in addition to that which it already possessed. It was during this period that the Craft was chiefly under the direction and charge of one whose name in history is, and always will be, inseparable from that of Freemasonry-Sir Christopher Wren.

"This man (the son of a rector of the Established Church) was born October 20th, 1632, in the reign of Charles I. When fourteen years of age he entered Wadham College, Oxford, as a gentleman commoner, and was even then distinguished for his mathematical knowledge and for having invented several astronomical and mathematical instruments. In 1645 he became a member of the Scientific Club connected with Gresham College, from which the Royal Society subsequently arose. In 1657 he removed permanently to London, having been elected Professor of Astronomy at Gresham College. He was not professionally an architect, but from his youth he had devoted much time to its theoretic study, and during the Parliamentary wars and the rule of the protectorate under Cromwell he kept away entirely from the contests of party. In 1660 he was appointed by Charles II. one of a commission to superintend the restoration of the Cathedral of St. Paul's, which had been much dilapidated, but before the designs could be carried out the Great Fire of London occurred, in which St. Paul's Cathedral was also reduced to ashes, and in 1665 Wren went to Paris and other cities of the continent to study the designs of the various churches and other public buildings. While assistant to Sir John Denham, the Surveyor-General, he directed his attention to the restoration of the burnt portion of the city, and in 1667 he was appointed Surveyor-General and Chief Architect, and as such he erected a large number of churches, the Royal Exchange, Greenwich Observatory and other public edifices. But his crowning work and masterpiece is the Cathedral of St. Paul, commenced in 1675 and finished in 1710; but the cap-stone was laid in 1708, at which there was a great celebration."--Mackey.

One writer says that "Christopher Wren was the President of the London Guild of Freemasons at the time of the Commonwealth (under the Protectorate of Oliver Cromwell); that they held their meetings secret in the Common V Hall of Freemasons, and that their real object was political—the restoration of the monarchy-hence the necessary exclusion of the public and the oaths of secrecy enjoined on the members. The pretense of promoting architecture and the choice of the place where to hold their meetings, suggested by their President, were no more than blinds to deceive the existing government."C. W. King.

Another writer says: "This day, May the 18th, being Monday, 1691, after Rogation Sunday, is a great convention at St. Paul's Church of the fraternity of the ADOPTED MASONS, where Sir Christopher Wren is to be adopted a Brother and Sir Henry Goodrich of the Tower, and divers others. There have been Kings that have been of this sodality.”—Aubrey.

From these two facts it is evident that Wren, being the son of a rector of the Established Church under Charles I., was naturally opposed to the rule of Cromwell as Protector, which is confirmed by his being appointed Surveyor General by Charles II. immediately after the restoration of the Stuarts to the throne; and it is also confirmatory of the fact that the "Adopted" or

Accepted Masons, or rather Speculative and Philosophic Masons, then connected with the Operative, at that time were composed of gentlemen who were Protestants and especially loyal to that cause which had elevated William the Prince of Orange to the throne and had forced James II. to flee from his kingdom. And that until that period when peace prevailed throughout the realm and no hope existed for the restoration of the Stuarts, that further cause of suspicion as to Wren's loyalty to the reigning family had ceased to exist, and therefore he was admitted to full fellowship with others, and as both Operative and Speculative he could serve as Grand Master to and after the completion (of the Temple) of St. Paul's Cathedral. Certainly his visit to Paris and elsewhere on the Continent in the service of Charles II. (who was expected to restore the Roman Catholic religion in England) gave him facilities of admission into churches and other buildings, where courtesies were extended to him with the expectation that in his rebuilding of St. Paul's Cathedral in London he would be reproducing a second St. Peter's, like that at Rome, in which the Romish and not the Anglican service would be held. At any rate, it is certain that in the communion of priests and laity even then there was what is now designated as "High Church," with a very thin partition between itself and Rome, and the "Low Church" party, which adhered strictly to the tenets of the Protestant faith. But Speculative or Philosophic Freemasonry was then in its first stage of organization, preparing for its grand work before it in the opening of the eighteenth century, when all questions of philosophy and science which agitated the public mind could be discussed and opinions expressed without danger of kingly or ecclesiastical censure or punishment within the kingdom. Christopher Wren had now become too old to perform the duties of Patron or Grand Master, and as there were no other great buildings to be constructed at that time many of the Operative Masons dispersed, and Operative as well as Speculative Masonry combined began to temporarily fall into decay, and in 1716 Christopher Wren's life ended, and his tomb in the crypt of St. Paul's Cathedral was appropriately inscribed with the words, "Si monumentum requiris, circumspice." ("If you desire to find his monument, look around").

