Modern Writers Upon Freemasonry.—Ii.

speedily find himself " out of court , " were he not so to act . Dr . Oliver , moreover , himself , lays down unexceptional , unconditional obedience to the Worshi pful Master , at p . 165 , under the head of " His Commands Imperative ; " though we take the " obedience " referred to in the charge to which Dr . Oliver is here evidently alluding , to mean rather obedience to duly constituted authority

generally , than to the Worshipful Master in particular , inasmuch as in the enumeration of the different quarters in which obedience is required , " perfect submission to the Worshi pful Master and his Wardens , while acting in the discharge of the duties of their respective office , " is expressly specified . Under the head "Beware of Incompetency , " ( p . 106 ) we find a

, quotation from the Freemasons Quarterly Magazine and Iievieio for 1853 ( p . 636-7 ) , which we consider for the most part so excellent and sensible that we venture to reproduce it verbatim , as few perhaps of our readers possess the volumes of the periodical which preceded the present weekly serial , and which may now perhaps not be very easily obtained : —

'' Many a fine young fellow carries off the chair with a dash and brilliancy which it is ever pleasant to witness ; but in the deeper duties of the office , —inthe discrimination of proper objects for Masonry ' s greatest work , her charities—in the etiquette without which no society of gentlemen can be ri g htly maintained , and in that rigid impartiality which should be the brightest light in the code of Masonic morality—young men can scarcely hope to be grounded . Four or five years of probation , [ if not a longer

period , should be required for every Master of a Lodge , except in the unfortunate cases '' ' where the want of competent candidates renders such an exclusive system impossible . Besides this , there is a still more serious ( tefect inherent in this system of early taking office , viz ., that it leads young men , even of promising abilities and liberal education , to confine themselves to the mere getting up of set formularies , without ever diving into the many subjects of deep and varied interest with which Masonry is concerned . Fine as are the formularies , it is as great a mistake to suppose that the enlightened study of Masonry ends with them , as it would be to attempt to neglect them ; they are the Alpha , but not the Omega , of Masonry . "

We presume that the writer ( whom we well knew , and whose name we could give , though the article from which Dr . Oliver has made the extract was published anonymously ) meant , not so much " attempt to neglect them , " as , " attempt to go deeply into Masonic studies , without first mastering the formularies as a kind of necessary alphabet to the sciences . " We venture after his death to attempt thus to supply

a defect left by him in one of his sentences . He was a writer of considerable , but we fear somewhat * misapplied talent ; learned , but too careless to be always an accurate scholar ; Mason of considerable promise , had his career not been bli ghted in a manner as melancholy as unfortunate . We may on a future occasion , notice the few writings on Masonic matters which he has left behind him .