Reform In Masonry.

political combination , and has put forward pietensions and professions , equally incompatible with whafc we iu this peaceful land have been ever taught to associate with the humanizing tenets of Masonic charity , and with the good order and happy progress of society afc large . And as fche " ultima thule " of our German friend

and brother is to arraign practically the pasfc and present proceedings of English Freemasonry , in order to make way for what he evidently considers a new philosophic and expansive course of action , I join issue Avith him entirely , alike in the complaints he makes aud the remedies he .

proposes The first complaint he makes is , thafc a peculiar and much valued formula , Avhich we jealously guard in our lodge system is " contrary to ali education and refinement , and draAvn up only for persons of very little instruction ; " and he therefore proposes that it should be abolished .

In answer fco this , allow me to observe , thafc after the manner of a good many great men , our brother quietly announces the whole point in dispute , and then argues from it . Is ifc true in itself as a statement that that portion of our ritual is " contrary to all education and

refinement , or drawn up only for persons of very little instruction ? " Our brother may have reached or may have " idealized " a state of refinement and education peculiar to modern civilization , but yet I make bold to say that there are thousands among ourselves of the very highest education and refinement , Avho never have

¦ found thafc old and well-given prose , if quaint in its verbiage and peculiar in its condition , ever opposes itself to their education and refinement , great as both admittedly are . Neither is it in any sense truth , thafc those words in all their picturesque phraseology were drawn up

only for " persons of little instruction . " All our Masonic evidences , all our archajologieal researches go indubitably to prove this fact , that the able men who presided over the handicraft guilds were men of learning , skill , and merit , and that there . probably never Avas a time in the history of our Ancient Order , Avhen operative and speculative Masons were nofc equally admitted free of the Great Assembly .

A good deal more will have fco be said against ifc , objections of a much more serious and convincing kind , if any such can be found , before English Masons will consent to see erased from their ritual , a form of words so interesting a relic of the j ^ st , so much cherished by old" association , and so venerable from

immemorial usage . The second point ; our German brother alludes fco is the universality of our Order , which I heartily concur in as a general statement , though I do not profess to adopt those expansive words , more Germanico , in which he clothes his profession of faifch in this respect .

As I understand fche letter and the . spirit of our Masonic regulations , all thafc we can fairly require in Freemasonry , as sufficient for the purposes of initiation , is that Which is binding on the moral conscience . No doubt , in a purely Hindoo lodge , or in a purely Mahommedan lodge , Avhether indigenous or derivatative , ifc must be perfectly correct to expect that the Hindoo or Mahommedan should be pledged to fealty on . the Koran , or the sacred book of the Hindoos .

Bufc as no Christian recognises the binding sanctity ofthe one or the other on his conscience , no Christian could be rightly admitted where such a lodge exists , but must seek admission in a lodge where happily still as among ourselves , the Sacred Volume is open in our midst . If a Hindoo or a Mahommedan seeks

admission into one of our lodges , knowing our very profession , he must conform to our unchanging laws . In this there is no violation of universal Freemasonry . We force our forms and ritual on none , bufc Ave ourselves cannot properly swerve from them . We are not—Ave never professed to be—a form of

universal faifch , nor an embodiment of pantheistic reveries , but we claim to be a great , charitable , friendly , moral , peaceful Order , extending its claim of toleration and goodwill over all the children of our common parent . Our German brother cannot understand , he says ,

why we object to this little alteration—why refuse for one moment fco put fche Bible on one side altogether , or to keep it shut up simply as a symbol , or to substitute for ifc a copy of the local constitution , and he complains of the "ill-feeling produced in all the English brethren " who heard ifc . Bufc we in England

perfectly understand it , and rejoice at it ! It is nofc long ago that in a foreign Grand Lodge a hotly-contested question arose , Avhether any allusion whatever to a Supreme Being should be tolerated ; and ifc was argued that it was a wrong against toleration and Masonic principles to deny to any brother the right fco deny the existence of God altogether . It is this which seems to us simple profanity , joined

to that spirit of reckless propagandist ! , so much m vogue Avifch some , that justly alarms our English Masons , and keeps them firmly and immovably bound to our ancient forms and customs . Freemasonry , as we look upon it in England , is not and never will be with us a secret political society , a philosophical assembly of illuminesau aggregation of

, positivists or negafcivists ; bufc it is , and may ifc eA'er remain , a benevolent aud peaceful institution , ineluding men of all denominations , opinions , and countries , linked together by one common bond of amity and sympathy , —friendly , charitable , loyal , and tolerant . The proposal our German brother makes

, to remove the Bible from our lodges , will never he acceded to by English Freemasons , because nofc only utterly irrecoucileable Avith fche true tradition of the Craft , but because it nofc only has seiwecl to give that reverent and religious element to English Freemasonry , so remarkable in itself * but because such an

act of revolutionary Vandalism would drive from its now serried ranks thousand upon thousand of its mosfc faithful members' I need not take up your space with remarks on the third or even the fourth proposal of your correspondent ; though the last is the only practical one , and would , no doubt , be very

desirable . Let me acid , that what I have said , I have said in no unfriendly spirit to my German brothei * , bufc because , as an old English Freemason , I knoAA ' , afc least I think I know , the intense value of thafc great system , his proposals would serve tojeopardise , if not eventually to destroy .

I am , clear Sir and Brother , Yours fraternally , AN ENGLISH MASON .