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ROYAL MASONIC INSTITUTION FOR GIRLS . ST . JOHN'S HILL , S . W . PATRONS : H . R . H . THE PRINCE OF WALES , K . G ., M . W . G . M . President . H . R . H . THE PRINCESS OF WALES . A Quarterly General Court of the Governors and Subscribers of this Institution will be held at Freemasons' Hall , Great Queen-street , Lincoln's Inn Fields , London , W . C , on Saturday , the Sth day of January , 1 SS 1 , at Twelve o ' clock precisely , on the General Business of the Institution , to place Candidates on the List for Election in April next , and to declare the number of Girls then to be Elected ; also to consider tlje following Notice of Motion .-By Bro . J OSHUA NUNN , V . P . — " That the following words be added to Law 72 , after the word ' provision , ' viz ., ' and in cases of exceptional merit and necessity the General Committee are authorised to increase the sum to an amount not exceeding £ 40 . ' " F . R . VV . HEDGES , Office : —5 , Freemasons' Hall , Se y . Great Queen-street , W . C , January 1 , 1 SS 1 . The Ninety-third Anniversary Festival will take place in May next . Names of Stewards will be gratefully received by the Secretary .

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FREEMASONS' CLUB , PORTSMOUTH . Offers especial advantages to Commercial Gentlemen and Visitors to Southsea . It is pleasantly situated in the centre of the Borough , close to the Railway Station , and Tram Cars pass it every few minutes to all parts of the Town . Entrance Fee , One Guinea ; Annual Subscription for Resident Members , One Guinea . To Visitors , etc ., who are non-resident in the immediate district , the Annual Subscription is Ten Shillings and Sixpence . Three Craft Lodges , a regular Lodge of Instruction meeting every fortnight ; a Royal Arch Chapter , Mark Lodge , and a Conclave of Rome and Constantine meet in the handsome HaU attached to the Club . For further particulars and forms of nominations apply to the Secretary , 79 , Commercial Road , Landport .

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TO ADVERTISERS . THE FREEMASON has a large circulation in all parts of the Globe . [ a it the official Reports of the Grand Lodges of England , Ireland , and Scotland arc published with the special sanction of thc respective Grand Masters , and it contains a complete record of Masonic work in this country , our Indian Empire , and the Colonics . The vast accession to the ranks of the Order during thc past few years , and the increasing interest manifested in its doings , has given the Freemason a position and influence which few journals can lay claim to , and the proprietor can assert with confidence that announcements appearing in its columns challenge thc attention of a very large and influential body of readers . Advertisements for the current week ' s issue are received up to six o ' clock on Wednesday evening .

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fEo € ovwpont > tnts . The EDITOR of the Freemason returns his fraternal thanks to the EDITOR of the New York Dispatch tor the duplicate copies of his valuable paper just to hand . W . M . No . 1491 . —We apprehend that the writer's words must not be scanned too closely . It is a tale ! though it may have happened . —ED . F . M . T . B . W . —In our next . Owing to pressure on our columns the following stand over : — All Souls' Lodge , No . 170 , Weymouth . Ph / Enix Lodge , No . 257 , Portsmouth . Pomfret Lodge , No . 360 , Northampton . BOOKS , & c , RECEIVED . "Sunday Times , " "City Press , " "Citizen , " "Allen's Indian Mail , " "Hull Packet , " "The Christian , " ' 'The Masonic Herald , " "Le Monde Maconnique , " "Jewish Chronicle , " "Broad Arrow , " "Croydon Guardian , " "New York Dispatch , " "La Chaine d'Union , " "Night and Day , " "The Egyptian Gazette , " " Masonic Review , " " Proceedings of the Grand Lodge of British Columbia , and the Grand Chapter of the United States of America , " "Der Long Islaender , " "The Freemason's Monthly , " "Und and Water , " "The Sydney Freemason , " "The New Zealand Freemason . "

The Freemason.

