Q. From whence did our present forms arise?

A. From the order observed in classing and distinguishing the multitude of workmen there employed, as well for paying them their respective wages, as for preserving good government among them*.

Q. How many masons were there in all ?

A. Three thousand, six hundred, who presided over the ordinary workmen.

Q. How were they distinguished?

A. As Fellow Crafts and Entered Apprentices.

Q. How were they divided?

A. Into lodges or companies of seven Entered Apprentices or five Fellow Crafts.

Q. How many Entered Apprentices?

A. Two thousand one hundred, making three hundred lodges or companies.

Q. How many Fellow Crafts?

A. Fifteen hundred, of whom three hundred were stiled Gibeonites, on account of their excellent skill as workmen, and of these three hundred, each presided over a lodge or company of Fellow Crafts and Entered Apprentices.

Q. What wages were given to them?

A. A certain allowance of corn, wine, and oil, to each lodge or company; besides wages in money to the master of the lodge.

Q. Where were those wages received?

A. In the middle chambert of King Solomon's Temple, to which none but Fellow Crafts were admitted.

Q. How were Fellow Crafts alone admitted?

A. By means of a pass-word and grip, still preserved among Fellow Craft Masons.

Q. How many Master Masons were there?

A. Three only, to whom the true secrets of a Master were known, namely, Solomon, Hiram, and Hiram Abiff.

Q. Who was Hiram?

A. The King of Tyre and the ancient friend of King David. Q. What part had he in the building of the temple at Jerusalem? A. He furnished the timbers from the forest of Lebanon, in exchange for stipulated proportions of corn, wine, and oil. sent his fleet to Ophir to fetch gold and precious stones for King

I should like a brother to find me an authority for this origin of Free. masonry. I can see none. There is no better authority than romance for the existence of Solomon's Temple.

R. C.

+ This forms an anomaly; for they could not be paid there before the chamber was built; and after it was built, we may suppose their work nearly at an end. It is thus romance finds exposure.

R. C.

Solomon; with whom he entered into a strict correspondence and a reciprocal friendship..

Q. Is the correspondence between those princes preserved ? A. It is, in the five chapters of the first book of Kings and the second chapter of the second book of Chronicles.

Q. What further assistance did Hiram give?

A. At the request of King Solomon, he sent a man of consummate knowledge and skill, who thoroughly understood the principles of every art and science, to preside over the workmen and direct their labours.

Q. What was this extraordinary man?

A. His name was Hiram Abiff. He was a son of a widow of the tribe of Napthali and his father was a man of Tyre. Under his direction was the glorious temple completed in little more than

seven years.

Q. Where and how were the materials procured?

A. The timbers were felled in the forest of Lebanon, where a levy of thirty thousand men of Jerusalem were employed by monthly courses of ten thousand; and the stones were cut and wrought in the quarries of the mountains of Judea, by eighty thousand men, assisted by seventy thousand, who bare burthens. Q. By what model was this building finished?

A. It was according in all things with the model presented by God himself to king David the father of Solomon, who nevertheless was not permitted to build this sacred temple as his hands had been stained with blood †.

Q. When was it begun and finished?

A. It was begun in the month of Zif, in the fourth year of King' Solomon's reign. A. L. 2992, and finished in the month of Bul, or eighth month, in the eleventh year of his reign; A. L. 3000. Q. How was it dedicated?

A. King Solomon celebrated the feast of dedication with prayer and sacrifice, in the presence of all the people of Israel and the feast lasted fourteen days.

Q. Is the prayer of dedication still preserved.

A. It is in the 8th chapter of the first book of Kings and the 6th chapter of the second book of Chronicles.

Q. Was it consecrated with any particular marks of divine favour?

A. The divine Shekinah or brightness, which was a visible

* The book of Kings says, that his mother was of the tribe of Napthali, and the book of Chronicles, that she was of the daughters of Dan, which are we to believe, either or neither? This Bible proclaims itself a romance in the most trivial as well as in the most serious matters.

R. C.

According to your own romance, were not the hands of Solomon stained with the blood of Joab, Shimei, and bis brother Adonijah? R. C.

token of God's presence entering the temple from the eastward, settled over the mercy seat, whereon was placed the ark of the

covenant.

CLAUSE TWO.

Q. By what means was the system of Masonry extended?

A. Our Grand master Solomon, observed the effects produced by strict order adopted among the Masons employed in his work, conceived the great idea of uniting the wise and good in every nation, in the bond of brotherly love and in the pursuit of scientific acquirements.

Q. How was he enabled to effect this glorious design?

A. He admitted to the participation of this system those illustrious sages, who resorted to Jerusalem, even from the uttermost parts of the east, to be instructed in his wisdom; and they, returning to their respective homes, diffused the system of Freemasonry over the whole face of the Eastern Continent.

Q. Where did our institution more especially flourish?

A. In Tyre and Sidon, and the whole coast of Phenicia, under the patronage of Hiram, King of Tyre, and his successors. Q. Who brought the knowledge of it westward?

A. The Phenicians, in their commerce with this part of the world, spread an imperfect knowledge thereof over the northern coast of Africa and the whole of Europe.

