Chips Op Foreign Ashlar.

inevery Masonic Hall in Germany . His Majesty is said to contemplate the singular step of taking his seat in the English House of Lords as Duke of Cumberland , and there are more unlikely things than that he may some clay become a prominent

member of the Grand Lodge of England . Undoubtedly he would be better employed in Masonic labours than in repining at the past . However he may be personally esteemed it is clear that the independent existence of Hanover has terminated for

ever , and England of all countries ought to sympathise with a free and united Germany . At the Eoyal York Masonic club we made the acquaintance of our excellent Bro . Munter , who has resided for many years in the United States .

Bro . Munter was initiated in the Clinton Loclge , Tennessee , and speaks very highly of the Craft in America ,

1.—Masonic Discipline.

1 . —MASONIC DISCIPLINE ,

By CBUX . "Let him that standeth take heed lest he falleth . " This maxim , although originally intended to apply individually , holds , if possible , with still greater force , when it includes within its scope ,

not merely small communities and societies of men , but empires , kingdoms , and nations . All mankind , whether in an individual or collective capacity , bear within themselves the seeds of danger and death , and frequently no warning is

vouchsafed to them of the dissolution at hand , no " coming events cast their shadows before " to premouish them of their impending destiny . The earth never looks fairer , nor the ocean calmer , than just previous to the advent of the racking

tempest and the ruthless hurricane ; the stately tree never appears stronger than when it bows its head before the first breath of the approaching storm , whose succeeding blasts will strew the ground with its shattered limbs . The patient

, upou whose cheek consumption has set its ineffaceable seal , never seems to be better than when the hand of death is stretched forth to complete what the insidious malady has begun .

As with individuals , so with nations . The Romans never reached to so great a climax of power , despotism , wealth , and luxury as that which preceded the invasion of their foes , and they only awoke to the imminency of their danger when tho barbarian was at their gates , and when the war-cry of the Goths was ringing in their

1.—Masonic Discipline.

ears . The fall of Babylon , the decay of those mighty eastern cities . Palmyra , Balbec , Nineveh , and others , are matters of history ; but of the / many who read with interest the records of their decadence and destruction , few care to inquire

into the propable reason of events so extraordinary , and still fewer care to apply the moral to themselves , or even to imagine that the same cause might produce the same effect under very different circumstances . Iu a word , the want of

discipline , or rather the neglect of it , mainly contributed to the downfall of those ancient cities , whose very ruins rise up in gloomy solitude to witness to their pristine splendour . There is not a column , or a pillar , or a monument of these cities

of the dead , that does not speak with a warning voice to their living brethren—that is not stamped with the indisputable inscription , " To desolation were we brought by the neglect of discipline . " Of all other communities . Freemasons have the

strongest grounds for putting implicit faith in what discipline can accomplish . Without it , the Knights of St . John , the Hospitallers , and the Templars could never have existed , much less

attained to the princely honours and possessions , openly obtained , and lawfully held by them . Although they have passed away for ever ; their orders extinct , their titles erased , their escutcheon dishonoured , and their possessions ^ confiscated ,

yet the higher degrees of Cross Masonry still hold in affectionate remembrance , the memory of the valiant defenders of Palestine , Rhodes , Cyprus , and Malta . Ah . ' what Mason can think without feelings of mingled pride and regret upon those

heroic times , before the evil clays fell upon those gallant Knights , when their goods were seized , their lands forfeited , their name disgraced , their bodies tortured , aud crimes imputed to them which fiends themselves would blush to perpetrate . How

changed from the time when they carried the banner of the Order , mid the thickest ranks of their eastern foes ; when the mailed Templar met the infidel warrior in the shock of battle ; when the war-cries of " Allah" and " Saint Esprit "

were shouted forth hy contending squadrons , and when the Grand Masters sat upon the throne of Solomon and David . * Or , who can peruse without emotion the history of the incessant , unequal , and , alas ! unavailing contests waged in defence