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NOTICE Many complaints having been received of the difficulty experienced in procuring the Freemason in the West-end , the publisher begs to append the folloyving list , being a selected feyv e ; f the appointed agents : — Black , H . J ., J 7 , Great Queen-street .

Jordan , G . W ., 16 9 , Strand . Kirby and Endcan , 190 , Oxford-street . Nash and Teutcn , Savilc Place , Conduit-street . Phillips , IX , 67 , Great Portland-street , "titling , Wm ., 2 , Palsgrave-place , Strand , And at W . H . Smith and Son ' s bookstalls .

To Our Readers.

TO OUR READERS .

The Freemason is a sixteen page weekly neyvspaper , price 2 d . It is published every Friday morning , and contains the most important and useful information relating to Freemasonry in every degree . Annual subscription in the United Kingdom , Post free , 10 / . Brethren in foreign parts , wishing to have this neyvspaper sent them regularly from tl : ; office of publication , should , in sending their remittances , add le . the 2 d . per yveek the postage on 2 oz . newspapers .

To Advertisers.

TO ADVERTISERS .

Thc Freemason has a large circulation 111 all parts of thc Globe , its advantages as an advertising medium can therefore scarcely be overrated . For terms , position , fire , apply to GEORGE KENNING . 198 , Fleet-st .

Answers To Correspondents.

Answers to Correspondents .

AH Communications , Advertisements , & c , intended for insertion in the Number of the folloyving Saturday , must reach the Oflice not later than 12 o ' clock on Wednesday morning . Careful attention yvill be paid to all MSS . entrusted to the Editor , but he cannot undertake to return them unless accompanied by stamped directed covers .

J . A . ( Bermuda ) . —The book 111 question does not contain the information you require . M . M . M ., R . A . C ., stand over . BOOK RECEIVED . Cook's Tourist Handbook of Southern Italy .

Births, Marriages And Deaths.

Births , Marriages and Deaths .

DEATH . SIII'I . IX-. N ' , —Sept . / 2 , at 223 , Boundary-street , Kirkdale , Liverpool , aged 74 , Ralph Garnett Sheldon , chemist and druggist , formerly of Vauxhall-road , Liverpool , father of Bro . Dr . E . M . Sheldon , P . M . 1094 .

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The Freemason , SATURDAY , SETT , a *; , 187 j .

Masonic Chivalry.

MASONIC CHIVALRY .

The word " Chivalry . takes us back to ancient days , and long vanished scenes , to deeds of knightly proyvess , to the code of chivalrous enthusiasm . For as the poet sang'' The knights are dust , Their good swords are rust ,

Their souls arc all at rest , we trust . " But yet tlie reflective student of history will not overlook or undervalue the influences of chivalry on the great advancing tide of human civilization . Some shallow writers of the Cockroach school

affect to question the reality of chivalry , its benefit to society , its need to mankind . But those of us who have pored over the chronicles ofthe past , we know better than the sciolist and the sceptic of to-day how , at a time when anarchy

reigned around , when order was constantly menaced , and layv yvas poyverless , yvhen the , "jus hominum , " as well as the "jus gentium , " was at the mercy of the most powerful , the most ambitious , and the most unscrupulous , the

institution of chivalry was providentially overruled for the protection of the weak , and the defence of the defenceless . In its first conception and development chivalry was but the aggregation of the brave-hearted and the true , the well-disposed and the right thinking , the reverential and the

religious , for the purpose of stemming the surging waves of licence and disorder , of offering a shield to the victim , and a refuge to the oppressed , for mitigating the mournful effects of unbridled passions , and for ameliorating the evils of disorganised society . That it declined

Masonic Chivalry.

from its first hi gh estate , that it degenerated as years passed on , is only to admit that it was human and earthly , and , like all human and earthly things , it was but the pageant of an hour , so to say , but a pageant whicli left indelible memories behind , alike on the human

conscience and on earthly institutions . If chivalry had done nothing else than breathe into the hearts and sympathies of men a higher and truer sentiment for women , if it sought to surround that gentle but suffering sex with all the attributes of excellency and grace , with the pathos

of poesy , with the respect of the honest and the admiration of the brave , if it sought to ennoble the very existence and to enshrine the tender image of woman in the hearts of the chivalrous and the enthusiastic—it surely had done a good work , it surely had effected something . And

as civilizing influences have succeeded to civilizing influences in the fleeting years which have come and gone , as society has become more compact , the layvs better observed , order more firmly established , the domestic hearth more prized , and woman has found her true place in

our earthly society , yve should not forget that thc germs of all these happier realities are to be traced back to the ill-understood , often undervalued , not unfrequently maligned institution of chivalry . We do not deny that to Christianity may be surely credited the first leal great change

in woman ' s position , her elevation tb her rightful sphere in human society . But at the time when chivalry first organised itself , tho Church was too weak to restrain more than in part the relentless syvay of violence and brutality , and required , and fairly called for , the intervention

of the " secular arm . " The subject is too wide for our columns to day , as it leads to numberless other considerations , but yvhat yve have said may be taken as a " precis " of what , when yvriting in the abstract alone , might beavouched for chivalry . We have left out , as we could not touch upon ,

its practical development for several generations . And Masonic chivalry takes up the old story , and repeats the ancient " saw . " Freemasons are bound to be chivalrous , alike in sympathy to their brethren as in reverence for their sisters in this world : . they are bound to evince the

