District Grand Lodge Of Bengal.

Law , or merely on his conscience . He added that one of the brethren present had merely been obligated on his conscience , and that as he considered this a departure from the landmarks of Ancient , Free and Accepted Masonry , he begged to be informed as to the precise nature of the landmark in point .

The District Grand Master replied that if Bro . Turner had any cause of complaint against any brother for a departure from the established landmarks , he should submit such complaint through a proper channel , and promised that it should be duly investigated , and orders passed thereon .

A . collection was then made for the " Fund of Benevolence , " and the amount announced by the District Grand Secretary to be Rs . 153-4 . There being no further business to be brought forward , the District Grand Lodge was closed in due form at 8 . 45 p . m .

Bro. Holmes Lecture On The Orders Of The Temple And Hospital.

BRO . HOLMES LECTURE ON THE ORDERS OF THE TEMPLE AND HOSPITAL .

BY LUPUS . Bro . Holmes has experienced the great honour of retaining in his possession the original of this " protest , " this documentary scare-crow , written in questionable French , instead of pure Italian ,

from an indefinite date until a recent period , and this great enjoyment appears to have so far encouraged and emboldened our brother ' s wrathful mind as to induce his betrayal into statements ( as unsupported as ever ) which I think may

reasonably excuse the expression of some amount of controversial indignation on my part . Bro . Holmes has unblushingly asserted that the great and good Prince Albert , in honouring the Roman Council by accepting their Grand Cross ,

repudiated the Lauguc of England , and this statement I deliberatel y characterize as an untrue , unworthy , and utterly unwarrantable assertion . Albert the Good did the council at Rome the honour to accept their Cross before

England had the great happiness to receive him on her shores , before he ever heard of the revived lauguc , and nearly twenty years before the date of this insidious and tricky " document from Rome . " The English laugue was brought

under the distinct notice of Prince Albert in the year 1861 , and received from him an amount of consideration which was perfectly satisfactory to its members , who have full reason to love and revere his memory . When Bro . Holmes , to

repay borrowed aid , thus ventures on statements which neither he , or any of his allies , can substantiate , his zeal betrays him into gratuitous and gross injustice , and he adopts a position which his best friends will hardly say is not one of unmitigated folly .

Bro . Holmes takes upon himself to say that the late Prince " was particularly anxious to be admitted into this Order , and applied to the Pope , since being a Protestant ( technically a heretic ) he was dehors the regular of the Order . "

What does this mean ? What does Bro . Holmes know about the particular desires of our lamented Prince at the period before his marriage with our gracious Queen ? or since ? / know that when the Grand Bailli Ferretti was occupied in

negociations with the Council in London , for an alliance then proposed , he expressed high satisfaction that Prince Albert held the Cross of the Order , treated the circumstance as a matter of congratulation to the Roman Council , and with

much delight exhibited the original letters of the Prince , and his elder brother , acknowledging and accepting the decoration . Does Brother Holmes know more of the private circumstances

than did this chosen representative of the Roman Council upwards of thirty years since ? I much regret that Bro . Holmes has imported these questions of religious influence into the subject , but I conclude he was so far driven to

extremity that this was the sole argument left upon which he could make a last faint struggle . And yet it is a singular resource for a zealous Freemason , whose historic knowledge must tell

Bro. Holmes Lecture On The Orders Of The Temple And Hospital.

him of the fulminations against his own charitable Craft contained in Papal bulls , extending over a considerable period . I had no intention to refer to the religious question , and , although forced upon me , I hope I may be able to avoid offending the convictions of those who differ

from myself . Your readers must not be led away by the attempt which has been made to induce an inference that the Pope ' s dispensation is necessary to every transaction of the Order of St . John which involves the infusion of a faith ,

deemed from the Papal point of view to be " heretic . " No such dispensation was implored by the Knights in Russia who elected the Emperor Paul ; no such sanction was thought indispensable by the Knights of Catania , Ferrara and Rome , the sole fountain whence springs the

Council now , apparently , so willing to deliver up the trust they claim to hold . That the Knights of St . John , originally , and when guided by the Constitution of the brotherhood of St . Augustine , were under the control of the Pope is fully true , but we know that the holy

and enlightened Paschall II . soon freed them from all ecclesiastical jurisdiction and left them entirely to their own : " he was a " Vicar of Christ , " and infallible , and how shall his decree he set at naught by " true sons of the Church ?" That extravagant pretensions to intermeddle in

the affairs of the Order of St . John , and most eager and longing restlessness to steal a march on its independence and bring its sovereignty under the Papal thumb , has been longingly exhibited by successive Pontiffs is quite true , but it is as true that these efforts , though meeting with some amount of success , were constantly

opposed by the Knights ; and an early writer on Malta , tells us that " when the Grand Master dies they suffer no vessel to go out of the island 'till another is chosen , lest the Pope should interfere in their election . " Do we not know that the virtuous and inspired Pius VI ., " approved the association of the Russian Knights of the Greek Church with the Order of Malta ?"

and is it not a plain and well known fact that numbers of Englishmen , Germans , Russians and others , all schismatics , according to Papal estimate , received the Cross of the Order at Malta ? Was any dispensation then asked for ? The Pope has the privilege , by convention with the Order , of appointing the Prior of Rome

but even those who most strongly favour the influence of the Pontiff , and who have made themselves acquainted with the history of the Order , will say that the Papal brief is required only to enable the Roman Catholic branches to dispense with certain things which were originally confirmed bv Papal bull .

