The Master Mason.

would become readers and students , so that Grammar , Rhetoric , Logic , Music , and all the kindred sciences would so interest the membership as lo fill the Lodge-room with attentive listeners and greatly enlarge the area of its usefulness , in

promoting membership , and in the cultivation of the fine arts . Of course these objects are not to interfere Avith the regular business of the Lodge , but to follow it , securing a large number to the Avork , and so

answering the double purpose of attendance to duty and mental improvement . There are many / other ways a Master can interest his Lodge if he be a competent man , and it is the interest and duty of the membership to elect none other . — Voice of Masonry .

Masonic Jottings, No. 81.

MASONIC JOTTINGS , No . 81 .

BY A PAST PROVINCIAL GEAND MASTEE . CHARGES OF 1723 AND 1738 . A London brother asserts that all English Lodges have necessarily adopted tbe charges of 1738 in the place of the charges of 1723 , —the amended charges in the place of the original charges .

CHRISTIAN CONTINENTAL FREEMASONRIES . Brother , there are , I am told , Christian Continental Freemasonries . The Masonry which adopted our 1723 charges , but resolved not to adopt our 1738 charges , is a Christian Freemasonry .

THE RELIGION IN WHICH ALL AIEN AGREE . A . D . 1723 . The religion , designated by one Avriting in a European country , A . D . 1723 , as the religion in Avhich all men agree , could not have been Roman Catholicism , or Protestantism . It could not have

been Church of Englandism , Lutheranism , Calvinism , Arminianism , or Jansenism . It could only have been Catholic Christianity , the Christianity in Avhich all the before-mentioned Religions find what they have respectively made

their essential parts . RELIGION IN AVHICH ALL MEN AGREE , A Brother says that the religion described by one writing in Europe , A . D . 1723 , as the religion in which all men agree , could not have been

natural theology . Natural theology , he observes , was then unknown out of the libraries of a few philosophic thinkers .

INITIATION . PASSING . RAISING . A Brother thinks that in old times , appropriate lectures Avere delivered , certain passages of the Bible and the Book of Common Prayer were read , certain Craft prayers Avere offered up , ancl certain ceremonies performed and secret revelations made ,

at all initiations , passings , and raisings ; and that some time in the second half of the 17 th century there were large modifications of these proceedings , and that such modifications , after the lapse of a few years , came to be called by the name of " Degrees . "

THE HIGH DEGREES . THE ROYAL ARCH . What is the reason that in the peiiod 1740—1760 , the Grand Lodges of England and Scotland are explicitly declared to have been entirely unacquainted Avith the High Degrees , and that the schismatic Grand Lodge of the so-called ancient Masons is said to have introduced the Royal Arch Degree . *

MEDIiEVAL FREEMASONRY . The Mediaeval Freemasonries were all particular Freemasonries . ROYAL ARCH MASONRY . The letter of Brother Hughan respecting Avhich a correspondent frequently inquires is , I imagine that inserted "Freemasons Magazine , " vol . 22 , pages 231 , 250 .

AVHAT A BROTHER DENIES . A Brother denies that the Eoyal Arch Degree existed before the year 1740 ; but he does not deny the great antiquity of Avhat is called the Master ' s Degree . A LONDON LODGE 1693 .

About the year 1693 there Avas a London Lodge , which held its meetings at St . Thomas's Hopital . BRO . HUGHAN . —THE LEADING 1717 THEORIST

SEPT . 1 S 68 . In the month of September 1868 the Past Provincial Grand Master for Kent , supposed Bro . Hughan to be the leading 1717 theorist , f THE YEAR 1717 . — " DROWNED . "

A communication , Freemason's Magazine October , 1869 , told us that brother Hughan had " drowned" the year 1717 .