"Address To The Craft, By A Past Master."

to bark , " is a doctrine very convenient for the governing , but not quite so satisfactory for the governed body : and though the words of the Past-Master may be father to the thought and wish , yet we are not prepared to admit that the representatives of the English lodges , the strength and sinew of the Craft , are bound to maintain a reverential silence in the presence of brethren who

represent nothing but the G . M . ' s appointment , and an exclusive monopoly of official distinctions . HI . And this furnishes us with an answer to the third allegation that we have misrepresented the character and measures of the Dais . " Why find fault with the Dais ? " cries the Past-Master . "Are they not

members of all the various ranks of society ; men of office and respectability ; masons equally with every other member of G . L . ? " Granted in theory , but in stern practice how stands the case ? With a few honourable exceptions , or on occasions when the safety of our Executive is at stake , and the Secretary for the War

Department is summoned to rescue us from our Balaclavalike disorganisation , and in the words of the Past-Master , "to drill the country masons " ' —with these exceptions , the attendance on the Dais is confined to a very select circle . " But what difference is there between those who sit on the Dais and those in the body

of the Hall ? There , is this great difference ; that the members of the Dais toe their position to the favour of the G . M . alone , whilst those who constitute the bulk of G . L . are the deputed representatives of the London and the country Lodges . And this tie , which , under a

wiser executive than that which our present G . M . possesses , would have been felt only for useful purposes , has unfortunately been by them twisted and tangled into a gordian knot , which now defies all half-measures , and which needs the sword of an Alexander for its severance . " But how are the Dais guilty of maladministration , or how have they obstructed the progress of our fortunes ? "

Those who have power , and influence , and position , who have a right to speak , but remain silent in the presence of great wrongs , incur a very large share of the responsibility of that wrong . For four years Canada , through unparalleled neglect , was known to be verging towards rebellion or independance ; for four years the Dais were

silent ; for three years Masons in Malta , Trinidad , and Hong Kong , were known to be exposed to grievous persecutions at the hands of the Roman Catholic clergy ; for three years the Dais were silent ; but when at last that portentous silence was broken , the Dais declared that nothing could , or wouldor should be done to remed

, y Canadian grievances and foreign persecutions . And what of their policy at home ? They opposed the Mark degree , they objected to a colonial hoard , they obstructed the circulation of the business papers both for the London and the country Lodges , and having nullified a vote of G . L . in 1848 by which a pocket edition of the Book

, of Constitutions was published , they expressed—in the person of one of their number—a grave apprehension of the serious calamities which would arise when every member of G . L . should become acquainted with the Constitutions by which they are governed 1

IV . Into the question of Adjournment we will not enter . On the 11 th of February , the Grand Master placed that question on the footing of a personal censure ; and G . L ., declining such an issue , prepared to sacrifice its undoubted wish . But we will beg our readers to remember , that all which we ever claimed for the Craftwas a free discussion of the right of

, adjournment . We have uniformly admitted the possibility of arguments on both sides , though they have seemed to us to preponderate strongly in favour of our views ; but the essence of our objections to the conduct of the Dais on this subject lies in then- determination to smother all debate , to over-ride G . L ., and to confirm

the G . M . in a decision to reverse a judgment—which two acting G . M . s had pronounced , and two G . L . s had ratified—without talcing the sense of the Craft upon a matter of such high constitutional import . V . But we are accused of sanctioning an usurpation on the free agency of G . L ., by the members of a

particular Lodge , of whom the Constitutional party mainly consits . " We would not affect an ignorance of the Lodge which is here designated ; but we would ask how—in the presence . of colonial memorials , of petitions from every part of England—how—with the sound of loud cheers still seeming to ring in our ears in London ,

in Bath , in Wales , in Shropshire , as each maxim of constitutional policy found expression—how is it possible to believe that memorials , petitions , cheers are more phantoms and unrealities , and that the great party who have rarely tried a division in G . L . without success ,

are but the members of a recently revived Lodge ? Had this even been so , then the late movement would have been a narrow and a sectional one , and naturally and deservedly would have come to nought : but the Past Master , we think , may calm his apprehensions , when he finds , acting and speaking in defence of constitutional principlesmen such as Bros . BINCICESSYMONDS ,

, , MASON , GREGORY , STUBBING-, HEARN , WARREN , WELLS , HAKWOOD , Sir E . LECHMEBE , & C- —men who have no connexion with that Lodge , which seems to haunt I lis waking and sleeping thoughts ; but whose knowledge of Masonry , whose zeal for the Craft , and whose position of high respect among their London and provincial

brethren are unquestionable . Are these the men who " have destroyed our harmony "—the harmony of paralysis !—who " have attempted to divert Masonry to the purposes of a party , " who have lent themselves to " misstatements , " to "faction , " and to " a spirit antagonistic to Masonry ? "

VI . The last allegation is so melodramatic and akin to the ludicrous , that we have some semble to weary our readers by replying to it . We are accused of a dark and deep laid conspiracy . It is a question of gunpowder and luerfer matches , and the last scene in the " Huguenots "—what can it he ? " Is it envy ? is it ambition ?

or is it directed against the very fabric of Masonry itself ? " Oh ! it is something far darker and deeper than this . Neither Guy Fawkes , nor Charles IX ., nor the Sultan Mahmoud , ever meditated a blacker ( and we must add a more circuitous ) treason . There is treuchery