Freemasonry As A Conservator Of The Arts And Sciences.

I will not refer to that remote period when our predecessors , the Dionysian artificers , Avero engaged in tho adornment of Tyre and Sidon , and all the region of Asia Minor , with public edifices , whoso splendour and magnificence now form a

part of history , nor to that yet more glorious epoch , when under tho superintendence of the wise King of Israel and his colleagues , the gorgeous temple of Jehovah was made to cover the threshing , floor of Oman tho Jebusito ; but passing

over everything that transpired before the truly historic era of the Order , let us direct our attention to the architectural labours of the travelling . Freemasons of the Middle Ages . To them has Europe been indebted for all that is beautiful or

chaste , all that is massive or sublime , in the architecture of the abbeys and cathedrals that attract the traveller ' s eye , and arrest his admiration , as he . passes from country to country , and wonders at the skill that could contrive and the labour

that could acconi | lish , in the days of comparative barbarity , edilices whoso strict conformity to every principle of architecture exhibit a condition of artistic I skill very far in advance of their age , and which , even in their ruins present models of beauty , strength , and taste , which modern builders and architects are content

to imitate at an inglorious distance . "When tho political power of Rome had fallen beneath the incursions of its barbarian invaders , and , with its power , its elegance and refinement , had been apparently forever lost , architecture , and all the

other arts and sciences which had distinguished the Augustan age of tho mistress of tho world , were , for a long period of intellectual sleep , abandoned or neglected . It was at this time that the Freemasons , setting forth as the labourers of the church

, began first at Como , and thence elsewhere upon the continent , to introduce that revival in architectural taste which was exhibited in the religions edifices , monasteries , abbeys and cathedrals , which they I alone constructed in almost every country

in Europe . United in a companionshi p where tho skill and science of each member was readily imparted to the whole societ y ; armed with the protection of the Popes , who , from a natural feeling , encouraged , the erection of churches and other sacred buildings and supported by the patronage

of the most powerful prelates , who eagerl y joined , in the attempt to increase the number and splendour of their houses of worship ; they have left behind them tho most magnificent monuments of devotion to ecclesiastical architecture , and of their

success in its cultivation . These 'Travelling Freemasons—for such was the designation they assumed—were not so much the restorers of tho old architecture , whose vitality was gone with the race among whom it livedbut the

, inventors and propagators of a new school , in which , among the other striking peculiarities , we find the application , in the form and ornaments of their edifices ,

of that science of symbolism to which I have already referred as constituting an essential part of the system of Freemasonry . And so , those old Masons , manfully assuming the trowel and the square , and tho level , and tho plumb , began , like their

Tyrian and Jewish ancestors , the sacred mission of building houses for God , and teaching their dogmas for future ages to follow ; and when the mission was accomplished , abandoning tho operative art , they fell back upon the speculative science

alone , yielding their implements and their skill in using them to the builders and architects , and transmitting- to us , their descendants , their symbols , their science , and their doctrines . And solooking at this science of

, symbolism as springing up among tho old founders of the Aryan race , the makers of the poetic Vedas iu Asia and among the priests of Egypt , passing over to the school of Alexandria and thence to Plato and

Pythagoras and the philosophy of Europe , preserved for a time by tho continued societies of the Middle Ages , from which it was taken by the Gnostics and the J ' osicruci ' ans , applied to their operative art by tho Stonemasons , and finally

deposited in the secret archives of the Speculative Masons , whore it is still preserved and continually used , we may safely say that the Freemasonry of this day is accomplishing its mission as a teacher of the arts and sciences ; for in the circle of its

symbolic instruction , it embraces them all . An ignorant man will be an ignorant Mason ; but he who studies and understands its symbolism , its origin , its history , and its design , cannot fail to acquire a large share of the world's learning . — National- Freemason .