Q. Who was the most especial founder thereof in the West.

A. Pythagoras, a Grecian Philosopher, born at Samos, about 450 years after the building of King Solomon's Temple at Jerusalem *.

Q. What is recorded of him?

A. That he travelled into Egypt for instruction in the sacred mysteries of the priests of Memphis, and returning by Phenicia, was there initiated into our purer rights. After which he retired to Italy and founded the Italian School of philosophy at Crotona. Q. What Masonic observations do we find in his Institutions? A. He enjoined his disciples a long probation of silence and an inviolate secrecy a strict love for, and fidelity towards, each other. He distinguished them by secret signs and divided them into classes, according to their abilities and knowledge; but chiefly distinguished them as exoterics and esoterics.

Q. What does the first of these appellations denote?

*But how has it happened, that Pythagoras has left no mention of Solomon's Temple, of Jerusalem, of Israelites or of Jews, though he evidently travelled within a few miles of the spot which is now called Jerusalem ? He sought knowledge among the Phenicians, the Egyptians, and the inbabitants of Babylon; but he knew nothing or has said nothing about Israel. ites or Jews. This is a fact which cracks your theory of the origin of Masonry. R. C.

A. Outward heavens, they being admitted to know only a portion of the mysteries, and separated from the higher classes by a

veil.

Q. What is meant by the latter?

A. Those within the veil, who were permitted to see and hear all things.

Q. By what medium were his doctrines illustrated?

A. By the direct and relative qualities and powers of numbers, under which are concealed truths of the greatest importance. Q. What discoveries are particularly attributed to him?

A. The true system of the universe: the foundation of all. proportional geometry in the 47th problem of the second book of Euclid and other points of science which will be illustrated in their proper places.

Q. By whom were the doctrines of Pythagoras received and particularly conveyed?

A. By Plato, an Athenian philosopher, who lived about 150 years after Pythagoras, and derived his knowledge from the same

sources.

Q. In what manner were his doctrines conveyed?

A. By means of Geometrical symbols, which have a correlative power with the numbers of Pythagoras.

THIRD SECTION.

Clause 1.

Q. Of how many branches does masonry consist?

A. Of two, the operative and speculative.

Q. What does operative masonry comprise?

A. All natural, mathematical and mechanical knowledge, as far as the same is subjected to the external senses †.

* Though Plato set up that idol, the Logos, the personification and deification of the principle of reason, which the Christians now worship under the name of Jesus Christ, or the second person of their trinity, he has not left us one word about Jehovah, or Israelites, or Jews, or Solomon's Temple, or Jerusalem. I understood, that Plutarch was the first Grecian writer who took notice of the Jews, and THAT, after their dispersion by Titus. He speaks of them with contempt.

R. C.

+ But what occasion is there to teach either of these descriptions of masonry in secret? particularly, at this time, in this country? Would it not to be better to have all teachings open to all persons and subject to the correction of free discussion? The facts is, as to masonry, that its essence is not now instruction, but sectarianism. With regard to science, the public teachings have left it far behind; and it has dwindled into a contemptible association of dotards and drunkards: a mere trap for simpletons who have a little money to spend in revelling. The Republican displays more of the knowledge of the "hidden order of the universe" than the Bible, or all the divine and masonic revelations put together.

R. C.

Q. What the speculative?

A. The knowledge of the hidden order of the universe and the secret things both of heaven and earth, more particularly those of a spiritual and intellectual nature.

Q. Whence is the knowledge of operative masonry derived? A. From three sources-observation and experience, which are common to all mankind: judgment and reflection, which God has indulged to his several creatures in such various degrees as it hath pleased him and the traditions of the masters of wisdom and science in every age either written or unwritten.

:

Q. Who are considered the principal founders?

A. Solomon, King of Israel; Hiram king of Tyre; and Hiram Abiff.

Q. What memorial is noted of them in our lodges?

A. They are represented by the three great lights, which are also severally emblematic of three respective characters-wisdom, strength and beauty.

Q. How are those characteristics appropriated?

A. Wisdom exceeding the wisdom of the sons of men, was the peculiar gift of God to King Solomon. Power and strength were the attributes of Hiram king of Tyre. And beauty, order and proportion were admirably exemplified in the works of Hiram. Abiff.

Q. Where are those lights situated in a Fellow Craft's Lodge? A. The former in the east, and the two latter in the south and west.

Q. Why the former in the east?

A. To denote that wisdom was before all things, and is over all the works of the creation.

Q. Why the two latter in the south and west?

A. To show, that the light of wisdom is aptly reflected by the perfect union of strength and beauty.

Q. Whereon do those lights rest?

A. On the three principal orders of architecture-the Doric, Ionic and Corinthian.

Q. Whence are those orders derived?

A. From the immutable relation of geometrical proportion, not on account of their Grecian origin; but because it is thought that through the medium of the ancient Greeks, the moderns have received the true notion of Architectural beauty and magnificence.

CLAUSE TWO.

Q. What is the history of architecture?

A. Although the several relations of architectural proportions are undoubtedly comprehended in that universal body of science, the principles of which mankind have derived from the great fountain of light and truth, many ages appear to have elapsed