Note 70 — Chapter I · ToC

Every elaborate History of Masonry—as, for example, that of Gould—reproduces these old documents in full or in digest, with exhaustive analyses of and commentaries upon them. Such a task obviously does not come within the scope of the present study. One of the best brief comparative studies of the Old Charges is an essay by W.H. Upton, "The True Text of the Book of Constitutions," in that it applies approved methods of historical criticism to all of them (A. Q. C., vii, 119). See also Masonic Sketches and Reprints, by Hughan. No doubt these Old Charges are familiar, or should be familiar, to every intelligent member of the order, as a man knows the deeds of his estate.