The Knights Templars.

the state of popular opinion in Cyprus , meditated repairing there in person to put down the disaffection of the people , with whom the Greek Emperor had been tampering . Innocent was afraid that upon Almerics withdrawal , the Orders would come

to blows for the supremacy in the Holy Land . Almerie however remained in Palestine , and so the Pope ' s alarm proved groundless . The English Templars seem , in 1192 , to have come into collision with the Church , for in that

year the new Temple at London was laid under interdict , because the Archbishop of York , had presumed to say mass there with the ringing of bells , contrary to the commands of the Bishop of London , who had forbidden him to carry his cross

in the province of Canterbury . The Temple in London had become a storehouse of treasure , and the money of the kings , nobles , bishops , and wealthy merchants were deposited there for safe custody . The money likewise collected for the defence of the Holy Land was keot there .

Pope Innocent III ., who was an affiliated member of the Templars , confirmed all their ancient privileges , and induced the European monarchs to add to their immunities . They were exempt from payment of taxes , tolls , and various imposts , and

their wealth and power increased daily in every part of Christendom . * Their exemption from tithes and ecclesiastical imposts speedily brought them in collision with the clergy . During one of these quarrels the Bishop of Sidon ventured to

fuluiigate a sentence of excommunication against the Grand Master and the brethren , and all their friends and protectors , but he ivas speedily silenced by the Pope ( one , indeed , of those whom he had excommunicated ) who censured him for his

presumption , accused him of ignorance and malice , and suspended him from the exercise of all ecclesiastical functions . t About this time the sworcl was gradually superseding the stole , it in its place to give way to

thought . In the darkness of a grovelling superstitious mud , the pearl of truth was slowly growing , to be at length found by the daring spirit of Luther . ( To be continued . )

THEEE is a certain Freemasonry among great minds by which they recognise each other in the ' clearly ringing interchange of a few sentences .

Masonic Notes And Queries

MASONIC NOTES AND QUERIES

LODGE OE TEEEHASONS AT THOENHILL . A correspondent at Cambridge will find the following passage iu Bro . Murray Lyon ' s " Recollections of the Lodge of Freemasons at Thornhill" ( Freemason ' s Magazine , No . 354 , page 282 ) : — " The first meeting of the lodge ( 1814 ) was opened and closed

' with solemn prayer' —a custom by which it has ever since heen characterised j praise being in certain cases offered previous to business being transacted . The universality of a Mason's religious faith is by many urged as a reason for the exclusion of the name of the Saviour from the prayers of a lodge of

Freemasons . But on all occasions when , as lodge , the members of No . 252 ( the Thornhill Lodge ) address the Deity they crave to be heard and answered in the name and for the sake of Jesus Christ ; and their practice in this respect agrees with that of the most ancient of Scottish lodgeswhose records afford

in-, dubitable evidence of the Christian religion having been that which , within as well as without the lodge , was professed by its members ; indeed , such profession seems to have been a sine qua non to the candidate ' s admission to the mystic circle . "—C . P . COOPEE .

" E . X . " AXD THE EED CEOSS , TEMP 1 AES , AND OTHEB DEGEEES OE KNIGHTHOOD . I have perused with interest the history of the Red Cross of Eome and Constantine , by Bro . R . W . Little , some little time ago inserted in the Freemasons '

Magazine , as also the sketch of the Order and the rights of chivalric degrees , hy Bro . W . J . Hughan , in last week ' s issue , and have not been able as yet to see that their statements have even been impugned in the slightest hy either " R . T . " or the other brethren , who have done little else hut ask questions , and then

answer their own queries themselves . Not being a member of the Red Cross , although about to be , with several of my friends , I should have remained silent as to the discussion of the merits of that degree had it not been that " R . Y . " virtually casts a stigma on the Knights Templars when referring to the Red Cross . Therefore , as a Knight Templar , I protest against his evident desire to throw a slur on the origin of Masonic Knights Templars , as well as

the other degree . He says ( page 413 ) " that at the revival Bro . R . W . White is elected Grand Sovereign , a DEOP from his Royal Highness [ i . e ., the Duke of Susses ] to Bro . White ( like that from Lord Fancliffe in 1801 . to Pro . W . B . Wright ) . " I cannot see what sort of "drop" he can mean . Bro . "W . R . Wright

was also Grand Master of the Knights Templars , and Past Grand Master of the Ionian Isles . If it was a " drop" for a Grand Master of the Knights Templars to be a Past Grand Master , then it is so now , as Bro . William Stuart is but Past Grand Master of Hertfordshire . I think , however , a Past Grand

Master is a very honourable office , and quite sufficient to warrant the Templars in placing the Order under the control of Bro . William Stuart , the eminent and Supreme Grand Master ; but I suppose " R . T . " would call that also a " drop" from Bro . H . R . H . the Duke of Sussex to Bro . Col . Tynte , and then to I Bro . William Stuart .