The Masonic Lodge.

ground where wo can retreat from the cares and toils of our daily lives , whero we can experience kind fellowship and exchange of friendly sentiment , where our minds are strengthened and instructed by the pure teachings of Masonry , and made better able to cope with the temptations

ancl dangers which surround our lives . If wo use our Masonic privileges in a judicious manner , we shall never find ourselves anything but better for our periodical meetings together here , and we shall in after life be ever able to look back npon our re-nnions as bright spots in our

memories . May this be so with each of us , ancl may we never have any reason to remember our meeting together under the Warrant of this Lodge with any other feeling than that of pleasure , or any other memory than that of unfeigned happiness .

Correspondence.

CORRESPONDENCE .

We do not hold ourselves responsible for the opinions of our Cor . respondents . All Letters must bear the name and address of the Writer , not necessarily for publication , but as a guarantee of good faith . We cannot undertake to return rejected communications .

— : o : — WAS ANY KIND OF A No . 79 A PHILADELPHIA LODGE .

To the Editor of the FREEMASON ' S CHRONICLE . DEAR SIR AND BROTHER , —I have only jnst read Brother Norton ' s lefcter on thia subject , and have , therefore , had little time to study its contents as they deserve to be studied . Bnt though Bro . Norton is generally careful to give , as far as he possibly can give , chapter and verse for his statements , I notice thafc , in the last paragraph of

tins contribution to the discussion , he boldly asserts that " the Philadelphia Grand Lodge of 1732 was a self-c . nstitnted affair . " Now , it maybe fairly open to argument whether the vacant No . 79 in early lists of English Lodges was a Philadelphia Lodge or not , bnt I think there is no doubt whatever that Daniel Coxe received a deputation in 1730 as Prov . Grand Master for New York , New Jersey , and

Pennsylvania , and ifc is the reverse of a monstrous proposition to suggest that the Lodge advertised in Philadelphia journals as meeting in thafc city in 1732 was the legitimate outcome of thafc deputation ; Whether it was what we understand by a Grand Lodge or only a Lodge , and if fche latter whether or not it was regularly constituted after the manner which is deemed necessary in these days ; these , in

my opinion , are matters of secondary consideration . We have the deputation of 1730 , and we have the Lodge meetings of 1732 , and , with all due deference to Bro . Norton , there is no & priori reason—or . posteriori reason either—against there being some connecting link , of which we have , and can have no cognisance—between the two . I think ifc is only reasonable to connect the two tosrether , but I do not .

in the present state of our knowledge of English Masonry in those early days , expect to be able to prove a connection , as I should expect to be in a position to trace a Lodge of comparatively modern creation from its origin till now . It may be an evidence of weakness on my part , but I consider a little faith is allowable in things of whose existence we have no ocular demonstration . Faithfully and fraternally yours , Q .

FREEMASONRY AND THE SAINTS JOHN . To the Editor of the FREEMASON ' S CHRONICLE . DEAR SIR AND BROTHER , —I thank yon for reprinting ( 29 fch December ) the Keystone Johannite article , and I thank Bro . " INQUIRER " for pointing ont to the English Masons what kind of Masonry we have in America , ancl your American readers will learn that Doxologies are not sung in the English Grand Lodge as it is here . I can

ascribe the difference between English and American Masonry simply to one fact . The Craft was indeed as much plagued with bigots in England as it was here ; but in England gentlemen were invariably rulers of tbe Grand Lodge . Now , a gentleman in the true sense of the word , is a man of honour , truth , and justice , and knows how to behave when he finds himself in a promiscuous assembly

composed of gentlemen of various religions denominations ; hence , every effort made by bigots on yonr side of the Atlantic to sectarianize the ritual was never thoroughly accomplished . But here in America Grand Lodges , as a rule , have been controlled by zealots , who , " Salvation Army " style , believe that a Christian ' s duty is to rant ancl cant anywhere and everywhere ; and this practice in a Masonic

Lodge is generally defended by unprincipled politicians ( and you know what American politicians are ) who are ambitious for leadership in onr Grand Lodges ; ancl , hence , these manage to find all manner of excuses ( " ancient landmarks " for instance ) , and our Masonic ritual , therefore , remains a mere mongrel—a cross breed . If onr Grand Lodges , like one of the Berlin Grand Lodges , had

frankl y proclaimed Freemasonry a Christian Institution , and refused the admission of Jews and Freethinkers into their midst , I would not have commended their liberality , but I would have respected their consistency . But , as ifc is , ifc is neither one thing nor the other . One will assert that Masonry is cosmopolitan , while another will prove thafc ifc is a Christian Institution ; ancl , in the meantime , Masters

Correspondence.

of Lodges promise nightly to Jews and Freethinkers before the Masonic altar , " on the word and honour of a gentleman and Mason , " that the candidate ( be he Jew or what not ) shall enjoy all the privileges of the Society without violating hia duty to God ; while he ( the W . M . ) well knows that a Jew cannot use tho American ritnnl without violating his conscience and his duty towards God .

We boast that " hypocrisy and deceit is unknown among Masons . " In reality , however , the whole system of American Masonry is based npon hypocrisy ; thus the Christian W . M . is a hypocrite for promising fche Jewish candidate as to not violating his duty to God ; and if a Jew takes the office of W . M . he must submit even to a worse kind of hvpocrisy than tho Christian W . M .

