Masonic Intolerance.

MASONIC INTOLERANCE .

TO THE EDITOR 0 ! THE FREEMASONS' MAGAZINE AUD MASONIC MIEEOE . Dear Sir and Brother , —A correspondent signing " Eosa Crucis , " brings to a head the attacks which have for some sime marked your journal , by attesting that Theists , Atheists , and Deists , are all equally repugnant to the feelings , common sense , and religious

opinions of English Freemasons . Before such persons undertake to respond for English Freemasons , or for common sense , or common honesty , he must exculpate himself from mixing up Deists with Atheists , their antipodes , No Deist has attacked Christians in your columns ; and it comes with very

ill grace that such attacks as those of Eosa Crucis and others should be made while he chooses to belong to a Deistic institution like Freemasonry , and to profess a Deistic religion like Christianity , in virtue of which its members can unite in the worship of the Great Architect of the Universe . It is unseemly when we

have lodges in London and elsewhere exclusively composed of Masons who are Deists—and who have never been known to be wanting in the duties of Masonry—to insult Jews , Deists , and Mahometans , who are Masons of right , or to mix them up with Atheistswho have no riht to be Masonsis an

un-, g , justifiable proceeding , and a foolish one when coming from a Christian . A Jew quia Jew may claim to be admitted into the mysteries of Masonry , but how can a Christian quia a Christian put forward such a pretension .

Yours fraternally , CIECLE . TO THE EDITOR OF THE FREEMASONS' MAGAZINE AND MASONIC MIRROR . Dear Sir and Brother , —It is strange but true that

the so-called Christian attacks on other religions emanate , not from Craft Masons , but the professors of what some regard as illegitimate institutions—the Ancient and Accepted Eite , the sham Society of the Eosicrucians , & c . —and a very bad specimen do they set forth of their doctrines . Such an example ia

given by the Rosicrucian Eosa Crucis in your last number . It is well enough known that the Eose Cross degree was hatched and worked up in France by French philosophers , and did not originate in any religious spirit . If the Eosicrucian thicks his degree is a Christian degreehis French brother will expound

, to him that it is a philosophic degree , illustrating the superiority of philosophy and Masonry over Christianity , which is the legitimate development of the degree . If he or any others have perverted these degrees into a Christian form , the French and other nations have a just right to complain , but Eosa Crucis

has gained no dunghill from which to crow . Yours fraternally , A P . M . & P . Z .

The Druids.

THE DRUIDS .

THE EDirOR OF THE FIIRESUSONS' JIAOAzWE AMD MASONIC MIRROR . Dear Sir and Brother , —The following paragraph may be of interest to your readers . There are many Masons who believe iu the Masonic character of Druidism ; and to them the shape of their temples

The Druids.

simply suggests the most ancient of Masonic symbols —the point within a circle : — Yours fraternally , " * m so .

" STONEHENGE . —In Tyrrell ' s General History of England , ' the fabulous origin of Stonehenge is scornfully rejected , but uot without a leaning to the belief that it was founded by Aurelius , because he was both crowned and buried within its precincts . Polydore Yergil ' s mention of Stonehenge as the monument of Ambrosiusand its near neihbourhood to

Ambres-, g bury are held in favour of the supposition that the mysterious structure should be assigned to Aurelius rather than to either the Eomans or the Danes . In truth , the one had as much to do with it as the other . A sounder and more ample knowledge of Druidical mythology has established its remote

antiquity . Long years before Saxon or Dane infested the coasts of Britain , long years before the Eoman legionaries encountered the scythe-armed cars of the Britons , those ponderous stones had been set up in symmetrical order , and arranged in the form of a Cor Gawr—a great circle , or sanctuary . Here at once

we have a clue to the Chorea Gigantum of the monastic chroniclers , and the Gyauntes' Karol , or Giants Dance of the scarcely more imaginative romance writers . This Cor Gawr was probably , as Mr . Eoberts suggests , not merely a temple for religious sacrificesbut a place of popular assembl

, y under religious auspices . In the immediate neighbourhood stood in ancient times a Druidical monastery , containing , according to one account , 300 ; according to another , 360 priests . The stones themselves were called Ainbres , or the Anointed , just as the famous roeking-stone in Cornwall was known as

the Main Ambre , or the Anointed Stone , essential oils being poured upon them . This was also an eastern custom , as we read in the book of Genesis that ' Jacob rose up early in the morning , and took the stone that he had put for his pillow , and set it up for a pillar , and poured oil upon the top of it . ' The nei

ghbouring town of Abury , it is well known , is but a corruption of Ambresbury , perhaps the Ambres of the Abiri or Cabiri—the Dii Potentes . Dr . Stukeley , who though a bad geologist , is a trustworthy authority ou matters that come within his " more peculiar provinceaffirms that the disposition of

, the stones both at Stonehenge and at Abury attest some knowledge of the magnet , aud quotes the statement of Sanchoniathon that Ouranos devised stones that moved as having life , and which could have been no other than the loadstone . Dr . Smith , again , is of opinion that the Cor Gawr was the Grand Orrery of

the Druids , and there can be no doubt that it was constructed to represent the projection of the sphere on the plane of the horizon . The similarity between the Druidical worship and that of the Magi escaped not the observation of Pliny , who says that the Britons might have been taken for Persians by their

reverence for fire , their detestation of idols , and their roofless temples . In all likelihood , Stonehenge was both an astronomical monument , and a pantheon , in which animals , and even men were offered up in sacrifice . There is nothing , indeed , to show that the Druids worshipped the serpent , the sinuous outline of the great temple at Abury being merely the type of the sun ' s course through the heavens . "