Concerning Stained Glass.

one which demands careful consideration at the present time ; for much modern work is rendered imperfect by the objectionable mode in whicli it is shaded . The usual style of shading ( called smudge shading- ) which is produced by covering tike surface

of the glass with a thin graduated coating of brown enamel , resembling the soft chalk shading of lithography , is obviousl y a most dangerous mode , from the simple fact that it destroys the natural brilliancy of the glass . Smudge shadingis excessively tame and ineffectiveand should not

, be used either for drapery or foliage . It is more suitable for the treatment of flesh because it takes away the overpowering glare of the white or fleshtinted glass , and tends to unite it with tke coloured glass around it . For drapery and foliage , or other ornamental features , line or hatched

shading alone should be used . I allude to the stylo of shadin g found in fine old engravings , and to which they owe their great effect ancl brilliancy ; it is composed of lines drawn iu one direction , or cross hatched at an acute angle . If an old engraving be examined , it will be found

that between the lines of the shading small spaces of the paper are left untouched ; these give the transparent and bright effect to the shadows . In stained glass a precisel y similar result would be obtained b y the adoption of line shading : the untouched portions of the glass between the lines ,

retaining their ori g inal transparency , would impart the brilliant scintillating effect required , and which cannot be secured b y the use of smudge shading . There exists the same difference between glass line and smud ge shaded as between line and mezzotint engraving . —G . A . AUDSLEY , in the Builder .

Masonic Notes And Queries.

MASONIC NOTES AND QUERIES .

SECKET SOCIETIES . A writer in one of the most widely circulated weekly newspapers , in commenting on the Fenians ancl their princip les , introduces his subject by the following peroration against secret societies in general : — " Whether it is the love of mystery or the love of exaggerationboth of which seem ineradicable from

, the human mind , I know not , but certain it is secret societies and mystical brotherhoods have existed in all ages and conditions of civilisation . Conspiracies and insurrections have heen more or less connected with them , though sometimes very large organisations of the kind hare been peaceful ancl orderly .

Generally , however , such societies have been connected with resistance to the existing authority , and very curious works have been written on the Secret Associations of the Middle Ages . In proportion , as enlightenment and the means of intellectual communication were established these mysterious institutions

declined . The Kni ghts Templars were , perhaps , the last great body formed on such a principle that were successful , although they were overcome in our country by the potency of the monarchy . The

Jesuits acted on an intellectual method , and rather in accoidance with a creed and a ritual than on any formal compact . They instituted a system founded on implicit obedience to certain authorities , and thus acquired unity of action . ' ¦ ' Of course , there arc always large portions of

man-_ kind waiting anxiously for tlie marvellous , and who seem to have a morbid assimilation with the mysterious and the terrible . It is this part of the population that catches up notions that spring from credulity or terror , and which , when fully excited , commits the

barbarities of the Middle Ages—sometimes running into the fanaticism of the Crusades and the massacres of the -Jews , and sometimes breaking out into the sanguinary ferocity of the great French Revolution . But when these inflammable and credulous creatures do not manifest themselves in actsthey are read

, y recipients of asserted extraordinary manifestations . They have visions and fits—are prophets and denouncers . They give themselves up to magnetism , table-turning , and spirit-rapping , and must always have something of the sort to gratify their chronic irritation and restless nervous condition . Nor does

education—at least , the education now commonseem to have much effect on them . Knowledge seems only to add to their spiritual excitement , and has little effect on their reasoning powers . No race seems proof at all times against such mental or spiritual epidemics , and no form of religion seems to guard them against such attacks , or to help the cure when attacked .

" This excitable class of beings is not only dangerous to itself , hut to the community . It is power in the hands of subtle and potent men who know how to use them ; and they are always the victims , ancl never the gainers , in the violent movements into which they are lured . It is a comfortable fact for the more sedate ancl steady portion of mankindthat their

, means of doing harm certainly lessen as Governments are more enlightened and as societies are based on broader and juster feelings and principles . It is very much to the credit of nations that their later political movements have not been the result of secret societies and mere insurrectionary conspiracies . The

re-establishment of Ital y has been a national movement , and the revolution which drove the Bourbons from the rule of France was an open and universal movement . It is , indeed , possible that there were secret associations in both the cases I have cited to

cany out certain views and promote tlie interests of particular personages ; but this is a different thing to organising really national movements b y secret societies . In times when despotism was powerful , ancl the people weak and divided from their extreme igorance ancl the difficulty of the inhabitants of distant places communicating readilysecret societies might be . a

, necessity ; but in these days of communication and easy interchange of opinion and thoughts , nations require no such aids , and all such secresy is to be looked upon with suspicion as to its motives , and with contempt as to its capacity . " It would hardly be worth while to make even

these remarks on secret societies , so utterly are they dead in England , but that there are some races and some classes who seem still to cling to them , as a means either of political regeneration or of gratifying certain fanatical feelings . It is hardly to be believed ,