If the modern Roman Council has abandoned ( for themselves and their own local action ) the independent principles and position maintained by the totality of the Order in its original integrity , ( freed by Paschal II . from all ecclesiastical jurisdiction ) as * proved by its pulic acts , and the writings of de Boisgelin and Taafe , and

chooses to lay their share of the Order at the feet of the Pope , this cannot , and will not destroy the facts of history ; nor render the other branches who adhere to old principles , less legal when they pursue their own course , and follow the brighter example of leaders who

had the wide experience of the whole Order , and who were certainly not less wise in their generation . The Roman Council must accept the responsibility of setting at naught the edict of Paschal the second , and of defying the decree of the inspired Pius the sixth , whose opinion was

based on the religion of love and toleration ; but the Roman Council is not " the Order of St . John , " its acts are not the statutes of the fraternity , nor does its sacrifice of independent principles require a similar departure from ancient landmarks by other branches of the Order as lawful as their own .

Brother Holmes takes upon himself to say that certified copies ( certified be it observed by " the simple Knight of the Order and nothing more ) " of the scare-crow , " were sent to Prince Albert and the Lord Chamberlain so that the persons against whom it was directed ( the body under the Duke of Manchester ) " —observe the

Bro. Holmes Lecture On The Orders Of The Temple And Hospital.

pleasing solicitude with which this parenthesis is inserted— " should not wear spurious decorations at Court ; " and Bro . Holmes tells us that " they each and all acknowledged the receipt . " Astounding circumstance ! What a misfortune they did no more ; and what a fact that they

could not do less . Bro . Homes set out with a light heart , bold pen , and glib tongue too , but he has experienced fatal reverses in this small fight , as is not unfrequently the fate of reckless assailants , and must have been blind ( when

he talks of " spurious decorations" ) to the gross impropriety of a statement which is superlatively untrue , and which courtesy and good taste should have prevented his importing into a discussion unprovoked on my part , and unwarrantable on his .

The badge of the Order of St . John is as honourable , and far from spurious as any distinction ever possessed by the Chivalry of Europe ; it marks not only the knightly character of the

patriarchs of these aristocratic fraternities , but tells of the beneficent deeds to which was devoted one of the most remarkable associations in the annals of all time . If we could believe that Bro . Holmes ' s wild assertion was founded

on fact , how much ohould we admire the tender , ay , touching solicitude of the signataries of the scare-crow , that the ceremonial observances of the British Court should be shielded from the insidious encroachments of "heretics , " who dared , then , alas even as now , not only to claim ,

but to occupy place , as members of the Order in England ; but unhappily this feeble fiction is utterly extinguished by the stronger fact , that the decoration of the Order could not be worn at Court by Englishmen who had not received permission for the purpose , and that as a

consequence no such anxious interference was necessary . There were then , and are now , certain troublesome regulations of the Foreign Office , with which perhaps our brother is unacquainted , prohibiting the wearing , by a British

subject , of a'ty decoration not received under Royal licence . The English advisers of MM . de Gozze and Spada were better up to these facts than Bro . Holmes , so that these gentlemen cannot be accorded credit for the solicitude with which Bro . Holmes would invest them .

r l he badge of the Order of St . John in England has ever stood in the same position as a foreign decoration , inasmuch as it is not conferred by the Crown , and it may suffice to inform Bro . Holmes that neither the Duke of Manchester nor Sir George Bowyer , can without special licence

wear , in the presence of the Sovereign , either the decoration of any foreign Power , or the badge of an Order , which , although unbroken in its succession and autonomous , has not , since its attempted suppression in England by Henry VIII and Elizabeth , been , as yet , officially

recognised within these realms . Every document must be tested by its analyzed contents , and if Bro . Holmes is instructed to put this scare-crow forward in the hope that it will be accepted as proof of the invalidity of the English lauguc , his friends , and himself , will be

greatly mistaken . Your readers will be unable to discover in its most cautious wording one single syllable which can impeach the lawful position of the Order in England . It is a declaration that the " honourable" ( and self-elected ) " society , " styling itself " the Sacred Council , "

had nothing to do originally with the English laugue , has taken no part since in its construction and composition ; has no share in its objects , and that all persons called Knights of St . John , who do not pay obedience to the honourable and self-elected body at Rome are " legally ignored . "

This is what the document d / es contain , and nothing more ; but I have imparted to your readers a few facts which it does not contain ( and shall probably offer them a few others ) , which are as great facts as that every kingdom in Europe reeoenizes the present Order of St .

John as valid branches of its venerable chivalry in States which are not enumerated in the protest , and where , consequently , its existence should come within the boastful , weak , and feeble ban by which they are all " legall y ignored . " Let your readers judge of the gross presumption of the concoctors of this protest who , after a