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Midland Grand Hotel , LONDON , N . W . Venetian Rooms now available for Masonic Dinners , etc . Other Midland Railway Hotels at Liverpool , Leeds , Bradford , Derby , Morecombe , and Heysham . Chief Office : W . TOWLE , Midland Grand Hotel , Manager . London , N . W . M . R . Hotels , etc .

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llL \ JSTf > AIED .

The Liverpool Cathedral.

The Liverpool Cathedral .

OUR readers will have gathered , from statements made in the public press during the past feAV months , that the Craft in this country intends to maintain in a Avorthy manner the traditions bequeathed to them by the Sleinmclzer from Avhom they are said to be descended . The plans for the proposed new cathedral in LiA'erpool having been decided

upon , Freemasons have requested to be alloAved to erect the chapter house . It is to be regarded as a memorial to the late Earl of Lathom . This distinguished brother Avas not only Provincial Grand Master of West Lancashire , but Avas also Pro Grand Master , which latter fact coiiA'erts what might

have been a local movement , into a Pan-Masonic one , and Ave are confident that the result will be a structure perfect in all its parts , and honourable alike to the Craft and the memory of him whose Masonic and public virtues are thus magniiiciently to be commemorated . Inasmuch as Freemasons are , even to-day , denounced by

a A'ery large and influential section of the Christian Church , as everything that is un-patriotic and anti-Christian , it may be pardonable , in view of this latest proposal , to wonder how the church would look if all that has been done by the Craft to sustain her could be eliminated . Either in this country or on the continent there is scarce

an abbey , or minster , or cathedral , in which there are not to be found the traces of the handiwork of the pious Freemason , and , in our estimate of the obligations under which the craft has laid the church , Ave would even go further .

The visible fane is but the type of the temple made without hands , into the structure of which the perfect character enters . NOAV the foundations of that character are laid first of all in infancy , or in childhood , and are too often forgotten or un-acted upon , whereas the obligations of a Freemason are practically a re-affirmation of most of those imposed by

the church , and are entered upon at the age of discretion . With its honourable record of morality and Christianity , it is hard to understand why , at intervals , the craft attracts the fulminations of the church . These anti-Masonic outbreaks recur at apparently regular periods , but the craft seems to

flourish all the same . Perhaps we may be allowed to think of the celebrated jackdaw of Rheims , in which" poem Ave are told that even after the most terrific maledictions , assisted by bell , book , and candle , " nobody seemed a penny the worse . "

In this connection Ave have lately come across the proceedings of the Council of Trent . We do not refer to the great politico-ecclesiastical council , but to the anti-Masonic Congress of 18 9 6 . It would have only been decent if the craft had forthwith shrivelled up as the result of the very unpleasant things that were said about it by the theological

experts there assembled to expose its meretricious character , but the melancholy truth is that neither in its popularity nor in its zeal for good works has it abated one jot : The Congress opened well- —in fact , it might haA'e been a lodge opening , for it Avas opened " in due form and AA'ith solemn prayer . " Luciferians , Palladists , and Satanists , were some of

the terms employed to designate the craft , and it is the very extreme fanaticism that seems to be displayed that enables the craftsman to regard the Avhole movement Avith something like contempt .

In fact , Ave are judged by the Avorst specimens among us , and no doubt there are secret societies in those lands where liberty used to be unknown that merged their Masonry in politics , and on that account were excluded from membership , or rather from the recognition of those brethren who regarded their obligations as on a higher plane .

But even then , if our wandering brethren think fit to go back to those first principles from which they have strayed , they will be heartily welcomed back to the fold . The church of Rome , however , holds out no hope of sah'atibn either for this world or the next , for any attitude short of complete renunciation of the Order . And , as a declaration by the

head of that church made ex cathedra , carries with it the weight of infallibility , Ave may conclude that the last word has been said . We may , however , be pardoned for remembering that precisely the same thing AA'as said by the same authority about Galileo , and still astronomical science

survives . The first of these anti-Masonic congresses Avas held in 173 8 , and in the same year Clement XII . issued his celebrated bull interdicting the Order . The first result of this was that the W . M . of a lodge meeting at Leghorn , Bro . Crudeli , was taken off to the Inquisiton and tortured . After this came a

similar proclamation by Benedict XIV ., in 1751 , which , liOAveA'er , Avas always a dead letter . What did the Order more harm than all the papal bulls ever promulgated , Avas the alleged connection with the craft of the arch impostor Cagliostro , who presided over a lodge in Rome in 1789 . The story of his career , and the events which were going on in France at the same time , alleged to ha \ - e been brought about