Note 168 — XXVII.

"Thus, then, it appears that the historical reference of the legend of Speculative Freemasonry, in all ages of the world, was—to our death in Adam and life in Christ. What, then, was the origin of our tradition? Or, in other words, to what particular incident did the legend of initiation refer before the flood? I conceive it to have been the offering and assassination of Abel by his brother Cain; the escape of the murderer; the discovery of the body by his disconsolate parents, and its subsequent interment, under a certain belief of its final resurrection from the dead, and of the detection and punishment of Cain by divine vengeance."—OLIVER, Historical Landmarks of Freemasonry, vol. ii. p. 171.