Mark Masonry.

Mark Masonry .

r ST , MARK ' LODGE ( NO . I ) . —This lodge met on Tuesday , the ist inst ., at Masons' Hall , Basinghall-street , Bro . George Kenning , W . M ., in the Chair . Bros . T . B . Yeoman , S . W ., and George Newman , as J . W ., in their respective chairs . Bro . Jelenger E . Symons , Lieut .

R . N ., Lodge 14 a , was advanced to this degree . It being the meeting for the installation of the new Master , Bro . H . C . Lcvander , M . A ., and P . M ., occupied the chair as Installing Master , assisted by the Rev . W . B . Church , M . A ., and Bro . T . Burdett Yeoman , S . W . and Master Elect ,

was installed W . M . in the most able manner . The new W . M . then invested his officers as as follows—Bros . T . E . Edma nds , S . W . Rev . P . E . H . Brette , D . D ., J . W . ; Charles Horsley , M . O . ; E . H . Thiellay , S . O . ; H . A . Dubois ,

J . O . ; Rev . W . B . Church , M . A . P . G . Chaplain , Chaplain ; H . C Levander , M . A ., Treas . ; R . W . Little , P . M ., G . M . O ., Sec ; Rev . P . M . Holden , M . A ., Reg . of Marks ; George Newman , S . D . ; W . E . Newton , J . D . ; Wm .

Stephens , I . G . ; H . Parker , Organist ; J . Gilbert , Tyler ; Col . Francis Burdett , Prov . Grand Master for Middlesex and Surrey ; J . G . Marsh , P . M ., P . G . S . Works ; Bro . F . Walters , P . M ., P . G . S . D . ; and other brethren being present . The business before the lodge having been concluded , the brethren retired to a sumptuous repast , prepared by Bro . Gosden ,

which was ably presided over by the W . Bro . T . Burdett Yeoman , W . M ., and a most agreeable evening was the result , During the evening , a handsome Past Master ' s jewel was presented to Bro . J . G . Marsh , P . M ., and P . G . T . Supt . of Works , for his services in the chair as W . M . during the year he presided .

The Resignation Of The Grand Master.

THE RESIGNATION OF THE GRAND MASTER .

FROM THE "TIMES . ' Some singular proceedings , which we repotted on Thursday , at the Grand Lodge of Freemasons will have prepared our readers for a strange announcement . The Marquis of Ripon was , till Wednesday , Grand Master of the

Freemasons of England . The offices of the Brotherhood are fanciful , but they are non < j the less positions of honour and of some social importance . That of Grand Master is , of course , the highest of all , and Lord Ripon had held it for three years with great satisfaction to the

Craft and credit to himself . The Lodge met on Wednesday for the transaction of current business , when they were startled by the announcement that the Grand Master had resigned . In a brief letter , which states no reasons , Lord Ripon savs that he finds himself unable any

longer to discharge the duties of Grand Master , and that he is consequently compelled to resign . The Craft are reported to have received the announcement with dismay , and it may well have perplexed them . What should induce the Marquis of Ripon thus to withdraw , without

apparent reason , from a position of dignity and influence , if not of real importance ? How many of our readers can have surmised the strange answer ? Lord Ripon has become a Roman Catholic !] It is notorious that the Freemasons are under the especial ban of the

Church of Rome . That Church tolerates no secret society , except that of the Jesuits ; and the first sacrifice which would be demanded of a convert like Lord Ripon would be his withdrawal from the Craft . As the first pledge of his new obedience he has to abandon his honourable position in the Brotherhood , and to renounce

a harmless and kindly association in which he might for years have held the foremost place . It was justly said that the reasons must have been overwhelming which could induce him to take so unwelcome a step , and they arise from nothing less than the important change in his religious convictions which we have stated .

Lord Ripon , it must be owned , is no ordinary convert . He has held high office in the State , and he was at one time deemed capable of the highest positions in public life . He is in the prime of life—in his forty-seventh year—and though he had in some respects disappointed

The Resignation Of The Grand Master.

seems sometimes attractive to the unquestioned expectation , a considerable career might still have been before him . As Viscount Goderich he entered Parliament more than twenty years ago as a pronounced Radical , and then cherished that tendency to a speculative Socialism which

possessors of great wealth . It is such a pleasant romance for a man who knows that in the ordinary' course of things he will be the undisputed possessor of fifty thousand a year to imagine himself on a level with ordinary mortals ! A little experience of life , however , dissipates this

romantic tendency and Lord Ripon soon settled down into a sober Liberal , exemplary in his submission to the control of his successive leaders . After serving as Under-Secretary for the War Department and for India under the late Lord Herbert and Sir George Lewis , he was

in 1863 , as Lord De Grey , appointed Secretary of State for War . He held the office nearly three years , and in 1866 , on the retirement of Lord Halifax , became Secretary of State for India . In Mr . Gladstone ' s Ministry of 1868 he held the dignified office of Lord President of

the Council . Mr . Forster , who served as Vice-President , has often spoken handsomely of the work of his official chief ; but the Lord President was chiefly conspicuous as head of the Joint High Commission by whom the Treaty of Washington was negotiated , and who arranged

the terms under which the dispute respecting the Alabama was submitted to Arbitration . There is much to which exception must be taken in those negotiations ; but the selection of Lord De Grey for so important a duty sufficiently indicates the favourable opinion which

