Entered according to Act of Congress, in the year 1859,

BY JOHN SHERER,

In the District Court of the United States for the Southern District of Ohio.

HS 457 .w36

A FRIEND WITH A HAND AND HEART THAT NEVER SLACKEN IN WELL-WISHING AND WELL-DOING,

This Annotated Edition

ОР

THE FREEMASONS” MONITOR

IS RESPECTFULLY AND FRATERNALLY

DEDICATED.

IN undertaking to edit this republication of the FREEMASON'S MONITOR, it is but justice to myself to say that the work has been long in contemplation; the notes, etc., for the most part, were long since prepared. As far back as 1852, I had an edition of the MONITOR, embracing the Symbolical Degrees, nearly ready for the press. In all my teachings as a Masonic Lecturer, I have urged that whatever merits the fifteen or twenty Handbooks in use among us possessed over this, or one another, it was merely for their pictorial embellishments; the monitorial and really essential parts being but copies of this, with unimportant additions. I have never thought their dissemination, to the exclusion of Webb's Monitor, the true policy of the Craft.

To Mr. John Sherer I have now transferred the materials so long collected and elaborated, and would cordially recommend this laudable effort of his to the Fraternity at large. His labors in the science of Masonic Symbology are well known at home and abroad. His large and elegant Carpets, approved and indorsed by the highest intelligence of our Order, are suspended in every Lodge and Chapter, and it is

reasonably anticipated that THE FREEMASON'S MONITOR will be accepted by the Craft at large as the best accompaniment to them.

The first edition of the FREEMASON'S MONITOR was issued at Albany, N. Y., in 1797. In the preface the author declares that the work was chiefly intended for Freemasons, but is equally calculated to explain the nature and design of the institution to persons seeking Masonic information, from whatever motives. He admits that it is chiefly taken from the Illustrations of Masonry of William Preston; the principal changes being a reduction of the number of Sections, in the original six, four and twelve respectively, but in this work three, two and three. He conceived that the MONITOR embraced Masonic information not otherwise accessible in a single volume, and that Masonic bodies would find it a useful assistant and monitor. This hope has been amply fulfilled. The plan of the MONITOR is so lucid, and the working of the Degrees, by due attention to the various sections, so practical, that its publication, aided, as it was, for twenty-two years by Webb's personal teachings, and by those of his disciples, Gleason, Cushman, Cross, Barney, Fowle, Vinton, etc., who more or less accurately followed their master's steps, produced an admirable uniformity in the American rituals.

In this edition the phraseology of that of 1816 and subsequent issues has been followed, correcting typographical errors and improving the punctuation. Mr. Webb altered and amended the MONITOR in each successive edition from 1797 to 1816; after that time the text was unchanged. Hence the propriety of adopting the latter as a standard.