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TO OUR READERS . The FREEMASON is a Weekly Newspaper , price ad . It is published every Friday morning , and contains the most important , interesting , and useful iaformation relating to Freemasonry in every degree . Subscription , including postage : United America , India , India , China , & c

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review are to be forwarded to the Editor . Anonymous correspondence will be wholly disregarded , and the return of rejected MSS . cannot be guaranteed . Further information will be supplied on application to the Publisher , 108 , Fleet-street , London .

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IMPORTANT NOTICE . COLONIAL and FOREIGN SUBSCRIBERS are informed that acknowledgments of remittances received are published in the first number of every rnnnth .

It is very necessary for our readers to advise us of all money orders they remit , more especially those from the United States of America and India ; otherwise we cannot tell where to credit them .

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NOTICE . To prevent delay or miscarriage , it is particularly requested that ALL communications for the FRBEMASON , may be addressed to the Office , 198 , Fleet-street , London .

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TO ADVERTISERS . The F BEEJIASON has a large circulation in all parts of the Globe , its advantages as an advertising medium can therefore scarcely be overrated . ADVERTISEMENTS to ensure insertion in current -week's issue should reach the Office , 198 , Fleet-street , hy 12 o ' clock on Wednesdays .

Answers To Correspondents.

Answers to Correspondents .

BOOKS , & c , RECEIVED . " La Chaine D'Union , " " Keystone , " " New York Dis patch , " ' Bauhiitte , " " Science for All " ( Cassell ) .

REMITTANCES RECEIVED . £ s . d . Austen , A . E ., The Cape P . O . O . 7 13 6 lgualdad Lodge , Curacoa , ... ... ... 140 Jones , W . H ., Calcutta Cash 012 o Lakey , P ., Malta ... Cheque 6 10 o Library Grand Lodge of lovva ... ... Draft 4 17 3

Llagostera , J . Puig-y-Manilla ... ... 24 6 Lodgeof friendship , Gibraltar ... P . O . O . 1 16 o Magnussen , A ., La Crosse ... ... Cheque 1 9 o Smith , \ V . T ., Africa 1 6 o Sutton , General , Salem ... ... Cheque o 12 o Whymper , IL , Murree ,, 200 Williams , T ., New York P . O . O . o 12 0

Births ,Marriages And Deaths.

Births , Marriages and Deaths .

[ The charge is 2 s . 6 d . for announcements , not exceed ing four lines , under this heading . ]

BIRTHS . ELLINGTON , —On the 30 th ult ., at Elsham-road , Kensington , the wife of E . B . Ellington , of a son . HARVEY . —On the 28 th ult ., at Truro , the wife of the Rev . C . F . Harvey , of a son . LASCIMORE . —On the 21 st ult ., at Leicester , the wife of W . Langmore , Esq ., of a daughter . THOMSON . —On the 27 th ult ., at Oakley-street , Chelsea , the wife of lames Thom . Bon , late of Ceylon , of a son .

MARRIAGE . ROBINSON—KENNARD . —On the 29 th ult ., at Hordle , by the Rev . E . Rawnsley , the Rev , Charles J . Robinson , H . M . Inspector of Schools , to Elizabeth Louisa , daughter of the late , | . P . Kennard , Esq .

DEATHS . BIUNSMB . \ B . —On the 28 th ult ., at Commercial-road , Limehouse , Thomas Briusmead , aged 60 . Cox . —On the 26 th ult ., at Weston-super-Mare , Miss Anna Eliza Catherine Deane .

KNIOHT . —On the 23 rd ult ., at Thistle-grove , South KensMigton , Mary Ann , widow of W . I-I . Knight , Esq ., aged 5 8 . SPOONEII . —On the 27 th ult ., at Bron-y-Garth , Portmadoc , aged 26 , John Eryri , son of C . E . Spooner .

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The Freemason , SATURDAY , J ANUARY 5 , 1878 .

A New Year's Greeting.

A NEW YEAR'S GREETING .

Tt is with every feeling of the kindliest concern that we offer to our numerous readers , in all parts of the world , the customary , though heartfelt , good wish of a " Happy New Year . If even the Freemason were not , as it is , running the race of legitimate success , our duty would

indeed be the same , but as it is , we feel especiall y bound with the arrival of another new year to tender to our very many friends and zealous supporters , grateful thanks and heartfelt good wishes . At such a moment of time the intersection of that narrow line which separates 1877

from 1 S 78 , just when we leave the past known and familiar , and enter the future , hidden in ignorance and mystery , it is thr . t the mind grows thoughtful and the heart expands . For after , all , say what we may , we are all " members one of another " here ; we cannot live isolated lives if

even we would , for none of us , to use well-known and sacred words , " liveth to himself , " and none of us " dieth to himself . " We all inherit sympathies , being mingled with those of others , and the chain of existence if composed of many links , is yet so admirably and curiousl y contrived that

we all form part of one great and consistent whole . Indeed it is this very secret of our mortal striving which seems to have baffled the speculations of scientificists and the conclusions of philosophers . It is this mystery of our race which presents such a wondrous enigma to the

mere man of this world , to him who only contemplates humanity and the world , from an utilitarian , from a necessitarian , from a sceptical , from an unbelieving point of view . Despite all the follies and all the sins of mankind , notwithstanding dark treachery and darker

