Page:Encyclopædia Britannica, Ninth Edition, v. 9.djvu/785

took a new departure from the time of Bacon. The inter rogation of nature was preferred to legend and allegory. At the same time a perfectly distinct current of ideas was originated by the Arabian mysticism of Paracelsus and Rosenkreuz, which, after being popularized on the Continent by one of its most decided opponents, Valentine Andrea?, was preached to the people of England by Robert Fludd in his Tractatus Theologico-Philosophicus. Works like Bacon s New Atlantis and Dupuy s " History of the Condemnation of the Templars " (in his Traitez concernant I llistoire de France, 1651) fostered the idea of a new humanitarian society, and at the same time suggested the adoptioii of ancient symbols of fellowship. The same thing is seen in the Pantheisticon of Toland. It was under the impulse thus communicated that a general assembly of masons was held ia 1663, at which the old catechisms were revised, and a series of new statutes passed. The reconstruction of London after the fire, the building of St Paul s, and the patronage of Sir Christopher Wren, kept up the interest in the move ment; and at last a formal resolution was passed that the masonic privileges should no longer be confined to operative masons. England. Modern or speculative masonry may be said to have begun in London on June 24, 1717, " the high noon of the year, the day of light and of roses," when the four London lodges, having erected themselves into a grand lodge, named their first grand master. The leading spirits in this revival were Desaguliers, the well-known popularizer of natural science, and James Anderson, a Scotch Presbyterian minister, who compiled the .Book of Constitutions, containing the ancient regulations and charges of the craft. This book is quite uncritical. It is said that the mechanical tastes and the Huguenot principles of Desaguliers are both traceable in the subsequent organization of the society. From this time new lodges could be formed only by warrant from the grand lodge, but they were empowered to create masters and fellow crafts. In 1721 the duke of Montagu was elected grand warden. He was the first noble who obtained that office. In the strange society of Gormogones. subject to the " sub-cecumenical volgi " at Rome, it is supposed that the Jesuits made a final effort to secure English Freemasonry as a channel for their political influence. At this time, also, the committee of charity was formed, which has since raised and expended very large sums for the relief of distressed brethren, and built the boys and girls masonic schools at Battersea Rise and Tottenham. Provincial grand masters were appointed, and charters granted to many foreign lodges. In the latter part of the 18th century the ancient York Lodge, backed by several old masons who had been indulging in irregular initiations, put forward a rival claim t:> be grand lodge or supreme authority. This claim was rested on the fable of an assembly at York in the year 926. The York people had also a new ritual, described in the Book of Laws or Ahiman Rezon, and also in Jachin and Boaz, The three distinct Knocks, and Hiram Adonham or the Grand Master Key^ (1762). On the orthodox or London side appeared the well-known Illustrations ol Masonry, by Preston, the pupil of Ruddiman. The schis matics introduced the red colour of the royal arch degree, which they represented as something more exalted than the blue degrees of St John. It belongs to the order of Templars, the legend referring to the second building of the temple. Another branch of Templarism, the grand chapter of Harodim, was founded in London in 1787. Just at the end of the century the publication of Abbe Bamiel s Memoires pour servir a I histoire du Jacolinisme, translated into English by Clifford (who applied his author s principles 1 The Jewish legend of the assassination of and search for Hiram, which still appears in the business of a lodge, resembles the Scandira- vian story of Baldur. 749 to the United Irishmen and other Corresponding Societies of the time) and of Professor Robinson s Proofs of a Conspi racy, translated into French and German, made Freemasonry the subject of considerable suspicion. 2 The Act of 1791) directed against seditious societies, however, makes an ex ception in favour of the masonic lodges, which, according to the Act, meet chiefly for benevolent purposes. In 1813 a union w?is at last brought about by the dukes of Sussex, Kent, and Athole between the rival grand lodges of London and York, henceforth known as the United Grand Lodge of England. This patronage of aristocratic blood gave an im petus to Freemasonry, and in 1832 Mr Crucefix, the editor of the Freemason s Quarterly Kevieiv, succeeded in founding the Freemason s Asylum. The brotherhood showed their good sense in deciding about this time that Jews might be come members of the craft. They also built a hall, esta blished their archaeological institute and " The London Literary Union/ and started the Freemason s Magazine and the Freemason, in which periodicals a record may be found of the most recent masonic opinion and history. Besides GO provincial grand lodges and 1200 lodges, England has a grand chapter for the royal arch degree, a grand lodge for the mark masters, a grand conclave of the knights templars, and a superior grand council of the ancient and accepted rite of the 33 degrees. Ireland. The first Irish lodge of speculative masonry seems to have been opened at Dublin in 1730. The Eng lish constitutions were adopted wholesale. Nothing of interest occurs in the Irish history. A characteristic liking is shown for the most sonorous of the high de grees : the knights of the sword, the east, and the sun, the rosicrucian or mason prince, the kadosh or philoso phical mason, and the grand general inspector. Power to grant these degrees was absurdly enough obtained from " Mother Kilwinning," a Scotch lodge which has always laid claim to a fabulous antiquity. The disputes between the grand chapter and grand consistory of Dublin have beer, frequent and violent. Ireland has now 350 lodges. The grand lodge, which supports two orphan schools, has an in come of about 4000. A statement of the Ultramontane argument in modern Ireland will be found in Gargano s Irish and English Freemasons, Dublin, 1878, which is largely founded on Mgr. Dupanloup s Study of Freemasonry and Secret Warfare against Church and State. Gargano strongly urges the injustice done by the secret preference given by masons to one another in the ordinary civil and commercial relations of life. His book also contains an explanation of the pass-grip and real-grip for the three ordinary degrees, and for the mark master, the royal arch, and the knight templrvr, and a minute description of the modern initiation, with the text of the oaths. Scotland. In Scotland the history of Freemasonry closely resembles what took place in England. Before the 16th century there is not much trace of special legislation about masons. 3 Like the other crafts they enjoyed, under the Act of 1424, the right of nomin ating their own deacon or master-man. The deacon gave place to the warden, who represented rather the public than the trade interest. In 1493 the masons and wrights are denounced as oppressors of the lieges, because they had agreed that "they sail have fee alsweill for the halie day as for the wark day," and " that quair ony be- giennis ane mannis warke ane uther sail not end it." A severe blow was struck against their privileges by an Act of 1540, which rendered legal the employment of unfree- The earliest book of this class was Abbe Larudan s Franc-mc^on ticrast, 1746. 3 As may be seen from the " marks" on Mel rose Abbey, the older Scotch churches owe much to the skill of the Frenchman Join Moreau and other foreign masons.