AIMS OF FREEMASONRY

Evening Post, Volume CI, Issue 19, 22 January 1921, Page 7

AIMS OF FREEMASONRY

AS SEEN IN ENGLAND

REAL BROTHERHOOD AND UNITY,

-^Tlio bishops are becoming excellent exponents of the aims and objects of Freemasonry,' and just at the present seasqn those who are Freemasons,' and the number is by no means a low one, arc in great demand at the many Masonic church services which are being held up and down the country for various charitable objects, not confined to Masonic purposes (writes a London correspondent). Preaching at Hornsey, at a service/convened in aid of a. local memorial, the Bishop of Willesden, a past grand chaplain of referred to the striking growth an 4, development of Freemasonry of late years', and said that the history went back into ages long gono by and was pot wholly known. The pre^ sent era, of course, began some 2CW years since with the formation of the Grand Lodge of ■ England, when tho representa? tiyes of the uifforent lodges in the City of London met together and framed a new set of orders and rules. Freemasonry! ho said, is not a secret- society with signs, tokens, and passwords, but, in reality,'is the revelation of th.c groat secret of truo and rual brotherhood and unity. Bitiiai is only the external part of Freemasonry, and the order is based on tho high ideal of tho Fatherhood of God and the brother^ hood of man. Freemasonry, has been maligned and insulted as'an atheistic organisation, but he. pointed out that -no lodge could liossibly be hold without the book of tho . Sacred Law bejng opened. Tho ritual, top, is full of )>rayer and praise to Almighty. God., Tho bishop went on to refer to tho strife that, at present existed in most countries''of the" world and suggested that Freemasonry with its ideal of brotherhood, could play \ a great part in solving the present difficulties. '. In the great problem of tho eastern races versus tho west, Freemasonry, with its worldwide representations, might. avert a tof r rible catastrophe. ', With regard to the bishop's remarka as to the modern origin of Freemasonry, or, perhaps, it should be Said, foundation, there has been much disputation for many years among Masonic scholars as to whether Sir Christopher Wren, the'first; Duke of Richmond, King Charles, and others, we.ro, or/were not members of the order, some' maintaining that the twp first mentioned occupied positions analogous, in turn, to that of grand master, an office which was" not, of course, created until the foundation of tho first Grand Lodge in 1717 Somo interesting discoveries have been mado recently among the manuscripts in the Bod? leiayi Library fit (Mpyd, which will'put iill doubt on one side and may establish the fact that these men did occupy the positions claimed for them > by'loss skeptical brethren. The documents also include a manuscript ritual of the early eighteenth century, v:hioh has never yet been printed.