THE NEW MASONIC HALL.

Marlborough Express, Volume IV, Issue 188, 7 August 1869, Page 6

THE NEW MASONIC HALL.

From the Standard. A "word of welcome must be given to the Freemasons upon their entering the new hall in Great Queen street, Lincoln’s-inn-fields. There are thrones and thrones in England. On Wednesday the Grand Master, Lord Zetland, presided over an assemblage, being himself enthroned, which, in point of numbers and character, has not been equalled within the century There was a magnificent glitter of garters, blue collars, and jewels; there were the time-honoured obligations of corn and wine and oil to which we have been accustomed in connection with “ the silent mystery.” But a change has come over the spirit of that dream Even the pious Abbe-Barnel, whose four volumes of anathema depicted the Freemasons as the conspirators, seditionists, incendiaries, and evil genii of the world, could have found no fault with the ceremonies of Wednesday afternoon. It was the dedication of a sumptous building “ to pure ancient masonry, universal charity and benevolence.” Upon no subject, perhaps, have more aburdities been said or written than in connection with this order. The Mason’s secret has been propounded over and over again, for the enlightment of outsiders and yet it remains to this day a matter of vulgar curiosity and comment. In noticing the new proof of opulence and munificencedisplayed on Wednesday, we are certainly not going to dilate upon the arcana of the society, or sect, whichever it may be termed, which has erected this handsome palace for itself in the midst of London. The “ singing masons, building golding roofs,” have their own pecularities, which they legitimately cherish, and there is no necessity for quoting their traditional authors in order to show that they do, in their day and generation, an excellent work, of which all humanity must approve. Farther in our time, few serious thinkers will be found to go. Freemasonry no longer represents a religious or political belief. It is no more a trancendentalism, a faith, or a morality ; it is, in the best sense of the words, a system of good-fellowship, friendship, and mutual kindness; it may not illustrate, for the mind of the nineteenth century, the millenary circle of our planet, but it is a genial and jovial institution, which extends its own warmth to the suffering and the humble. Thirty-five years ago an effort was made to revolutionise its purposes, or, rather, to restore the mystic ideas of a former epoch. The plan was a total failure. The Freemasons, as a body, refused to take any part in scheming “ an awful metarorpbosis ” of civilization. They satisfied themselves with the fulfilment of their Christian duties and the lapse of time leaves them honoured and trusted. It is interesting to note, however, the large and generous embrace they offer to the intellect and the originality of every historical era in succession, Seldon, Grotius, Milton, Canning, Chalmers, and Chateaubriand, never complied with the formalities of Freemasonry, but they were

so to speak, tacitly enrolled of the order. And what is'this order ? Long as it has existed, has it ever been popularly understood P We will answer, in the language of old Ashe, “ that the Society of Free and Accepted Masons possess a grand secret among themselves is an undeniable fact. What this grand secret is, of what unknown materials it consists, mankind in general, not dignified with the order, have made the most rediculous suppositions. The ignorant from incoherencies, such as conferring with the Devil, and many [other contemptible surmises, too tedious to mention, and too dull to laugh at.’’ The common sense world, however, does not want to pry into occult rites; it simply recognises in Freemasonry a benevolent brotherhood, the social importance of what is scarcely less than inestimable The title unsurped by Cagliostro and his followers was not a genuine Freemasons’ title. It was a stolen piece of quackery and nothing more. If, then, we recognise, in Wednesday’s celebration, a fact worthy of record, it is with no reference to symbols or initiations. For those who live outside of the chaimed circle there is a “ Masons, history which all can understand. Who bequeathed to Europe the riches of its earliest I ?Gothic architecture P Who first framed the dome of Freyburg in willow rods and osier twigs, and then gave it, in superb architecture, as an everlasting legacy to art ? The transition is a singular one, when replying to this inquiry, we come upon the Freemasons of Queen Anne’s reign, meeting at the Goose and Gridiron,” in St. Paul’s Churchyard, and debating whether the doorway of the Beauchamp Chapel at Warwick was the “ work of a common Mason or not. It would be interesting, could we find the documents, to mark the stages of this transition. It appears from an inventory of the contents of the London Company that, not very long before its dissolution, it contained “a book, wrote on parchment, containing 113 annals of the antiquity, rise, and progress of the art and mystery of Freemasonry.” In this document, it is believed, the reasons were set forth for the separation of the theoretical and mystical, or in other words the ancient Freemasons from the Worshipful Company of Masons and citizens of London.