I believe Dr . Johnson said that ho could judge of a man ' s mental and moral character by the books he reads . Well ; twenty . five years ago , Charles W . Moore , of Boston , was in the zenith of his greatnesss ; he was then called " the greatest Masonio authority in the world , " ancl ho supplied the mental and moral food for the Boston Masons , which food was then very much relished . But ask tho

old Boston Masons now about their opinion of Moore , and nineteen out of twenty will say , " Bah ! he was a sham , " or something worse j which proves that the old Boston Masons are wiser to-day than they were twenty-five years ago . Now , if the Philadelphia Keystone is a true index of the mental standard of its readers , our Philadelphia brethren of to-day must be just as credulous and superstitions as our

Bostonians were a quarter of a century since . The editor of fcho Keystone , liko his Boston prototype of twenty . five years ago , professes nothing else but seeking and teaching truth to his readers ; bnfc he somehow manages to leave nine-tenths of the truth out of hia paper , and the tenth part he gives is just sufficient to give a dim shadow to make his theory appear p lausible . His Johannite article

glitters with numerous quotations and references to authors ; but on applying a little acid we discover that the glittering proceeds from Brummagem , and not from gold ; and sometimes , unintentionally of course , his statement cannot be corroborated . For instance , he quotes Bro . Lyon ' s history that in 1598-9 , tho Scotch Masons elected their Officers on St . John ' s Day , but he carefully ignores the reason

whioh Bro . Lyon gave for the origin of that custom . He says ( alluding to a quotation from Preston , thafc in 1663 , the Earl of St . Alban was elected Grand Master on St . John ' s Day ) . "This assertion is unsupported by any valued authority except Robert ' s 1722 edition of the ' Constitution of Freemasonry . '" But I could not find any snch confirmation in Robert ' s " Constitution " of 1722 . He took his

text from a quotation from a letter of a subscriber to tho Keystone , as follows : — " I am anxious to learn the origiu of St . John's Day ; what eonnection ifc has with Masonry , and whether ' Holy Sainfc John' is sup . posed to have been a Mason ?" Now , an enlightened and truthful editor of a Masonic paper would

have replied thus : — In answer to the above question we beg to state thafc the Saints John were not Masons , nor did either of fchem ever have any connection with Freemasonry . The legend of the evangelist ' s connection with Masonry was unknown till late in the lasfc century ; it was , doubtless , invented by one of fche numerous Masonic charlatans that

swarmed in the Craft from its beginning to the present time . The earliest book in which that legend appeared is Kranse's work , printed in 1802 . Dr . Mackey , in his Lexicon , professed to believe that tho Saints John were " eminent Masons" and after giving a great deal of glittering stuff , he says : " the task is not difficult to trace moro philosophically ( nothing was too difficult for Mackey ) ,

and I believe more correctly , the origin of the custom . " And thon he advances fche theory that ifc was derived from the ancient Sun Worship ; the ancient Masons , he says , wero philosophers , they therefore celebrated the Summer and Winter Solstices , aud when Christianity came to mingle with the rays of the light of Masonry , the custom was continued by celebrating the two St . Johns '

days , & c . But in his Cyclopaedia he left all that stuff out , and confessed , though nofc in these words , that the story was introduced , and the custom of observing the St . John ' s Days is retained merely to tickle the conceit of Masonio Christian pietists . These speculations about Sun worship and of Masonry antedating Christianity are now generally discarded ; and whenever a Masonic writer now attempts to

palm off these exploded legends and theories depend upon it he is either a knave or an ignoramus . In no English pre-1717 Masonic MS . can the names of St . John be fonnd . Bro . Lyon quotes from the records of the Edinburgh Lodge of 1598-9 , thafc the Lodge elected its officers on St . John ' s Day , but not because the Scotch Masons hada legend about St . John's Grand Master .

ship afc Jerusalem or Patmos ; but ifc was due , firsfc , to a superstrion prevailing among the old Catholics for every society or guild to have a patron saint ; second , churches and chapels had also to be dedicated to saints ; and third , it was the custom in Scotland , and probably in other countries too , that when a city government chartered a guild to assign to it a chapel , wherein the Chaplain of the guild

used to pray for the welfare of the brethren , ancl whichever sainfc thafc chapel was dedicated to tho guild adopted thafc saint for its patron . Now , ifc happened when the Edinburgh Lodge was chartered the City authorities assigned to it a chapel in St . Giles' Kirk , that had been formerly dedicated to the Saints John ; hence the Edinburgh Masons adopted tbe Saints John

ns thoir patron saints , and made a St . John's Day as an annual for election of their officers . But Bro . Lyon further informs us thab iu other Scotch cities tho names of the Masons' patron saints differed , fcliat in one place the Mason ' s had St . Mungo ; in another they had St . Thomas or St . Ninian , & c . Even Brother Fort is strongly inclined to Christianise Masonry , on account of an inscription in Melrose Abbey , viz .:

" I pray to God and Mary baith , And sweet St . John keep this holy kirk fra skaith . " Brother Fort jumped ( Masonic fashion ) to the conclusion f . ha " St . John appears to have been a patron saint of operative Masons .