Fremont journal. [volume] (Fremont, Sandusky County [Ohio]) 1853-1866, 1866-12-07

FREE MASONRY.
Its IntroductIon int the United States an,
It's Hlstcry.

Its IntroductIou inte the United States and
It's History.
The address delivered by John H. Lat
rope, at Baltimore, at the laying of the
cornerstone of the new Masonic temple in
that city, on the Goth ultimo, gave a con-
densed history of Freemasonry. We
quote few passages:
+ y "At the commencement Of
the eighteenth century Freemasonry had
ceased to be healthful and vigorous 30
ciety, whose occupation consisted in build
ing edifices. The ages were no longer
dark. Learning, emerging, as the morn
ing sun above the hill-tops, from the
gloom in which it had been hidden, was
gradually illuminating Europe. The prin-
ting press was revolutionizing the world.
America had been discovered. Enterprise
was on foot everywhere, and marching
with giants strength. Labor, rafting
impatiently the chains with which guilds
and corporations bound it. was struggling
into freedom. Research, careless about
the mysteries of rites, was busying itself
about the mysteries of art, and, year by
year, unveiling them. Other men became
competent as architects and builders, and
the Masons, ceasing to be necessity as
craftsmen, found themselves in exclusive
possession of their peculiar ceremonies
only. Year after year the society became
feebler. William III. had been its last
royal patron; Sir Christopher Wren its
last Grand Master in England; and at
length, somewhere about the year A. D.
1917, four lodges were all that remained
of the once powerful organization, that had
built York and Westminster, and Ely and
Canterbury, and Lincoln and Durham,
and to which the monarch had been in
debted for his palace, and the baron for
his hold. This was the lowest ebb in the
fortunes of Freemasonry. The tide then
turned. The practical feature of the
Order was abandoned altogether. 1t be-
came speculative in its character; and in
little while we find the Grand Lodge of
London permanently established, and
Freemasonry once more attracting to its
lodges rank and wealth and influence.
But the grand Lodge of London was not
without its troubles. The Masons of York,
rich in monuments, with a charter da-
ting back nine hundred years, disputed
the authority of the new creation; and it
was not until the beginning of the present
century that harmony was obtained, and
the authority of the Grand Lodge of
England recognized by all parties.
"Freemasonry was introduced into the
United States in 1880, and seems to have
become popular at once. Washington
was the master of lodge, and the greater
part of the officers of the Army of the
Revolution were member of the fraternity.
The cornerstone of the hall we are about
to leave was laid by governor of the state,
then Grand Master of the Grand Lodge of
and the building was inaugur-
ated by the late General Winder, who sue
ceeded him in the office. There is now a
Grand Lodge in every state of the Union
and the noble edifces which are every
where being built for the accommodation
Of the Order, while they do credit to the
taste, manifest, at the same time, the
wealth and prosperity of those to whom
now belongs the duty of transmitting, in
all their purity, to a distant future, the
principles of Freemasonry."
"You have, probably, seen in the papers
of the day, that the cornerstone of the old
Masonic Hall, which we are about aban-
doning, has recently been unsarthed. It
was laid in 1914, more than half century
ago; and you must have been struck by
the fact that notwithstanding the care
taken to transmit to prosperity the history
ofthe building and some brief chronicle Of
,he times, two coins of gold, half-eagle
If 1895 and an eagle of 1911, with the
on the marble, were alone found
o be unimpaired. The silver was black |
'ned and defaced; the figures on the cop
per had disappeared; and some remnants
If decayed binding were all that testified
o the printed volumes that had been
placed within the stone. Damp and mould
md time, that edGrrsrum, in the short
space of ffty-two years, bad defeated the
purpose of the builders to hand down to
'uture ages some memorials of their trans
actions. But the eagle and half-eagle
we're as bright as when the coins first is
'ued from the mint. 1t would have been
he same, had the gold come from the
Of an Indian shrine or tenn
de in the Forum. 1t will be the same, |
when as many years shall have rolled
'ver the new resting place, to which, to-
lay, it is consigned, as have accumulated
ince the remote past"