baseness , yes , and not forgetting the alienations , lhe animosities , and the heartlessness of mankind , there is , so to say , a great warm heart of humanity which beats on , nevertheless , amid all change , all trials , and all evil , and which binds us and blends us all with one another here . It

is this golden link , and all but electric flash of sympathy , which pervades the mi ghty brotherhood of us children of the dost ,, which , tco often ignored , so often unappreciated lends such a charm , such a romance , and such a reality to the pervading struggles , the onward

hopes of mankind . Like a great army , humanity seems marching on , and if stragglers are here and there falling out of the ranks , if that mighty host has great difficulties to contend with and serious obstacles to surmount , yet it is still moving on . And we as Freemasons , who are ever

universal and humanitarian in scope and existence , feel strongly how that Time which leaves us , and yet confronts us with each departing Old and supervening New Year , has a message to us all alike , replete with interest and improvement . It is this , a lesson of sympathy for all men ! Our

great brotherhood , our signs and symbols , our literature and our lodges , are now all over the woild , and with all these things , also speaks one unvarying and unwavering message of peace and good-will . Above the estrangements and divisions of the human race , above war ' s evil

echoes and corruptions , above terrible crimes , yes , and above even all , the fierce , fell , senseless , hatred of Adam ' s race , Freemasonry , like a good genius would announce a kindly " Eirenicon , " for the angry , the warring , ths severed , and the suffering mankind ! When then , we wish a

Happy New Year to all our kind readers , we trust also that 1878 may be a Happy New Year for all our brethren and sisters in the flesh . May war ' s sad ravages cease , may its painful wounds be healed , in the supremacy of uniting , restoring and gladdening peace ; and may iS ; S indeed

prove a Happy New Year to all for whom we care , to all our friendly patrons , and for theirs ; may it be a Happy New Year above all to this seething world of ours , and aid to lighten the load and dispel the clouds , in some measure , of ignorance and bloodshed , of folly and of crime .

What Will 1878 Bring To Freemasonry.

WHAT WILL 1878 BRING TO FREEMASONRY .

This is a question difficult to answer , and to some extent surrounded with doubt and debate . We do not think that in Great Britain , or America , or Canada , we need , however , have much difficulty in giving a response to this question , alike hopeful and cheering . F .

verything seems to prophesy a peaceful year , and much Masonic prosperity . We should indeed be glad if we could think that our lodges would exercise a little more consideration and discretion as to whom they admit into their inner life . At this moment it is not too much to say , that

we are proposing for and balloting and admitting candidates * ' wholesale , " without any regard to any other fitness than that which consists in an ability to pay the entrance fees . We do not wish to exaggerate the state of things , but we feel bound at the beginning of a New Year

to express our strong sense of the need of caution and carefulness in this respect . It may all seem a trifling matter , and one hardly worth noti ce , but this unscrupulousness of admission has in it the seeds of great evils to the entire Craft . Abroad we fear that the prospect is dark and

discouraging , and murky clouds seem to hang over French Freemasons and other continental bodies . We are apparently on the eve of a great struggle . To use the language of an American journal we have now , " Vaticanism in a New Role , ' ' we have to deal with the intolerance of Scepticism , the infallibility of unbelief .

It is very curious as a fact , per se , how history repeats itself , and how from two opposite points of view , the very antipodes of faith and acts , ultramontanism and unbelief , the same persecution is preached , the same persecution is practised . Rome condemns our loyal Brotherhood because we admit non Christians and non Roman Catholics .

Unbelief condemns us because we will assert our belief in T . G . A . O . T . U ., and require all who join our order to profess the same . It has been quite evident to those who have watched carefully the course of French Freemasonry during the last eventful years , that this new step is neither

unexpected or unforeseen The French Grand Orient has been gradually running down an inclined plane , since that evil hour when it revolutionized the order . by organizing the Conseil de l'Ordre and dispensing with a Grand Master . It is now . i mutilated

and incomplete Grand Lodge , imperfect in its organization and not constituted legally , according to all Masonic precedent . We pass over the sad days of the Parisian Commune , and the mess French Freemasons got into . The only thing that saved French Freemasonry then from universal condemnation and isolation was the

fact of the impotence of the Grand Orient itself . As a body it was not mixed up with those ridiculous and deplorable transactions , though many of its members individually were , and it was felt better on all hands not to punish the Grand Orient for the faults of others , especially as

strictly speaking it dissolved itself . The ruling spirit of French Freemasonry in Paris , was then the late Bro . Massol ; he it was who started " the Morale Independante , " which practically does away with everything ; he itwas who led the crusade against the Bible and all religious

teaching ; his resolution of 186 9 is the one carried in 1877 j and there can be little doubt but that following his policy , openly avowed , to do everything by degrees , " the ascription " A la Gloire du Grand Architecte de l'Univers" is doomed ere long to disappear also . French

Freemasonry even now and much more then will have but fulfilled the prophesy of Monseigneur Dupanloup , who stated that certainly it would not remain " Deiste , " but must become "Atheiste . " Bro . Findel has sought in our pages to contend that this result has nothing to do with Atheism and the like , but those who are behind

the scenes , and none know it better than the eminent Bro . St . Jean himself , are quite aware that " pour le moment , " let us hope it is only " pour le moment , " the " libres penseurs , " and the " esprits forts " have gained the upper hand in French Freemasonry . If any of our brethren will study the original discussion some months