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Answers To Correspondents.

Answers to Correspondents .

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The Freemason , SATURDAY , J . 29 , 1876 .

Our Royal Grand Master's Visit To India.

OUR ROYAL GRAND MASTER'S VISIT TO INDIA .

By a mistake of the telegram , Madras was substituted for Lahore in our last article . H . R . H . hss been in the North Western Provinces , and has visited Lahore and Sealote . He has been well received by all classes of the gallant Sikhs , and has enjoyed a native reception and some

hunting . He is very well , but has experienced benefit by the change from Delhi to the cooler atmosphere of Lahore . Some of his suite have been , as the French say , " un peu indispose , '" but are now convalescent . His Royal progress continues to be a great success . He is now at Agra .

Monsignore Nardi.

MONSIGNORE NARDI .

Monsignore Nardi , whom the "Times" terms , and probably justly , " one of the ablest men about the Court of Rome , " has just devoted two columns of the" Voce dellaVerita" ( isthe name in tended for a sarcasm ?) to a highly laudatory sketch of our late Grand Master the Marquis of Ripon .

We should have very little to do , indeed nothing , with this ornate apology for the last great " victim of papal fascinations" had it not been , that Monsignore Nardi , " thorough man of the world as he is , " and knowing we feel sure much better , has made a thorough goose of himself

when talKing of the Freemasons , of whom , by the way , the Church of Rome professes to know all the secrets . Noticing Lord Ripon ' s connexion with Freemasonry , Monsignore Nardi , though detesting all secret societies , and the Masons above all , acknowledges that English Masons are

quite different from Italian , German , Swiss , Spanish , and Brazilian . " As there is one species but many races of men , so it is with the Masons , who , it appears , in England are chiefl y given to eating , drinking , and merry making , although thev occasionally do harm and are in

general enemies of our Church . ' If this is all Monsignor Nardi could say , we fancy many Roman . Catholics will agree with us , that in this respect , as in many others in daily life , the old proverb is most true which declares the " least said the soonest mended . " It appears as the

Monsignore Nardi.

"Times" puts it , "That the Marquis looks back regretfully to the Craft lie has been obliged to renounce , and has a weakness to be treated with a gentle hand . This account of the brotherhood must have Lord Ripon ' s concurrence—indeed , by the expression ' it appears ' one may

almost suppose that his lordship has stated in equivalent terms the only business English Masons ever meet for . They meet , if we are to belie \ e Monsignore Nardi and his informant , to eat , drink , and be merry in old English fashion and it is only when they are sufficiently

sober or sufficiently inebriated that they do a little harm , the Church of Rome being" , of course their pet aversion . Monsignore Nardi thinks this the best apology he can make for certainly the greatest man , by common measure of human greatness , that Rome has acquired from us since

the days ] of Henry VIII . and Elizabeth , he refers to . This man , whose advent is a sign of the conversion of England and the world , has , it seems , for the best part of his life , been rising step by step to the highest position in a society claiming all-important secrets and an unknown

antiquity , but all the tune doing nothing but eat and drink , and sometimes misbehaving themselves accordingly . This , it seems , is the best thing to be said for Lord Ripon , and the best recommendation Monsign-ir Nardi can give him to the regards of Roman society . "

And then the next question comes . Are these views Lord Ripon ' s real views ? we will not ask are they worthy of him ? We have heard him over and over again in eloquent language declare his belief in the noble purposes and great objects of Freemasonry . We cannot believe that he

would thus libel an Order which trusted in him , and followed him with unwavering loyalty to the last . We prefer to believe that the opinions expressed are Monsignore Nardi ' s own , characteristic as they are of the real or hel pless ignorance of the Roman Curia as regards Anglo-Saxon

Freemasonry , and not in any way Lord Ripon ' s . If they were we , should say at once with the "Times" : — - " If Lord Ripon allows Monsignore Nardi ' s account of Freemasonry to pass without any protest on his part , it will be fair to assume , not only that he regards it as true , but

that it is the apology —the confession we should rather say—he made on entering his new Communion and presenting himself to its Chief . Outsiders in general will certainly attach this significance to the pompous eulogy in which the Marquis ' s arrival at the Court of Rome is

trumpeted to the world . In this case it will devolve upon the English Freemasons , not to disclose any secret , but to assure the world that they do something more than eat , drink , and be merry , and are something more than a ' Goose Club ' —the apology actually offered for them at Rome

some years ago by a distinguished English Prelate of the Roman Church . What we read in our Roman contemporary sounds very like a betrayal of secrets—that is , a confession that there is no secret at all—inconsistent as that may seem with the devoted membership of a