But Wren had done more than merely draw designs and superintend the construction of material edifices. The moral lessons in connection with the working tools, which had been enlarged under his direction and supervision, were to be carried by the craftsmen into every part of the world where they journeyed and found employment. Though they were simple and crude, yet interwoven as they were with their labors, they were the primer series of what was to be unfolded and developed in future years by others.

CHAPTER II.

THE SO-CALLED REVIVAL OF FREEMASONRY IN

1717 AND

ITS DEVELOPMENT WITH CONCURRENT HISTORY OF THE EIGHTEENTH CENTURY.

Upon the so-called revival of Freemasonry in 1717, when the Lodges were separate and independent of each other, and there never having been a governing Grand Lodge before, a French Huguenot Reformer, John Theophilus Desaguliers, born at Rochelle, France, March 12th, 1683, having become a curate of the Church of England and initiated in the "Lodge of Antiquity" in St. Paul's church-yard, secured the assistance of several older Masons to aid in the formation of the first Grand Lodge of England. He succeeded in obtaining a meeting of the four London Lodges on St. John the Baptist's Day, June 24th, 1717, when the Grand Lodge of Masons was organized at the Apple Tree Tavern, and Antony Sayer, the son of a French Huguenot, was elected the first Grand Master. In 1718 he was succeeded by George Payne, and in 1719 Desaguliers was elected Grand Master, followed by the Duke of Wharton, the Earl of Dalkeith, Lord Paisley and others.

Desaguliers was the son of a French Huguenot clergyman, who fled to England in 1685 on the revocation of the Edict of Nantes. He was more of a scientist than a preacher, and Priestly styles him "an indefatigable experimental philosopher." His frequent personal intercourse with Sir Christopher Wren, with whom he was on terms of the most intimate friendship, enabled him to greatly profit from the experience and information given by so distinguished a man.

In remodeling the work of Speculative Freemasonry, engrafted upon the Operative, the myth or legend of the third degree was now added by Desaguliers when the work was divided into three degrees for the Entered Apprentice, Fellows and Masters. The ancient ceremonies of the Egyptian and Eleusinian mysteries were made use of by him to make the myth or legend of the fate of the master builder of King Solomon's Temple fabricated, for the purpose of concealing by symbolism the death of the Grand Master of the Templars and others who became martyrs for conscience sake, who were victims of that terrible power which for so many centuries has been the curse of mankind.

Says our lamented brother, Albert G. Mackey, of blessed memory: "To few Masons of the present day, except to those who have made Freemasonry a sub

ject of special study, is the name of Desaguliers very familiar. But it is well they should know that to him, perhaps more than to any other man, are we indebted for the present existence of Freemasonry as a living institution, for when, in the beginning of the eighteenth century, Masonry had fallen into a state of decadence which threatened its extinction, it was Desaguliers who, by his energy and enthusiasm, infused a spirit of zeal into his contemporaries which culminated in the revival of the year 1717, and it was his learning and social position that gave a standing to the institution, which brought to its support noblemen and men of influence so that the insignificant assemblage of the four London Lodges at the 'Apple Tree Tavern' has expanded into an association which now overshadows the entire civilized world. And the moving spirit of all this was JOHN THEOPHILUS DESAGULIERS."