his colleagues were disposed to entertain of his capacity . His services in this character were , at all events , deemed worthy of some special recognition , and he was advanced to the dignity of a Marquis . His selection to preside over the Freemasons is an evidence of the social

consideration which he commands , and his great wealth renders him an important member of the party to which he belongs , and of any association to which he may attach himself . He is , in short , one of the leading noblemen of England , who has discharged high political

functions , and might have been called on to discharge them again . His sympathies have , at least in action , been given to the party of progress and enli ghtenment , and he would have been regarded until yesterday as a valuable member of the Liberal Party . This is the man

who , in the full strength of his powers , has renounced his mental and moral freedom , and has submitted himself to the guidance of the Roman Catholic Priesthood . The first impression which will be produced on his friends and the public will be one of profound regret

that such a career should have been thwarted , and that so much valuable influence is henceforth to be misused . Lord Ripon , we dare say , will still adhere to the party in whose service he has won his honours and his Marquisate . But a statesman who becomes a convert to Roman

Catholicism forfeits at once the confidence of the English people . Such a step involves a complete abandonment of any claim to political or even social influence in the nation at large , and can only be regarded as betraying an irreparable weakness of character . To become a Roman

Catholic and remain a thorough Englishman are —it cannot be disguised—almost incompatible conditions . We do not for a moment doubt that men who have been born and brought up in the Roman Catholic Faith may retain their creed as a harmless and colourless element in their

opinions . But when a man in the prime of life abandons the Faith of Protestantism for that of Rome his mind must necessaril y have undergone what to Englishmen can only seem a fatal demoralization . We submit to many things if we are born to them , which we would never

endure if they were imposed on us for the first time . But that a statesman , a man who has had twenty years' experience of the world , who has held high official posts in England , and has been a prominent diplomatist , should submit

himself to the yoke of the Roman Catholic Priesthood can only be due to some fatal obliquity of temperament . The principles of English life and of the Roman Catholic reli gion are very difficult to reconcile , and when 3 man delibc

The Resignation Of The Grand Master.

ratel y becomes a Roman Catholic he must be held to accept distinctl y the principles of his new creed . What , it will be asked , can be the causes which have been sufficiently powerful to induce a man oi such experience and ability thus to

abandon his moral independence ? Lord Ripon has made no statement of his reasons , and it is impossible to be sure of the influences which have finally misled him . But it is , no doubt , the most conspicuous illustration yet furnished of the force of some temptations which at the present dav Roman Catholicism holds out even to

intelligent minds . Lhere are men who enter with enthusiasm at the outset of life into the speculations and visions of modern discovery , who are intoxicated by their novelty and attracted by their promises . But they discover after a

while that they are being led into regions they had never contemplated , and they are startled at finding that they must be content with many tentative conclusions . They were laudably ambitious to undertake the mountainous ascent

which was proposed to them , but they become alarmed when they suddenly find themselves in mid air on the face of some difficult slope . In this perplexity a guide appears , who offers , not indeed , to gratifiy their original ambition , but to assure them of the safety they fear they have

forfeited ; and to commit themselves to his hands appears , at all events , the least of the risks open to them . They close their eyes , abandon all individual enterprise , and submit to be led , on the sole condition that they shall be guaranteed ultimate security . It is not a dignified or lofty

type of mind , but it is too common a one . Minds may , in fact , be divided into those which can and those which cannot stand alone , and there is a large class who are born to be governed , mentally and morally . If they happen to fall under healthy government , all is well ; but if not ,

if they get loosed from their old moorings and find themselves drifting ; they are at the mercy of the first pilot who will jump on board and seize the helm . It is the strength of the Roman Catholic Clergy that they are always ready to undertake this responsibility , but it is not every

day that they find so good a ship drifting as the Marquis of Ripon . It is a melancholy spectacle ; but it indicates a weakness which is not an English characteristic , and , though we may grudge to the Roman Catholic Clergy Lord Ripon ' s wealth and such social influence as he may retain , we may be sure that the material

advantages he may bring to them will be their only acquisition . Fountains Abbey passes once more into Roman Catholic hands , but it is not the defection of a stray ' peer which will undermine the steady devotion of the English mind to a free and independent career of religious and political development .

Freemasonry In Scotland.

FREEMASONRY IN SCOTLAND .

How is it that in Scotland , the reputed cradle of the Craft , Freemasonry has not attained the status and repute among the social institutions that it has in England , Ireland , America , and the Continent ? The question is often asked , but seems never to have been satisfactorily

answered . In some countries Freemasonry is , or has been , suppressed and persecuted by intolerant or jealous governments , but in Scotland , it seems to suffer from too much toleration , both within and without . This dictum will , I know , 3 ppear

a strange , one to advance in these days of unlimited freedom , and whoso would support it must needs utter some unpalatable , though none the less wholesome truths . I am not of those who would make a money test per se , the standard of a man ' s respectability ,

nor am I , on the other hand , a believer in the old aphorism that , " money is the root of all evil . " I take a middle course , and while admitting that a man may be eminently respectable and of good moral character , although even in poverty , I

contend that money is , in a greater or lesser degree , indispensable to the carrying on of all combined efforts for the advancement of good works , and more particularly to the work which Freemasons are taught to consider as their peculiar province , —practical charity . The want