"Grand Lodges under their present organization are in respect to the antiquity of the Order of a comparatively modern date. We hear of no such bodies in the earlier ages of the institution. Tradition informs us that originally it was governed by the despotic authority of a few chiefs. At the building of the temple we have reason to believe that King Solomon exercised an unlimited and irresponsible control over the craft although a tradition (not however of undoubted authority) says that he was assisted in his government by the counsel of twelve superintendants selected from the twelve tribes of Israel. But we know too little from authentic materials of the precise system adopted at that remote period to enable us to make any historical deductions on the subject."