CONTENTS. from Rome. But what their connection with the old Roman Colleges was, LgADEKS 451 R EPORTS OF M ASONIC M EETINGS — is " quod probandum est." We may believe they came from a common Provincial Grand Lodge of Cornwall 452 Craft Masonry 45S origin, from bodies of Craftesmen organized and assembled in the special The Provincial Grand Lod ge of Worc ester- Instruction 459 shire , 453 Royal Arch 460 form of colleges, witn definite laws, a l egal existence, and an admitted cor- Consecration of the Mark Excelsior Lodge, Allied Masonic Degrees 460 No. 359, Liverpool 45-t Board of Benevolence 460 porate constitution. But we cannot say more, and any arguments based The Analogy between Magic, Alchemy, New Masonic Chari ty in West Lancashire 460 on the continuity and perpetuity of the Roman Colleges as absorbed b and Old Rosicrucianism 454 The Grand Lodge of Scotlandat Kirriemuir 4G0 y or CORRESPOND EN-CE— Ireland 461 transformed into the early building Guilds, must be put forward cautiousl y, Reports of Lodge Meetings 457 South Africa 46r Masonic Girls' School 457 Obituarv 461 as resting for the most part only on supposition and probability. Masonic Libraries .' 457 The Theatres 461 Assuming the fact of this descent and connection , a curious question has The School Elections 457 The Craft Abroad 462 The London Mutual Masonic Voting The Dori c Club 462 always supervened here for those who have thought over the subject. How Association 457 Masonic and General Tidings 463 Notes and Queries 457 Lodge Meetings for Next Week 464 did the Roman Guilds, if th ey had them , obtain that Hebraic colouring and those Hebraic traditions which so conspicuousl y mark the T HE Roman Colleges, or Guilds of Craftsmen, were part and parcel of Guild traditions ? FINDEL saw the " crux ," and, while admitting their general and munici pal system. They were in full vigour in Italy, and the similarity, claimed the twelfth century for the rise of the accompanied , the Roman legions, and were re-developed in the Roman Masonic legends, as ' controlled and developed bv the Monastic colonies. They seem to have existed for several purposes. As Guilds of Order, and principall y the Reveder force. O LIVER , at an early period, Craftsmen (collegia opificum), th ey were governed by distinct laws and had found what a difficulty existed , scientificall y and historically, as special enactments. They had a head who was probably elected for five to the connection between these sodalities and the mysteries, and so pro- years, and a large array of officers, whose official names are recorded in the pounded his famous theory of true and spurious Freemasonry ; but as he did inscri ption preserved by GRUTER and SPON , and in other works, and which it not care apparently to decide where the true, in contradistinction to the false, is needless to repeat here. In all state processions and proceedings they took was preserved, and how, his ingenious attempted solution of an admitted a share, and may be said to have formed part in an official relationshi p with crux fell to the ground at once. Before the fall of the Roman Empire, many the great body politic of the Roman Government. They also had a system forms of rel igion , extern to Roman mythology, had found admission , and of mutual relief and aid. They seem to have had colleges for the instruction a "jus vivendi ," at Rome. The temples of Isis and the caverns of Mithras of the young, and pensions for the solace of the old. They had days of were there amid the " peregrin;e religiones " tolerated by the State. regular meeting and special seasons of assembly and commemoration. There was a large colony of Hebrews from Palestine, and as it is more than These legal bodies, as often happens, either by the strictness of their probable that there was a meeting point as between Hebrew and other bodies laws of admission or other causes, gave rise in the process of time to of builders in some mysteries more than others, which preserved more distinctly illegal bodies, and the Roman laws refer to the " collegia licita " and the *'prima:va religio." After the fallof Rome, these bodies probably received " illicita " as an existing fact. In TRAJAN 'S letter to PLINY often a new direction and adapted themselves to new conditions of teaching and quoted , evidence is found of the jealousy and fear then engendered either object, and thus these biblical l egends naturally became, by the mere process by the power or the interference of these colleges, not only in respect of of acceptation , adaptation , and assimilation , the distinctive if secret teach- their own special work, but as a focus of conspiracy and mutiny against ing of these reformed and reorganized colleges, guilds, and confraternities. the