maintenance of a moral society.-We believe, that our present ceremonies were more generally taught, and more candidates were initiated therein, on the opening of the crusades, than any other æra, or on any other known occasion.

THE English historians agree, that in the reign of Henry the Second, and the year 1188, at an interview between the Kings of England and France, attended by the prelates and nobility of both nations, the Archbishop of Tyre pronounced such a melancholy account of Saladine's success in the Holy Land, and the miseries of the Christians in that country, that the audience was greatly affected with the relation, and the two kings agreed to convert their whole attention to the relief of those adventurers.-They received the cross from the hands of the archbishop, resolving to go there in person; and their example was followed by Philip, Count of Flanders, and a great number of the prelates and nobility there present :---a plenary indulgence was published in the pope's name, for all those who would make a fair confession of their sins, and engage in the crusade:--the different nations assumed crosses of a different colour, and rules and orders were established for preventing riot, luxury, and disorder on the enterprize.

THESE were the principal rules made for the regulation of the crusaders.—We may conjecture these religious campaigns being over, that men initiated in the mysteries of masonry, and engaged and inrolled under those rules and orders, which were established for the conduct of the nations in the holy war, would

form themselves into lodges, and keep up their social meetings when returned home, in commemoration of their adventures and mutual good offices in Palestine, and for the propagation of that knowledge into which they had been initiated.

As a further argument that builders and architects were not the original members of our society, the Masons of the city of London obtained their incorporation and charter in the reign of King Henry Fifth, in or about the year 1419; they taking on themselves the name of Free Masons.-By their charter they are governed by a master and two wardens, with twenty-five assistants. Of this incorporated body, sixty-five are of the livery of London.

IT has never been pretended, that the society of Free and Accepted Masons have in any manner been connected, or much less have united themselves, with the incorporated body of Masons enchartered; but on the contrary, have kept themselves totally apart.

IT has been alledged, that in the reign of King Henry the Sixth, a law was enacted, setting forth, "That by the yearly congregations and confederacies "made by Masons in their general assemblies, the "good course and effects of the statute of labourers were openly violated and broken, and making the "future holding of their chapters and congregations " felony."

IT is impossible that this statute should relate to any other persons, than the incorporated body of work

ing Masons; who under an exclusive charter, by secret combinations raised the prices of their labour, and prevented Craftsmen of their fraternity, not members of the charter, from exercising their trade within the limits of London; which might occasion a grievance worthy of parliamentary redress:-but in what manner the statutes of labourers could be affected by the associations of our fraternity, is not in our power to comprehend. Our records give us no evidence of any such convocations, at the time mentioned.

By the charter of Masons, they assumed the title of Free Masons, being entitled to the franchises of the city of London.

WHY the title of free is annexed to our society, or that of accepted, we hope, we may be allowed to conjecture, was derived from the crusades.-There the volunteers entering into that service must be freemen, born free, and not villains or under any vasallage; for it was not until long after the crusades, that vasallage and feudal services, together with the slavish tenures, were taken away.

THEY were entitled to the stile of accepted, under that plenary indulgence which the pope published, for all that would confess their sins, and inlist in the enterprize of the holy war; whereby they were accepted and received into the bosom of the father of the church. -Some authors have presumed to tell us, that it was the original design of the christian powers, in their enterprize in the Holy Land, to rebuild the temple at Jerusalem; but we cannot discover any good authori

ty for this assertion.-In modern masonry it is given as a principle, why our dedication of lodges is made to St. John, that the masons who engaged to conquer the Holy Land, chose that saint for their patron.We should be sorry to appropriate the Balsarian sect of christians to St. John as an explanation of this principle;-St. John, obtains our dedication, as being the proclaimer of that salvation which was at hand, by the coming of Christ; and we, as a set of religious assembling in the true faith, commemorate the proclamations of the Baptist. In the name of St. John the Evangelist, we acknowledge the testimonies which he gives, and the divine Xoyos, which he makes manifest.—But to return to the subject of the crusaders.

IT is probable that the same enthusiastic spirit which engaged men to enter into the crusades, at the vast expence and hazard which history describes, also led them into as enormous a folly in the building of religious houses:-during the reign of Henry the Second, when the English first engaged in the holy war, there were not less than one hundred and eleven abbeys, nunneries, and religious houses founded in this kingdom;-during the reign of Richard the First, eighteen ;—and during the reign of Henry the Third, forty; which shews the religious infatuation which had totally over-run the minds of the people in those reigns.The Ecclesiastics, in imitation of the works of Solomon, might become the masters of those works, and superintend and conduct the labours of the inferior sect of haly-wark-folk; that by acceptable hands such pious works might be conducted, and from whence the ignorant and profane might be rejected, like the

Samaritans: these might assume the honorary title of Masons, which from vulgar acceptation, would naturally confound them with ordinary mechanics.

IN the Anglo-Norman Antiquities, it is said of Free Masons, that they were an association of religious, who engaged in the founding and erecting of churches and religious houses in Palestine. We have already mentioned the religious sect who were really architects and builders of churches, the haly-wark-folk, with no small degree of respect: they were a body of men subsisting before the crusades:-they were maintained by the church, under which they held lands for the service of erecting and repairing churches, and for the guarding the sepulchres of saints.—It is not improba ble, than when the rage of holy works, and holy wars, and the desire of Palestine fired the minds of all Europe, but a body of those people might embark in the enterprize, and be transported thither to build churches for the better planting or propagating the christian doctrine, or to guard and maintain the holy sepulchre. -We would be ready at all times to admit these emigrants might possess some rules and ceremonies for initiation peculiar to themselves, so far as the bearers of burthens were admitted under Solomon in the building at Jerusalem, and that they might retain their singular maxims, and principles in secrecy :—and it may also be admitted, that in honor of that gradation of masonry and of their profession, they should claim the greatest antiquity, from Solomon's temple at least: ---they might even be more than a collateral branch of the Free and Accepted Masons, as we have before admitted, and be initiated in the mysteries of masonry,