The Arcana of Freemasonry (1915) - The Masonic Trowel

V
1 7 17 — 1917 I
THE SECOND CENTURY OF MODERN
MASONRY !
It is a great pity we have so few sti tents in
Freemasonry who take an interest in t.\e real
history of our Brotherhood ; and still more to
be deplored that there is no encouragement for
those that do ; but if Masons would only search
and read the records of the past they would never
have fallen into the error and published the theory
that we were once operative masons: and when
I read in The Freemason, July 22, 191 1, "The
celebration in 1 9 1 7 of the two-hundredth anni-
versary of Speculative Masonry
which succeeded
operative masonry in 17 17," it pained me to feel
that this want of knowledge throughout the
Universal Masonic Fraternity
is one of the causes
why some have wandered from the Cradle of their
Home.
No doubt this idea was taken from Krause, who
has endeavoured to prove that Masonry origi-
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