Three years before this revival took place Queen Anne (the second surviving child of James II., who succeeded William III. and her sister Mary II.) died on the 1st Day of August, 1714, the last reigning sovereign of the House of the Stuarts, and was succeeded on the 20th of October following by George I., a Prince of the House of Hanover. This foreign German Prince, who had been born and reared under a different civil state of affairs, upon making an investigation into the condition of his new realm, was totally unable to comprehend the institution of Freemasonry, which socially appeared to be so levelling in its doctrines and principles, and could not understand how a society formed of men with different degrees of rank could meet on the same level-scholars, philosophers and scientists and men from the working guilds of Operative Freemasonry. He was suspicious, fearing that their assemblages might be used for purposes menacing to his reign and in the end conspire for the overthrow of his government, and was disposed to attempt the exercise of his arbitrary and despotic will by closing the Lodges and forbidding their assemblages. However, upon being appealed to and informed that his ideas were erroneous and the cause of his fears groundless, he reconsidered his intentions in that respect, but to satisfy his royal pleasure required that the Masters of Lodges and their successors in office for themselves and the members should take an oath of allegiance especially to him and the House of Hanover, that they would be true and loyal subjects and not engage in plots and conspiracies against him, his family or his Parliament, which oath they were required to take and administer to their successors, which was accordingly done; but it was the first time in its history that Freemasonry, by its officers, were ever sworn to support and tie its fortunes to any line of Kings or household, or to maintain any particular government, and thus commit its destiny to the will and caprice of a sovereign who, if by revolution should be driven from his throne, they themselves, as his sworn adherents, would be forced into exile or suffer imprisonment or such other punishment as might be inflicted by the successful party. The Craft was no longer free, but existed under royal caprice and restraint. This custom, in a a modified form, has been inherited and perpetuated in American Lodges in the installation ceremonies of installing their Masters.

So long as there was a royal bond of unity existing between England and Scotland on account of a member of the House of Stuarts being of the royal

family on the throne of England in the persons of James I., Charles I., Charles II., James II., his daughter Mary II., the wife of William III., and Anne, his second daughter, Scotland was measurably quiet; but when Cromweli's iron hand was laid on the throat of Charles I. and a German Prince and foreigner was called tothe throne, there was either restive impatience or actual rebellion and revolution in Scotland, the general sympathy of that people going out after one of their own nation who had any sort of a claim to the throne, pretentious or not; and being naturally a warm-hearted people and hot-blooded, their generous sympathy would be manifested for the weaker party in the conflict so long as he wore the plaid, no matter whether he was in the right or not; and especially when a foreigner, and he being only able to speak English in a broken manner with a German accent, hard to be understood.

Freemasonry having now for the first time in its history a regular representative organized government with a national head, its Grand Masters and officers being elected from among its members, it became, as it were, a republic for itself within a kingdom, but sought royal patronage and favor for protection or for policy's sake so as not to give offense to the reigning monarch, who might attempt to close the Lodges or impose restraint upon their organization and limit its operations, which in a manner had already been done. Royalty looked upon Fremasonry to a certain degree with disfavor, and thinking to prevent its increase of numbers a restriction was imposed upon the Lodges and their members, that no one was to be solicited to join them-a rule which was never required before, but which has been continued until the present time.

King Solomon said there were three things too hard for him, yea even a fourth the way of a ship in the sea, of an eagle in the air, a serpent on a rock, and the way of a man with a maid." So it would have been equally as hard for King George I. to have ascertained how Freemasonry swelled its ranks to so great a number as it did without violating the rule he had, through his ministers, imposed upon the Craft. As has been well said by our late and lamented brother, Albert G. Mackey: "The design of Freemasonry is neither charity nor almsgiving, nor the cultivation of the social sentiment for both are merely incidental to its organization; but it is the search after truth, and that truth is the unity of God and the immortality of the soul. The various degrees or grades of initiation represent the various stages through which the human mind passes and the many difficulties which men, individually or collectively, must encounter in their progress from ignorance to the acquisition of this truth."

It was this idea which generally prevailed in the seventeenth century among the Operative Freemasons, who were called upon to construct religious and other edifices for the various sects which had divided the Christian Church, and that called forth a more general spirit of inquiry among them into religious and philosophical truth and the calling to their aid the scientific, philosophic and learned scholars of the age, who were welcomed into the Operative Guild as auxiliaries and were received and made Adoptive or Accepted Freemasons, as had been their custom from time immemorial, and