Masonic Notes And Queries.

MASONIC NOTES AND QUERIES .

THE PABSEES . My answer to the letter of a Bristol brother , who will shortly proceed to Bombay ivith the intention ¦ of presiding there , is—that the Parsees are the followers still remaining of the ancient religion of Persia , as reformed by Zoroaster . The number is yery small . The reliion of the well-informed Parsees

g is , I believe , a pure Monotheism . I take the folloiving line from my Common-Place Book , into which it was transcribed from some work published at Paris a few years ago : — "Le fond de la religion de Zoroastre , e ' est le monotheisms . " My brother may consult the article " Parsees" in a ' late part of

" Chambers' Encyclopedia . " The Parsees . whom I met in London ( all were acquainted ivith the English language ) AA'ere , so far as I ivas able to . form an opinion , well worthy of being members of our Institution . Some Parsee merchants have made themselves famous by their charity . —CHARLES PUBTON COOPEE .

UUEATIOS—BOSSUET . The ensuing is the passage in the " Libre Arbitre " of Bossuet to which a learned and pious Roman Catholic cure referred my brother * '• - * on the occasion to which he alludes , when all present , a follower of Rousseau excepted , declared that they preferred the Cosmogony of Moses to the Cosmogony

of Plato : — - "Nous voyous avec clarte que cet etre parfait , qui fait tons les autres , les doit avoir tiros du neant . Oar , outre que s'il est parfait , il n ' a besom qui de lui-meme et de sa propre vertti pour agir , il parait encore que s'il y avait une matiere que Dieu n ' eut pas faitecette " matiere serait Dieuegnlant

, , Dieu meme en ce qu'ila de principal , qui est d'etre soi . " Consider my communication "Dualism and Preemasonry , " FBEEMASONS' MAGAZINE , vol . xiii ., p . 291 . —CHABLES PuETON CoOPEE .

CEETAIN FOREIGN FREEMASONRY , "Lambda" is ri ght . In the conversation he mentions the two capital objections urged by me against certain forei gn Preemasonry were the absence of the religious element and the presence of the political element . —CHARLES PI / BIOS COOPEB .

BEO . BB . OLIVER ' S MASONIC WORKS . I decline giving any other answer to the question of a brother , whose inquisitiveness far exceeds his discretion , thau this—that some years ago when I was Treasurer of Lincoln ' s Inn , all Bro . Dr . Oliver ' s Masonic works were , upon my motion , added to the honourable Society ' s library . — CIU . BI . ES PUBTON COOPEE .

NOT FREEMASONS' HALL . A late visitor to Constantinople recounts that , having been to see the Hippodrome , on his return he noticed a large public building with open gateway , and many persons passing in and out . He had the curiosity to enter , and found himself in a large

courtyard facing a great timber building . Within the courtyard , on each side of the gateway , ancl on massive walls full tiventy feet high , he found depicted a gigantic pair of compasses , a triangle , a great twenty-four inch gauge , aud other emblems . Under each of the groups was a display of gigantic spears and billhooks . Having no doubt himself of the

nature of the building , he asked his guide AA-hether this ivas not the Hall of the Preemasons , ancl whether he could not go in . After , some trouble in making his guide understand , the latter expressed his great horror , aud stated that such impious , infidel , and un-Christian beings as Pannahsous ( as he called them ) AA-ere not- allowed even by Turksand that there

, wero no such diabolical proceedings in Stamboul . He said the building belonged to the Government , and ivas called the Pigrtxef . The emblems he could not explain , but the poles our friend found belonged to the ( ire brigade . —WILLIAM : COMPASS .

LODGE DECORATIONS . The St . John's Lodge of Alexandria has spent this year £ 700 in lodgo furniture and decorations , though the lodge is small and unfinished . The ceiling is vaulted aud decorated ivith stars . The Hyde Clarke Lodge of Alexandria has another lodge room . The Bulwer Lodge of Cairo has spent £ 500

in building and decorations , and has i 8300 more to pay . The lodgo rooms are fearfully hot , and , as they work iu the summer , I thought I should have been couverted from solids into fluids . —A VISITING S . W . DOUBLE TRIANGLE ,

What is the earliest period at which the emblem of the double triangle is found in the annals of symbolism ? It ivould be a valuable addition to the history of symbolism to have in this ivay a history of the square , circle , triangle , pentagon , & e . —¦ DOUBLE X .

PROPAGATION OF MASONRY—NEAV AND EFFECTIVE METHOD . ' As the Italian lodges are formed in the French model , with variations of their own , baptism , is a recognised rite . The baptised leivis in some lodges attends in the lodge in the first degree and at the banquetand thereby becomes possessed of a great

, deal of useful information for his schoolfellows and his mamma . In the course of time , for anything I knoiv , an urchin of eight years old may attend lodges in other degrees , and take the chair of K . S . Yerily , we live and learn . It is needless to the Grand

say Lodges of the Old World are regarded as of the old antediluvian ivorld , unfit for this age of progress . -PERSONAL OBSERVATIONS .

" SUMMER LODGES . Would it not be a good thing to do in hot countries in summer , to be like the Eajah of Moorshedabad , ivho has an underground palace ? So we might arrange to have our winter lodges in the attics , and our summer lodges in the cellars , ancl cool ourselves as ive cool our beer . —INDOPHILUS .

THE GOD OF ANAXAGOBAS AND THE GOD OF FBEEMASONEY . At the commencement of a work of Anaxagoras there is a passage of ivhich two translations are subjoined—the first by an English p hilosopher , the second by a French philosopher : — " Formerly all

things ivere a confused mass ; afterivards intelligence coming arranged them into worlds . " " Toutes choses etaient confondnes , puis vint l'lntelligence qui fit regner 1 ' ordre . " A Brother has sent me a paper , in ivhich , calling the "Intelligence" of this passage God ( the Greek