In England, Scotland and Ireland, from whence we derive our Masonic descent, there is the superincumbent mass of legally stratified and arbitrary civil and social pressure of not less than sixty-six divisions or layers, one above the other, of rank of royalty, blooded and created nobility and aristocracy, consisting in the male line of king, dukes, marquises, earls, viscounts, barons, baronets, knighthood, etc., etc., etc., down to and including gentlemen-atarms, before the middle classes of merchants, bankers, manufacturers and the professions are reached, with the mechanic and laborer at the bottom of the scale of British humanity; while an equal if not greater weight, with tenfold more despotic power of caste, exists upon the continent of Europe. Only in the United States of America is the dream of the European Freemason, of liberty, equality and fraternity materialized and made substantial and rea!; and here only, absolutely and completely, politically and Masonically speaking, is his faith lost in sight, his hope ended in fruition of equal civil and religious liberty, and only charity remains for him to practice among his brethren in "the household of the faithful" in particular, and toward all mankind in general, and maintain the principles of our Order. In Europe and in European colonies the Freemason is a graded subject according to his civic rank; in America, a free citizen, where all are equal; but everywhere around the globe a brother.

The Masonic doctrine enunciated by Thomas Jefferson in the Declaration of American Independence, “We hold these truths to be self-evident that all men are created equal, and that they are endowed with certain inalienable rights, among which are life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness," is the American Freemason's and the true American citizen's creed. Upon this he constructs his Masonic, moral, religious and political edifice, and the Grand Lodge under whose particular jurisdiction he may reside lays the corner-stones of all public buildings erected by the government of his choice, and in which he has a vote and voice.

In Europe it is but theory in part, and Freemasonry lives under the baleful shadow of united altar and throne. In America it is in both theory and practice, unrestrained, and lives and thrives under the broad sunshine of well-regulated liberty and under the “ starry-decked heavens" which cover a free republic; "a government of the people, by the people and for the people," so well described by the immortal Lincoln, and said by another, "And the will of the people is the law of the land."

The social and political conditions of America and Europe are unequal, and Freemasonry in Europe, by its degrees, was, and has been for a century and three-quarters, graded according to civic rank and degree of aristocracy, and it will in all probability continue to be so for many years to come, notwithstanding the strenuous, erratic and extraordinary efforts of our French brethren, who are too iconoclastic at times, and who endeavor to remove and obliterate too many of the ancient landmarks.

Therefore, it is, that when American writers upon the subject of Freemasonry enter upon the discussion, research and history fall into the common error of traveling in old ruts made by others, like a procession of pissants, and run everything into the ground, and into as great a darkness and obscurity as existed before they started out on their expedition, and considering Free

masonry in the abstract without regard to the civic and social rank and condition of affairs in the Old World; and each, in letting out the string of his kite to cross the Atlantic, to have something attached to the bobs of its tail, gets it entantangled abroad or it becomes too heavy to again rise, and in pulling it in finds that he has miscalculated the distance, by using Mercator's projection for his trestleboard, and not allowed for the spherical form of the earth; and his kite becomes a net with the bobs for sinkers, and he finds at last that he has actually been engaged in deep-sea soundings and gathering shrimps in the Atlantic instead of bringing down illumination from the stars of an European sky.

Some of them might have learned a lesson from our own illustrious Masonic exemplar and philosopher, Benjamin Franklin, who, before he ventured upon the shores of the Old World to lecture upon the science of electricity, saw fit to test the truth of his reasoning and philosophy by tapping the battery in the clouds immediately over his head at the risk of burning his fingers and receiving a shock of enlightenment such as is not usually given in the prescribed formalities of the Craft.

When the cord was loosened or cut in Europe that bound Operative and Speculative Freemasonry together, and a division of copartnership property took place, the Speculative portion retained the working tools as symbols only to illustrate and inculcate moral truths; and though in the Master's Degree the candidate was informed that he was "entitled to the knowledge and use of all the instruments and working tools indiscriminately," "but more especially the trowel," which has a beautiful moral connected with its use, and in America has its appropriate signification, yet in Europe its real meaning is adroitly and covertly concealed. If the brother should significantly attempt to make use of the drawing intruments by which symbolically he should attempt to alter or improve the plan of architecture of social and civic rank and seek to rise above his station in life, the condition of his birth and education, he would very quickly receive the admonition, "Ne sutor ultra crepidam" ("Let not the cobbler overstep his last".) Or, in other words, he would be directed to confine himself to the trowel and mortar-board alone, and outside upon the walls of the Temple, and not attempt anything in the way of ornament or elegance within, which belongs only to his superiors by circumstance of birth and degree of condition. It would be implied by manner, if not actually spoken, “We, who are your superiors, can for a few brief moments condescend to come down to your level; but you must not presume to ascend to ours, for, if you do, you had better emigrate."

That is the actual difference of the status between an American and an European Freemason-has ever been, is now, and will continue to be until Europe overturns these layers of stratified royalty, nobility and aristocracy, where liberty is bayoneted to the cross, and the crown with the tiara or mitre have been riveted together in the union of the Church and State.