State. Originally they probably settled their own arrangements, for But still, as we said before, much even of this is only probability and possi- labourand remuneration , and, being numerous and organized, a sort of bility, not certainty or actuality as demonstrable by the accurate and safer Trades Union in fact, they would be able;to demand and obtain what they facts of actual and expert history. There is much to be said " pro and themselves asked for. Their meetings were apparently secret, but as con.," and if we cannot speak affirmatively or decidedly, without some nightly assemblies were forbidden by the laws, so their f easts and necessary caution and reticence, we gain another proof , if proof be required festivals were probably alone nocturnal. But here we stop ; a veil hangs by any student, how remarkably interesting is that wide expanse over which over their inner life and organization , which it seems now impossible the history of Freemasonry travels, and how much there is in such con- to lift. Some rules remain, but they are princi pally sumptuary, pointing, siderations and studies to interest the student, the archaeologist, and the indeed, to the fact of the existence of a powerful organization, historian. but giving us no glimpses of any secret ceremonial or inner usages. *** We think , for instance, they prove to-day, that there were honorary and actual W E understand there has been lately in the ranks of the Primrose League members, a system of mutual help and pecuniary relief , attendance at a strong feeling of consternation at a statement attributed to the Roman funerals, and certain compulsory assemblies for the rejoicing or reception of Catholic Bishop of Nottingham, to the effect that that most reputable body members. It has been said by others that they had ceremonies and rude forms is a secret society, like Freemasonry, and inferentially that it deserves to be of initiation , but no certain authority for such a statement remains. They stigmatised as a society to which no one of position or self-respect would adopted the working tools of Masonry for their tombstones, and both the drea m of belonging. We have become so accustomed to this kind of con- Pentalpha and Hexapla have been found. It is said that at Pompeii the demnation , that papistical attacks on our worthy Craft pass quite unheeded. square Masonic cipher is found , all apparently pointing to an esoteric system, But the Primrose League is a new organisation , which has hardly as yet li these rules prove, as we said before, apparently the system of secrecy in had time to determine what are its precise nature and position in reference their official gatherings, this fact has been controverted by some, on to the Civil Power. Moreover, there are, it seems, Dames as well as this ground , that the secrecy was only the normal usage of similar societies, Knights of the Primrose, and the former are no doubt a little timid and the expression and representation of actual membership. If the theory especially those among them who happen to be members of the Romish be correct which represents Lombardic, Gaulish, and Teutonic Guilds all Church , as to remaining longer on the roll of a Society which has been proceeding from a common stock, the Roman Colleges, and after the fall of anathematised by a Romish Ecclesiastic. In these circumstances, it must be the Roman Empire, migrating and settling in other localities and repro- allowed that the Tablet has done a graceful act in tendering to the per- ducing a system of secrecy, relief , and fraternity, it would be most turbed Knights and Dames of the Primrose the comforting assurance interesting, if it were possible, to identif y such a state of things that their rules and regulations are perfectly harmless, and do not justify with that of the old colleges, just as it would be important to ascertain the idea that the Primrose League is a Secret Society within the meaning whether, under the influences of Christianity, the Guilds took a new of the Act against such bodies, or even in the same sense as that terrible departure, assumed new features, and, under the rising influence Craft of Freemasonry, of which, in the op inion of Holy Mother Church , of the conventual system, then taking a great spring, adapted as expounded by Romish Hierarchs, it is impossible to speak in terms of themselves to the needs of the times, and the new conditions of life too severe condemnation. The Tablet further suggests that possibly too in the world. On this point very little seems clear, and we have to rely, strained and serious an interpretation may have been put on the statements for the most part, on the ingenious theories of able writers, or a fancy of the Bishop of N OTTINGHAM .