British statesman . If what the Monsignore says be true , then a bubble has burst , and it is the Marquis of Ripon ' s honesty , or self-reproach , which has told the world what it has so long suspected . It would , however , be interesting to know whether the Marquis has given the same

account of the other bodies in which he lias served , and over which he has presided . Has he been able to inform Monsignore Nardi that in the War Office , the India Office—nay , in Her Majesty ' s Privy Council—they do nothing but eat , drink , and make themselves merry ? If he

could say this of the Joint High Commission on the Alabama Claims , it might afford some clue to the results . If the Marquis is in a candid mood , perhaps lie would throw some light on the mysteries of official administration which so often puzzle the world , and seemed to admit

only ot the sort of explanation given of the great Masonic mystery . " Perhaps the best way to treat the last unjust and undeserved caricature of Monsignore Nardi will be either with a hearty Hugh or with silent contempt . We are

accustomed to the " chaff" oftlie "Times , " we can well bear it , and we take it exactly at what it is worth—namely , the algebraic " unknown quantity . " AVe may possibly recur to the subject of Monsignore Nardi ' s oration .

The History Of Freemasonry.

THE HISTORY OF FREEMASONRY .

Though in our humble opinion the time for writing a complete and true history of Freemasonry has not yet arrived , inasmuch as we are still only on the threshold of enquiry after all , we yet always gladly welcome all the " waifs and strays " cast up here and there from time to

time on the great open shore of Masonic Archaeology . We have recently congratulated our Masonic reading public on Bro . Fort ' s very interesting and scholarly work . We have properly praised Bros . Todd ' s and Cowling ' s unpretending but valuable history of the York Grand

Lodge and the York Lodge , and we have now to record with appreciation and approval Bro . Ken neth Mackenzie ' s " Preliminary Sketch of the History of Freemasonry , " which appeared in the columns of the " London and Provincial Newspaper" of the 8 th January . Bro . Mackenzie ' s

contribution is only a preliminary " sketch , and can only be treated as such , but we heartily agree with the general outline he has thus limned for his readers of the true annals of our Order . Bro . Mackenzie adopts the " Guild Theory , " as it is called , and which , having ourselves upheld

for many years , " in season and out of season , " and almost " totidem verbis , " with Bro . W . J . Hughan , we are glad to see it submitted in its general proposition to Masonic students . Those of us who are most friendly to the Guild Theory , who may be said to have originated it

practically in this country , at any rate of later years , are equally most sensible of many difficulties attendant on it . Indeed , no account or explanation of Freemasonry can be free from some objections , owing alike to its very " raison d ' etre " and its peculiar organisation and system .

But in the choice of difficulties , the Guild System has always appeared to us the least objectionable , and the most easil y defended . And when we have said this , we have nearly said all we can say about it critically . It is but fair to remark that those who advocate the Guild Theory are

not all of one school . There are those who , like Bro . Findel , would limit the Guild Theory to the 12 th century . There are those who admit the Guild Theory , but make the revival of 1717 an adaptation for speculative and social purposes of the terminology and customs of the operative

guilds . While there are those again who look upon the Speculative Grand Lodgeof 17 17 as the lineal descendant of revived , and continuation of the Operative Grand Assembly . It appears to us that Bro . Mackenzie hardly set sufficient store by the evidence arising out of Elias

Ashmole ' s Masonic Memoranda . It is quite clear to us that neither Nicolai ' s theory nor that of Lessing ' s , however ingenious , can meet the demands of accurate and exhaustive criticism . Nicolai ' s view that Freemasonry sprung from the author of the " Nova Atlantis , " as

an heraietical society with Ashmole and others , is no more tenable than that Sir Christopher Wren is the founder of modern Masonry . Both theories are very imaginative , but very unhistoric . The facts recorded b y Ashmole , and especially when taken in conjunction with those mentioned

by Dr . Plot in 1682 , serve to shew , that in the 17 th century a Masonic bod y identical with our own existed in England . Of its actual conditions or system we are at present unable distinctly to speak , but we do not despair of yet obtaining more light upon the subject . But this

one thing is clear . The society of " Freemasons , " to which E . Ashmole belonged , is not identical with the " Masons' Company of London , " but is an organization " sui generis . " And for this reason . The records of the Masons Company show us , that the meeting which

Ashmole mentions in 1682 at Masons' Hall was not a meeting of the Masons' Company , whose meeting for that year is duly mentioned in minutes still extant , and that Elias Ashmole was not a member of the Masons' Company . All the names mentioned however by E . Ashmolewith , we believe one exception—have been

found to he members of the Masons' Company . Hence , the meeting of March 10 , 1682 , was a meeting of a "Society of Freemasons . " Robett Padgett , who declares himself " Clerk of the Worshi pful Society of Freemasons , of the City of London , in 1686 , " four years later , was not Clerk to the Masons' Company . Hencj ,