Modern Writers Upon Freemasonry.—Iii.

Grand Lodge ; but if the mildest punishment , admonition , be onlyinflicted , such appeal would be considered an aggravation of the offence . " Not necessarily , surely ! Suppose the accused is innocent , and can succeed in proving his innocence to Grand Lodge , though he may not be able to do so in his own private Lodge , through prejudice or some other cause—is he then not to appeal 1 And if admonition be

a punishment at all , is he to submit to it , though undeserving ? Page 258 . " His former brethren cannot acknowledge him ;" they pass him , and make no sign . " This is surely a somewhat dubious sentence . Does Dr . Oliver mean that Masons are in the habit , when they pass a brother not under suspension , of making signs to him 1 It would be a scarcely prudent proceeding . The application of

" Beauty and Bands , " at page 263 , considering the signification attached to it by the soundest theologians , seems scarcely in place , scarcely becoming ; and the fact that onr brethren of tho last century applied them "to represent tho penalties of Masonry , and the breaking of them as an emblem of the excision of an unworthy member , is no reason that we should perpetuate a misapplication of it . The

very extract from a commentator on the passage in which the two staves , so called , are mentioned , ( Zech . xi ., 10-14 ) , shows plainly enough to the breaking of what engagement or obligation the prophet alluded under the figure of the breaking of the staves , an engagement plainly pointed to in the heading of the chapter in the authorized

version of the Bible . But Dr . Oliver seems determined to refer to Freemasonry every thing in tho . Bible that has ever been ( rightly or not ) connected with the subject , and so to perpetuate the error into which he , in common with Hemming , Inwood , and others of the last and the present century , has fallen , of attempting to identify Freemasonry with Christianity . This brings us to the end of what

Dr . Oliver calls ' Blue Masonry . '" On Avhat are called in this work "Purpio Lodges , " wc have not so many remarks to make . Dr . Oliver attaches more importance to processions than seems to us at all necessary . In page 283 , ho says of them , " And thoy were discontinued accordingly , and the public worship of God extinguished by one of his own ministers . " Now

this really will not do . The idea of the public worship of God being extinguished by the abolition of Masonic processions to church in one province . If this circumstance had shut up the churches all over-England , or prevented all the church-goers in England from ever again attending divine service , then the expression would bo correct , as it is , it appears not so much incorrect as simply ridiculous . Neither

can we see any analogy whatever between Masonic balls and processions , as laid down in page 285 . The quotation from Horace seems mal a propos , and the word " clades" totally inapplicable . We must also object to the introduction of the Avord " sponsor , " in page 289 , for obvious reasons , and as to the method approved in page 291 , of questioning and cross-questioning a candidate in the presence of an assembly of any persons whatever , it appears to us , 1 . That English-