The Grand Lodge Of England And The Grand Masonic Body Of France.

where , he adds , "Freemasonry is better understood and truer Masonic feeling is exhibited . " He tells an anecdote of how he was received in a lodge in a large commercial city in the west of England , where , after exception had been taken to his

admission , from his being a foreigner , though he produced his certificate and underwent a full examination , when he was seated in the lodge he was told , " that as Grand Lodge had nothing to do with France or French Freemasonry , he had

no right to present himself and wish admission into an English lodge , especially as he did not wear an English Masonic dress . "

" Can such things be , and overcome us like a summer ' s cloud , without our special wonder ? " This relation reminded us of the state of things said to exist formerly in the Lancashire colliery district of Wigan , Bolton , or Bury , we forget

which , where the peculiar style of hospitality common ( at one time ) amongst the natives , was described somewhat thus : —JACK ( loq . ) " Who be that , Bill ? " "Doan't know , Jack ; he be a stranger . " " Then heave a brick at ' xm , Bill . "

Really the illustration — allowing for the differences of times and circumstances—is not un-apposite . One thing , however , is quite clear , the time has arrived when we must put our foreign relations upon a sounder and better footing ; our present position is not creditable to us as a Masonic body .

The Keys Identified.

THE KEYS IDENTIFIED .

By W . N . CEAAVFOED .

Creation and all its Avondrous works is , and ever will remain a profound , a sublime mystery . The significant words of the Psalmist " As it Avas in the beginning , is now , and ever shall be , world without end , Amen , " said and

sung at divine service , morning and evening , comprehend the mysteries of creation . The Psalmist here bows to the dispensation of his Creator , he sees with the eye of Avisdom , of science , that "the beginning of creation" was

past finding out , and that its future would be " without end . " The astronomical calculations of Bro . Melville in reference to another verse , " Thy kingdom is an everlasting kingdom , and thy dominion endureth throughout all ages , " verify the words of the Psalmist in their fullest signification . *

The Keys Identified.

FolloAviug the mysteries of creation are the wonderful mysteries of the Bible , with its allegories , its parables , its mystic keys , eight times referred to in Judges , in Isaiah , in Matthew , in Luke , in Revelations . *

Then there are the sacred mysteries of Freemasonry , which , though esteemed morepreciousthan rubies , though guarded with jealous care , have been long , long lost , but whether wilfully or not must ever remain a secret , —undiscoverable .

The continuous search from generation to generation , for "light" to lighten the Biblical mysteries by the historian , the philologist , the theologian , the philosopher , the learned of every degree , has hitherto been , not only fruitless , but

has oftentimes so strained the intellect , so overwrought the mind , as to culminate in hopeless insanity , in despairing suicide , in rank atheism , in the Babel of sectarianism—one of the latest phases of which has planted its Eden on the shores of

Lake Erie , whither Laurence Oliphant wentrecently forsaking his fatherland , his high social position of scholar , author , statesman .

There lived , some two or more generations back , a man of vast learning , of thoughtful inquiry into the ruins of Empires , who thus soliloquised . "If at some future period , some one unites to astronomical science , the erudition of antiquity ,

too much separated from it , that man will instruct his age in many things which the vanity of ours has no notion of . " This soliliquy of Yolney's , vide his new Res . p . 100 is an apt one , shewing that the more an author

is learned , the more he feels his deficiency and the more ready he is to confess it . There came , more than a generation later , a man who not only united the erudition of antiquity Avith the science of astronomy to which Volney alludes , but who possessed that requisite amount of untiring patience , of dauntless perseverance ,