THE FREEMASON .

S ATURDAY , J ANUARY I , 1881 .

WITH this , the first number of the Freemason for the New Year of grace and light , 1881 , certain thoughts and prevailing associations supervene , which it would seem neither desirable nor expedient altogether to ignore or discard .

For each year as it passes over our heads reaches , as it were , a new milestone on our journey of life , and there come to us some

affecting memories , or some seasonable thoughts , which it may do us all good for a little while to try to realize and dwell upon . It is very easy for the mere witling , or for the sciolist , to laugh at and

The Freemason.

ridicule all serious thoughts and all healthy moralizing . Nothing is so common as for the person who never thinks to deprecate all thought in others . We have sometimes seen remarks on the unwisdom and absurdity of dwelling on such topics , as

uncongenial to the season , and out of harmony with common sympathies . But , luckily for us all , there are times when we have to be serious , whether we will or no , and one of thpse < very times and seasons is the commencement of a New Year . We admit at once

that such views and feelings are out of tune and tone with those shriller and louder voices , which would declare all such seasons as the present to be opportunities for saturnalian license , and nothing more , which represent too fitly , alas , those hurtful tastes ,

and those frivolous temperaments , which nothing but material ineptitude can please , which can only be really amused , excited , and gratified by the empty platitudes of an unmeaning philosophy , or by the " emptier" mists of earthly gratification .

If to any such our remarks appear too serious or too severe , too moralizing or too metaphysical , we can only beg them not to read them , and to spare

themselves the infliction of perusing what will neither please them , nor affect them . And though we are aware that there is sometimes a danger lest , with the best intentions in the world , we should

seem to " sermonize " on topics which are so grave and so important in themselves ; yet as such is altogether most remote from our present intention , we hope that our readers will g ive us credit for seeking to put before them some few thoughts and

memories which may be worth consideration , which it may benefit us all alike to read and to realize , and meditate upon . For we hold it is a great mistake merely to write " ad hominem , " or , as they say , " pro tanto " only . It may be all very well for the

ephemeral struggle , or for the passing fancy , but n you re-read it all after a few years , how jejune and how vapid it appears . Its interest has passed away , its life has gone , its salt has evaporated . If then in the Freemason we worked merely to write to

" please , " or to tell always of " smooth things , —if we had nothing hig her , no truer aim in all we put forth week by week , than the common passing shadow of Freemasonry , personal feelingsorchildish inanities , probably the less thoughtful and the less

serious our leaders were the better they mig ht please a class , and not a little class , which desires to read without trouble , and grasp without mental labour , which prefers the surface to the depth , the g litter to the gold . Luckily the Freemason has

always sought to appeal to the thinking , the serious , the educated of its great Fraternity , and as it has never written for applause or a party , as it has never sought to gain an end , or subserve a job , it has had the compliment paid to it of being

perused by very many Masons all over the world , who have entered , and warmly entered , into the spirit which has prompted its utterances , who have approved , and warmly approved , of the Masonic principles and sentiments which have invariably

characterized itspages . A New Yearalwaysseemstostrike a vibrating chord in the harmony of humanity , inasmuch as it recalls memories of the past , and surrounds us with anticipations for the future . We are none of us , be we who we may , quite as young as once we were , and a New Year reminds us of a

journey so far accomplished , and seems to point in pleasing or ominous whispers , as the case may be , to the journey still before us . If -we are still full of vigour of bod y and mind ; if ours are the happiness of a domestic circle , the success of a prosperous

life , the warm sympathies of true-hearted friends ; if no clouds darken our pathway , then hope seems to speak in halcyon tones of happy and pleasant days to be to us , as in the past , so in the future hidden from our gaze . If , on the contrary , we

find each New Year but witness of the increasing " infirmities of the flesh , " or of those " evils " to which it is indeed ever heir ; if health has given way to despondency , and strength has yielded to weakness ; if gloomy and discoloured the clouds

are hovering over our road , once so lightened up by the sunshine of friendship and affection , then the New Year can hardly come to us with a

rejoicing aspect , it is but a reminder of past trials , it isbut a harbinger of future " evil things . " No doubt the religion of true p hilosophy can come in here , to soothe , to cheer , and to uphold , as it ought always