There is a secret tradition that King Solomon had got tired of the architect of the Temple, who was the representative of the people, and who had risen from their level to become the companion of kings. The necessity of personal intercourse during the construction of the Temple had made his

architect familiar with that royalty which was but recent and in the second generation only; and the Tyrian architect regarded Solomon as but a man and the son of a shepherd who, by a chain of fortuitous circumstances, had succeeded the first occupants of the throne upon the change of the autonomy and form of government of the people of Israel.

King Solomon, being jealous of his power and glory, and determined that no other monarch should erect a similar temple of equal magnificence and splendor, is said to have himself, secretly and surreptitiously, secured the plans and the last designs drawn upon the trestle-board of the Temple and secretly contrived the plot whereby his chief architect might be removed, that no other king or nation should be able to secure his services; while his grief and indignation were simulated and hypocritical, and the unconscious instruments of his purpose performed the part they were incited to enact, not knowing who was the actual chief conspirator whose will they had carried out, when they supposed that they were only executing their own, and yet received the decision of their fate at his hands, the chief criminal and conspirator acting as their judge, from vhose royal decree there was no appeal. Be the tradition true or false, yet in European Freemasonry the same spirit to a certain extent still prevails, and there are not a few in America at the present time but who have imbibed the same.

While American Freemasonry retains the form, in a modified degree, of that of its progenitors, and fraternal intercourse everywhere necessarily exists under restrictions, yet its spirit and teachings are those which are best adapted to a free people, where each individual is the equal and peer of his fellows in the freedom and integrity of manhood and with equal rights, honors, privileges, duties and responsibilities of brotherhood and citizenship; and any rite of Freemasonry, order or society of any kind which has been heretofore, or hereafter may be transplanted from European to American soil that does not in due time, and after a fair trial, conform to American principles of free self-government by its adherents must, as it ought to do, cease to have an existence on this side of the Atlantic.

In this spirit of the teachings of true Freemasonry, stripped of its surplusage, the writer approaches the task before him, to be found in the following chapters, and if a thorough experience of thirty-six years of a Masonic life (twenty-three of which have been officially spent in the Ancient and Accepted Scottish Rite), of careful study, research, and intercourse with not a few of the wisest and best, who have been, and some still living are, ornaments to the Fraternity, who have illuminated the pages of the history of their country and of Freemasonry, has not taught him anything of value that he may impart to his "Brethren of the Mystic Tie," then has his whole Masonic life been misspent and his present efforts useless and vain.

As the bee-hive, in a healthy condition, without drones or moths to eat out and destroy its substance, represents a well-regulated and well-governed Lodge and each individual a worker-bee, armed for its own defense and of its hive, goes forth to its unlimited field of labor independent and free, gathers the pollen and nectar of flowers for the sustenance of itself and its fellows, and all working to the same common purpose and end; so the writer, like the bee

whether gathering from the roses and daisies of England, the thistles and heather of Scotland, the willows of Germany, the lilies of France, or the honey-dew of America, which everywhere abounds, endeavor to contribute something of the fruit of his labors to the common stock, carefully avoiding the poison of dogwood blooms, the distillation of deadly nightshade and noxious vegetation which might be injurious to his fellows and make unhealthy the condition of the Masonic hive. Fraternally yours,

OAKLAND, CALIFORNIA,

St. John the Baptist's Day,

June 24th, 1890.

EDWIN A. SHERMAN, 33°.

CHAPTER I.

THE CONTEMPORANEOUS HISTORY CO-EVAL WITH THE DAWN AND RISE OF SPECULATIVE OR PHILOSOPHICAL

FREEMASONRY IN EUROPE.

"The Grand Kabalistic Association known in Europe under the name of "FREEMASONRY" appeared all at once in the world at the period when the Protest against the Papal Power came to break the Christian unity." The destruction of the Order of Knights Templar and the burning at the stake of Jacques De Molay, their last Grand Master, in Paris, on the 11th of March, 1313, with thousands of others proscribed or persecuted to their death under the pretext of heresy, and who were excommunicated and scattered under the terrible conspiracy of Pope Clement V., Philip the Fair of France and the ultramontane Order of Knights of St. John of Jerusalem, who received as a reward for their perfidy the possessions of the Templars in the islands of Rhodes and of Malta (and receiving a new title, that of the "Knights of Milta"), caused the remnants of Knights Templars to seek refuge in other countries than their own, where they might enjoy "life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness."

One portion fled to Germany, where they found protection under an excommunicated Emperor, who incorporated them into a branch of the Teutonic Order of Knights of St. Mary, who had fought by their side against the Saracens under Saladin in the wars of the Crusades. Their beauseant, or battle-flag, of black and white in the form of a pennon (or swallow tail), which they could no longer carry, was taken from them, the swallow-tail part cut off, and that they might always be able to see their colors and to remind them of the blood of the martyred Templars, so unjustly and wickedly put to death, the broad red stripe was placed under it and adopted as the flag of Germany, which still continues to be the standard of that nation to-day under the house of Brandenburg.

Being no longer bound by the vows of a military priesthood and of chastity in Germany, some of them contracted matrimonial alliances with their own country women; yet, to distinguish their origin and maintain a distinct organization within themselves and that their wrongs might not be forgotten, they adopted a name after that of the founder of the Order of the Temple, Hugo de Payens de Guenoc, which became a password among them for their greater security, from which fact, and the origin of their Order and distinction and condemned as heretics, they came to be more generally and popularly known as “LES HUGUENOTS." Having preserved their blood and