disinterested honoutjand loyal hearts of ' * preux chevaliers . " You may , it appears to us , always and speedily realize the true Freemason . If ever you hear a brother speaking maliciously of his brother or lightly of yvoman , if you hear any one eagerly relating the last morsel of scandal , or

the appetizing " bonne-bouche " of slander ,. if you listen to some ornate or hirsute individual busily intent on injuring another ' s fair fame , or doing despite to the honour of an innocent woman , you may at once most safely conclude that , though accidentally admitted , he is not , and never can

be , a true member of our Order , that he is , and ever will remain , a " Filius terra- " to the end of the story . For Masonic chivalry teaches us to be above all these pettinesses and basenesses of earth . We are to be loyal and faithful to our brethren on all occasions , to support them

absent , and to believe them when present ; we are to be above the " * moral cowardice " of the hour , and to despise the weak tittle-tattle of weaker men . Like good old Johnson , we are never to look down in the " dirt , " but we are to do unto others as we would ourselves be done by .

Nothing is so repugnant to the Freemason as the idle retailer of pothouse scandal , as that " gobemouche "\ vhohasso little "nous" that he accepts everything and swalloyvs everything , however grotesque , improbable , and impossible . And so , too , as regards women . Freemasons , as an old

song well says , " are to be true and sincere , and just to the fair , " who will , the ballad writer believes , therefore , "trust them on every occasion , " and if there is one thing yvhich Freemasonry teaches us all , and which Masonic chivalry emphatically endorses , it is that respect , that

reverence for women which looks on them , not as the slaves of an idle hour of animal companionship , but as the friends , the mentors , the guides , the helpmates of man . Loyalty to our brothers , reverence and love of our sisters , are the unerring

teaching of Masonic chivalry , and while these remain the dictates of our Masonic conscience , we do not fear but that our good old Craft will wage its onward warfare with calmness , with power , and with success .

The American Roman Catholic Tablet.

THE AMERICAN ROMAN CATHOLIC TABLET .

It seems that there is a paper called ' ' The Tablet , " published in Neyv York , which i s said to be also the "leading " Roman Catholic paper in the United States . If set , yve are heartily sorry , we feel bound to say at once , for the Roman Catholics in the United States . If the

" pabulum mentis " offered to them by " The Tablet " be the best they have , they must be in a baddish way . For according to "The Voice of Masonry " for September , it has lately put forth one of the most " bete , " as the French would say , one of the most ridiculous articles on the

subject of Freemasonry it has ever been our misfortune to wade through . Were it not for thc vile animus displayed in every paragraph , as well as for what our young men term its " calm lying , " we should not have deemed it worth any notice in our pages , and have passed it over with

the smile or silence of contempt . For at this moment , as we knoyv , the Roman Catholic body on the subject of Freemasonry is going through what " the Marchioness" called " delicious trimmings * " it has become intensity excited , and very incoherent . There is nothing the

Ultramontane Press will not say ; we have , for instance , read productions too shocking to quote , so repugnant to decency , so loaded with absolute tilth . Indeed , we feel inclined to say to the writer of such a farrago of nonsense and mendacity , yvhat was once observed to the immortal ¦

Dogberry , " Go to , thou art an ass " but we are restrained by ' the "egards" of editorial " politesse . " Yet , as we are told that the "Tablet" is the leading Roman Catholic paper in the United States , we think that our brethren may like to read its opinion of the Order , delivered honestly ,

truthfully , and dogmatically , " ad hdeles . Let us listen to this well-informed and veracious expounder of the heretical teaching of the " deadly sin " of Freemasonry : — " Catholics know but too well that there is throughout the world a criminal organization , the members of which are

bound together by secret oaths , to reveal any of whose secrets involves certain assassination , and every member of which is al any time liable to be forced to become an assassin . They know that this organization is Jewish in its constitution and ends , and they suspect it to be chiefly

manipulated by Jeyvs ; that its one object is the destruction of that Church of which they are members , and which they love with a love surpassing that of women ; that mankind owe to it the revolutions and disorder which , initiated by the " age of reason , " have ever since anticipated on

earth the anarchy of the infernal world ; and that they , in particular , oyve to it the furious persecutions their brethren are enduring in Germany , Switzerland , and on the South American continent . They know , moreover , that it lies under the heaviest excommunications of the Church ;

that whoever belongs to it , if he were a Catholic before , ceases to be one ipso facto by the very fact of belonging to it ; that it is , in fact , whatever it may profess—an Order to lure us to our ruin—the pledged enemy of Christ , his Church , and his Vicar upon earth . " Is not this most

alarming if true ? and does it not remind us all of the famous couplet , " 'Tis true , ' tis pity , pity ' tis , ' tis true ? " For surely a more dreadful conspiracy and a more abominable society cannot probably exist ? Our able " confreres " in the " Voice of Masonry " write in very moderate

terms . They say " There is no necessity to reply to this statement . To quote it is enoug h to show its absurdity to every intelligent reader . But considering that the 'Tablet' is in other respects conducted with much ability , and that its editors are far from being fools , we are

constrained to believe that the misrepresentation is a wilful one , made to impose upon the credulity of its ignorant readers . It is absolutely if "" possible that any man of an ordinary amount ot brain could seriously believe in the truth ot charges of such a nature . The editors of the

' Tablet' were , no doubt , governed in maKing them by the Jesuitic maxim , that ' the end justifies the means . * The assertions that Freemasonry is ' chiefly manipulated by Jews , ' and tnat ' its one object is the destruction of the Catholic , Church , " are particularly rich . The ' Cynosure , which , equally with thc ' Tablet , ' is an organ 01