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to do , * but we are rather talking of the " way of the world " as it is , not as it ought to be . And we repeat that the New Year has always two aspects , so to say , for us all , dependent on the contingent and customary circumstances of our own mortal

life—one of cheering hope , another of warning reminder . No doubt , in one sense , the " * recollection of all past time " is melancholy . We recall the friends , the scenes , the voices , the joys of the past ; they are gone , never to return . The home we

loved , thegardens we planned , the trees we planted , the books we read , the companions and mates of many a pleasant hour , all leave us , as old HORACE sang of old , and after a few years seem little specks in the dim distance of awakened and grieving

memory , which we have left far behind us , and here shall never see or meet again . In one of CAMPBELL ' poems there is a touching description of a garden revisited after a lapse of years , ones trim and cared for , fragrant with gay and

sweetscented flowers , and now all left to ruin , run to seed , gone to decay . So it is with such epochs in our lives . They are parts of our past , forgotten , neglected , left to silence and decay , and to-day we know them not , and they know not us . Hence

as we seek to grasp the measure of time , as the golden sands of the great river all come down to the sea , as the particles and atoms in the hour glass drop down , one by one , there must come to us all , there must crowd over all thoughtful minds not a

few depressing memories and not a few saddening thoughts . Our past is faded and gone . How much of the fabric remains for us and ours ? Have we seen our last old year ? Are we entering upon our final new year ? Surely we are not wrong any

of us in treating a new year , even from a Masonic point of view , as a somewhat serious reality . We say nothing of higher considerations , and nothing can be in worse " form or taste " than that affected jocosity which , stringing together a few

commonp lace truisms , affects to deprecate any more severe dealing of the subject as pharasaical or ascetic . On the contrary , the voice which is ringing in our ears and hearts , if we think , is that of the poet , in those moving words of his , well known and often quoted

as they are : Lives of great men all remind us VVe can make our lives sublime , And , departing , leave behind us Footprints on the sands of time . Footprints , that perhaps another Sailing o ' er life ' s solemn main , A forlorn and shipwrecked brother ] Seeing , shall take heart again .

* * * THE old year has passed away for Freemasonry—a new year lies before it . Its work , though ever going on , seems to gain fresh life arid energy

as year succeeds to year , and these " particles of time " tell of its struggles and proclaim its triumphs . It is a very wonderful fact the continuation and developement and rejuvenescence of Freemasonry . The " world is

growing old , " says a poet , but Freemasonry is as young as ever ; more full of life , more abounding with energy , more compact , and more adhesive as years follow years , and century succeeds to century . What , for instance , is the analogy between the

Freemasonry of 1780 and the Freemasonry of 1880 ? Is it not merely the difference between sleep and waking—life and death—vigour and weakness ? Such is the wonderful and inexplicable reality as regards Freemasonry , which has puzzled

the sagacious , and is still a " crux " lor the historian , that , though " Nations and thrones and reverend laws have melted like a dream , " it outlives the fall of Empires and the decadence of Republics . On it the " encroaching hand of time "

leaves no mark , as passing through the ages oi man ' s walk and man ' s weakness , it endures and survives , and is " ever to the fore . " At this moment there is hardly a portion of this great

earth ' s surface where lodges , or chapters , or councils do not congregate . As J OHNSON said of old , or if he did not , as " ARTAGNAN " says in the " Mousquetaires , " he ought to have said , " Survey mankind from China to Peru ,

A Mason ' s lodge and Masons meet your view . " And there certainly never was a period in Masonic history when Freemasonry was so widely extended ,