The Montana post. [volume] (Virginia City, Montana Territory [i.e. Mont.]) 1864-1869, 1866-12-29
FREEMASONRY.

Ihe address delivered by John II. B.
Latrobe Of Baltimore at the laying of the
corner stone of the new Masonic Temple
in that city, on the Goth instant, gave a
condensed history of Freemasonry. We
quote few passages:
At the commencement of tho
eighteenth century Freemasonrv had
ceased to be a healthful and vigorous So
clety, whose occupation consisted in
building edifces. The ages were no
Longer dark. Learning, emerging as
the morning sun above the millions
from the gloom in which it had been
hidden. was gradually illuminating Eu-
rope. The printing press was revolu-
tlonizing 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 corpo-
ratlons 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 be.
came competent as architects and build.
ers, and the Masons, ceasing to be ne
cessity as craftsmen, found themselves
In exclusive possession of their peculiar
ceremonies only. Year after year the
society became feebler. William I'M.
had been its last royal patron Sir Chris
topher Wren its last Grand Master in
England, and at length, somewhere
about the year A. D. 1717, four lodges
were all that remained of the once DOW
erful organization that had built York
and Westminster, and Ely and Canter-
bury, and Lincoln and Durham, and to
which the monarch had been indebted
for his palace, and the baron for his hold d
This was the lowest ebb in the fortunes
OF freemasonry. The tide then turned
The practical feature of the order was
abandoned altogether. 1t became spec-
ulative in its character and in little
while we find the Grand Lodge of Lon.
don permanently esUabiisbed and Erao
masonry once more attracting to its
lodges rank and wealth and influence
But the Grand Lodge of London was not
without its troubles. The Masons ofl
York, rich in muniments, with a charter
dating back nine hundred years, dispu-
ted the authority of the new creation
and it was not until the beginning of
the present century that harmony was
obtained, and the authorityof the Grand
Lodge offEngland recognized by all par
ties. 50 = ..l,.-
Freemasonry was introduced into the
United States in 1870, and seems to have
become popular at once. Washington
was the Master Of lodge, and greater
part of the officers of the army of the
revolution were members of the frater.
nl'y. The corner stone of the hall we
are about to leave was laid by Cover.
nor the State, then Grand Master of the
Grand Lodge of Maryland, and the build
ing was inaugurated by the late General
Wlnder, who succeeded him in the Office
There is now Grand Lodge in every
State OF the Union; and the noble edi.
hoes which are everywhere being built
for the accommodation of the order.
while they do credit to the taste, mani.
test at the same time the wealth and |
prosperity of those to whom row belongs
the duty of transmitting, in all their pu-
rity, to distant fumre, the principles of
Freemasonry. - -l a-..f s. '...
You have, probably, seen in the pa- ,
pers of the day that the corner stone of |
the old Masonic Hal, which we are about {
to abandon, bas recently been uneartbed j
1t was laid IN 1914, more than half a cen. {
tury ago, and you must have been /
struck hf the fact that, notwithstanding I
the care taken to transmit to posterity +
she history of the building, and some I
Drid chronicle of the times. two coins of a
yad, halfeagle of 1896, and an eagle of $
oll, with the inscription on the marble. t
we're alone found to be unimpaired. The t
liver was blackened and defaced; the |
cures on the copper had disappeared !; f
nd some remains of decayed binding c
Tere all that testified to the decayed vol.
mes that had been placed within the
tone. Damp and mould and time, that n
dor re'una, in the short space of fifty I
vo years, had defeated the purpose of O
le builders to hand down to future ages T
'me memorial of their transactions. 4
ut the eagle and halfeagle were as a
right as when the coins first issued zen
ON the mint. 1t would have been the ella
me had the gold come from the found shi
ions OF an Indian shrine or temple ish
le Forum. 1t will be the same WIN sht
many years shall have rolled overhe Sh
wv resting place to which, to-davt is hiI
Unsigned, as have accumulated sire the do
mote past.