Some appreciation of the historic background of Masonry is necessary

to an understanding of the Institution. Much research has been done

by many writers into the early history of Masonry. Some of that

research has been directed at finding some specific date, era or

place when or where the Institution could be said to have had its

beginning. That research has revealed that Masonry is very old. The

oldest existing records have references to still older Masonic

records. The Regius Poem about Masonry, for example, was written

some six hundred years ago. It refers to the statutes for Masonry

that were "ordained by King Athelstane" and King Athelstane had been

dead for more than four hundred years when the Regius Poem was

written.

Research has not revealed any starting time or place for Masonry,

only that it appears to have existed in that remote period beyond

the beginnings of recorded history. Aristotle held that man is a

political animal. He lives not on his own, but in a society that

even at its most primitive stage must have had organization. In

order for the human race to progress there must have been, even in

primitive times, men who speculated or meditated about God and the

nature of His creation. The established fact that Masonry is of very

ancient origin, together with the fact that the basic precepts of

the Institution are time-less in their appeal to the best thinking

of human society, strongly suggest that Freemasonry today is in the

legitimate and unbroken line of descent from the first society of

men who had the intelligence to feel awe and reverence for the life,

order, beauty and harmony of the world around them and were

impelled by that feeling to worship the Divine Architect who

designed and governs all. "The ordinance of God, how inscrutable it

is, and goes on forever."