehend the entire system of the Institution, a thorough acquaintance with the Volume of the Sacred Law, or Holy Scriptures, and a full appreciation of the Book which contains the treasures of God's revealed will, are essential.

Its aim and end throughout all time has been to incite men to acts of kindness to their fellows; it recognizes no sect or creed in Craft Masonry, which is universal, but it requires an acknowledgment of the true and living God Most High.

The first great doctrines held in sacred veneration by the Order are the existence of God and the immortality of the soul, pointing its votaries to that clouded canopy

where all good Masons trust eventually to arrive, by Faith in God, Hope in immortality, and Charity towards

man.

The next prominent doctrine is unity of mankind; it levels all those distinctions which wealth has created, making no difference but personal merit. In a Masons' Lodge the noblest peer of the realm, and the poorest peasant that tills the soil, the minister who serves at God's altar, the father of venerable age, and the young man in the prime of life, all meet on equal ground, hailing each other as "Brother!" At his first step, the Mason has impressed upon his mind the practice of moral and social duties-his duty to his God, his neighbours, and himself; and to be, in whatever land he may dwell, a quiet and peaceable citizen. These precepts of Craft Masonry are more strongly enforced in the Ineffable Degrees, which are but an extension of the former.

A considerable portion of the illustrations of Craft Masonry is derived from Preston's work, but all beyond the three degrees is for the first time presented in a consecutive form. The importance attached to the degrees under the Ancient and Accepted Rite, as well as the Templar Degree, and the vast annual increase of their recipients, equally required illustration.

Two of the degrees, now a part of the Ancient and Accepted Rite-viz., the Eighteenth and Thirtieth-are of long standing, and for a considerable period have been practised in England; and by the good management of the Supreme Council are now firmly established. The support which the Rite receives from the highly educated Brethren

of the learned professions has unquestionably been a means of retaining many as active members of the Fraternity who might otherwise as their predecessors aforetimehave ceased Membership of Lodges.

It is not to be overlooked that the teaching of the Degrees in this Rite-that are practised-is but an expansion of that of the Symbolic Degrees; and that the great principles upon which our Order is founded-BROTHERLY LOVE, RELIEF, and TRUTH-obtain their Consummation in the Cardinal Virtues of FAITH, HOPE, and CHARITY.

With reference to the Degrees referred to and their origin, it may be observed that the transmission of the Institution, by whatever names it has borne, as a secret Society, is by many, and with some reason, traced from the Egyptian mysteries, through Persia and Greece, thence by the Manichæans, Paulicians, Albigenses, and Troubadours, to the poets of the middle ages, as Dante, Boccaccio, and men of science, as Porta; and in one of the earliest printed books of the Continent, dated 1495, any one who has a key to the cyphers it contains will readily see the Rose-Croix is referred to. Rosetti's work on the Antipapal Spirit which produced the Reformation, throws considerable light on the Secret Societies of the middle

ages.

During the middle ages, when the light of learning was confined to the ecclesiastics, the papal power, following the system adopted by Gregory VII., of keeping the human mind in darkness, prevented as far as possible the spread of knowledge, except theology and medicine: many

of these learned priests united in the study of what was termed occult philosophy, which was a search after some secret hitherto unknown, and, as Rosicrucians, professed to be engaged in discovering the art of transmuting metals, when in fact it was the Truth of which they were in search. That they succeeded in concealing their real object is proved by their printed books, which, without a key, are unintelligible even now, and must have been equally so at the time of their production, when the darkness of ignorance covered the earth. The ceremonies of the secret schools were derived from the ancient mysteries of Egypt, Persia, and Greece. "Dante's grand poem can only be understood by those initiated in the history of the time. It is a disguised paraphrase of the Revelation, written in the same allegorical language, but applied to a political design. To the generality of readers, of course, this language is an enigma; but the very small number who can read it in its double sense, and enter into the spirit of a volume which is written within and without, in imitation of Ezekiel and St. John, have thereby entered into the realm of spirits, and can comprehend works without number, which differ from each other in nothing but the title. Allegorically speaking; he who once breaks the seven seals of this fast-closed volume, may afterwards open every seal imposed by the jealous Order who forged them, and enter into the knowledge of things which the wise man is not permitted to manifest openly." "Apuleius, describing his initiation into the Egyptian mysteries, narrates that, after he had touched the gates of death, and the interior courts of the queen of eternal woe