Masonic Notes And Queries.

a belief in His revealed will ; indeed , without such faith her outer gates never would he opened to any man , no matter what his position and circumstances in life . No atheist or infidel can be a Mason . They may be connected with the Order , but they are no more Masons than hypocrites are Christians . Profession is one thingbut belief and practice are

, very different and vastly more important things . ' By their fruits ye shall know them , 'for men do not gather grapes of thorns , and figs of thistles . The altars of Sfasonry are sacred to the science of Masonry alene , and while she interferes not with anj * of the institutions of religion , she sets up no rivalry to the

Divinelyappointed means , of grace and salvation . She is no enemy to Christianity . I know that some , from their own imaginations , have evoked dark and terrific spirits , and imagined a thousand evil things about Masonic secrets . With them it would appear that thing done in secret was evilancl the principal

every , , if not sole , objection of some to the institution , grows out of the secrecy with which its work is performed . Upon this principle they would condemn some of the holiest transactions that ever occurred . Solomon

tells us , it is the glory of God to conceal a thing , ' and many of the most important revelations He ever made to man were made in secret . It was in the secret watches of the night that He appeared to Abraham , in Chaldea , and called him away from his country and kindred to enter upon the promised inheritance . It was alone that in Mamre He revealed

to him the destruction of Sodom . It was when Moses was pavilioned with the Jehovah , for the space of forty days and forty nights , on the smoking-summit of Sinai , that the law written on two tables of stone , ancl instructions were given how to make the -tabernacle and the ark , while the great

incommunicable name of the Deity was a secret with the Jews , during their existence as a nation . Masonry does not ¦ assume to take the place of the church , or to trench upon her rights , by either assuming her functions or endeavouring to perforin her appropriate duties , any more than Bible societies , tract societies , temperance ' societies , or any of the kindred benevolent institutions of the day ; and who will deny that the church could not , as a church , carry on all these objects of

benevolence within her pale ? No , the Order of Freemasonry would not , with sacrilegious hands , touch the ark of the Lord , aud , ruthlesely thrusting aside the priests from the altar , ascend the holy place to offer incense upon the altars of Christianity . Those who are prompted by a vain curiosity to explore the secrets of the mystic artand are carried with

, away the badges and glare of gaudy and elaborate display , and emblems and pompous ceremonials , will find nothing in these courts that will satisfy their desires ; and , on the other hand , those who expect to have revelations transcendentally mysterious and impracticable , will be disappointed in approaching the altars

of Masonry . Masonry is a practical science , and , though its moral duties are vailed in emblems and allegories , yet they all have a practical significance . We do not wonder that those who are unacquainted with Masonry , and the emblems which illustrate its precepts , should be disposed to look . upon it and them with supercilious contempt , or at least to regard them as trifles , unworthy the consideration of men of reason and reflection ; and , in the very nature of the case ,

we must in patience and forbearance submit to such expressions of opinion as the uninitiated may indulge . We would , however , premise , if it were not more in accordance with the dictates of reason , for such to suspend opinions until they have all the evidence before them , and not hastily to pass judgment upon that concerning whichaccording to their own confessionthey

, , know nothing . The Order does not interfere with any of the regulations of society , whether of church or state , involving any of the duties we owe to God , to our country , to our neighbours , or to ourselves ; and if it did , it would not be wrong or treasonable to disclose its secrets ; but that the institution should

be placed under the ban of ecclesiastical or political excommunication , simply because it has secrets pertaining to itself alone , is a species of persecution only becoming the dark ages . If it were a Jesuitical institution , and its members were banded together by oaths , for the suppression and destruction of freedom

of conscience , freedom of speech , and freedom of the press , we would be amongst the first to renounce all allegiance , and vow eternal hostility to it , as the enemy of God and man . Brotherly Love , Relief , and Truth are its cardinal elements , and constitute the great central idea , around which revolve all its essential operations . Anything contrary to these

practical principles is foreign to the organization , and forms no part of its benevolent mission . To visit the widow and fatherless in their afilietion , administering to their wants and woes with the soft hand of a charity diffusive as light , is a message she brings to every sorrow-stricken home . When she fails in this

God-like undertaking , she fails most signally in the accomplishment of her mission , and her profession degenerates into a mere form , and her allegorical lessons ancl instructive emblems become as the sounding brass and tinkling cymbals of a heartless profession . " ]

EEO . EEISHA COOKE S MASONIC TBAVEES . It was said , whenBro . Elisha Cooke was a sojourner here , that he would publish his Masonic travels on his return to America . Has he done so ?—S . C . B . THE PUEMITIYE EBEEilASONRY OE ANTIQUITY . The general cliff usion of Masonic literature

throughout the country has now made almost every Mason acquainted with the theory that has been insisted upon principally by Dr . Oliver , that the principles of Freemasonry—that is to say , the doctrines of Speculative Masonry—existed in the earliest ages of the world , and were believed and practised ba primitive le

y peop or priesthood , under the name of the Pure or Primitive Freemasonry of the Antediluvians—that this Freemasonry was at length , after the flood , corrupted , as to the truths that it taught , and then went under the name of Spurious Freemasonry , hut that a choice few preserved the primitive doctrines , and handed

them clown to the present day , where they exist under the form of Speculative Masonry . These doctrines are not now denied by any one who has carefully studied the M asonic system , although many differ from Dr . Oliver in relation to some of the details of the theory that he has advanced . But this theory is not exclusively Dr . Oliver's . It was promulgated at the middle of the last century by the celebrated Chevalier Ramsay , the author of the " Travels of Cyrus , " and