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In illustration at our meaning , we will proceed to expose one or two popular fallacies which are much relied on by red tapists at the present time . It has lately been stated by a great authority , that unity is the very foundation stone of Masonry ; and by this is to be understood an inherent power exercised by theMaster or Grand Master , who is stated always to have

appointed every officer in his Lodge , except the Treasurer , and alone exercised an authority obeyed and upheld by every member . So far is this from being the case , that all authority emanates from the members of the Lodge , by whom the Master is elected annually , and was sometimes half-yearly , and by whom all the officers of the

Lodge were invariably appointed . In the Book of Constitutions of 1723 , the following law will be found : — " The G . M . shall also nominate the new G . Wardens ; and if unanimously approved by the G . L ., shall be declared , but if not , they shall be chosen by ballot in the same way as the G . M . As the Wardens of Private

Lodges are also to be chosen by ballot in each Lodge , if the members thereof do not agree to their Master ' s nomination . " This regulation is still in force in the Grand Lodges of Scotland and Ireland . Upon this very crazy foundation , an equally shaky edifice has . been erected . We are next gravely told that there cannot be a plurality of Grand Masters or Grand Lodges in the same jurisdiction . We had imagined

that the idea of any necessary connexion between " Church and State" was sufficiently exploded ; but here " Craft and State" are attempted to be linked in a fatal and unholy alliance . Unhappily , however , for the theories of our Masonic jurist , there are at this moment three very flourishing Grand Lodges in the jurisdiction of Her Majesty;—those of England . Scotlandand

, , Ireland . There were , moreover , those of York and London ; of which , two of her Royal uncles were respectively Grand Masters . Were either of them fictitious ? We mean , of course , the Lodges—not the Dukes . If not , there is nothing contrary to landmarks in more than one Grand Lod under the same

ge , civil government . On the other hand , if the York G . L . was irregular , how comes the G . L . of England to have become " united" with an irregularity ? Again , take the United States . There is not there one united Lodge , though politically nothing would be more easy or becoming than that there should be a

common G . M . with a District G . M . in each state . What volumes might then be written upon the unity of the Great Masonic family , with its common head and spreading branches , & c . ! But delightfully poetical as is the idea , and essential to the " Craft and State " theory , it is , nevertheless , true that every State in the Union , though politically it has one common President , yet , Masonically , has its own G . M . and its own G . L .

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11 HE visits of such distinguished strangers as he . whom G . L . had the honour of receiving on the 3 rd ult ., are , like those of a superior order of beings , so " few and far between , " that we can ill forego the gratification

of dwelling , with some complacency and pride , on the impression we may conceive to have been produced upon unbelievers in the Craft , by PRINCE FREDERICK WILLIAM ' cordial and fraternal recognition of the claims of the English brotherhood upon his time and notice . It was when the consummate skill and indomitable perseverance of H . R . H . ' s illustrious ancestor had raised

his throne to an equality with the mightiest of Europe ; when Austria , France , Russia , Sweden , had been successfully defied , and the alliance of England with the great soldier-Icing had induced cabinets to assure to him the conquests of his arms ; it was with the comparative decadence of campsthe encouragement of peace and its

, refinement , the gradual eclipse of barbarism , and the dawning of philosophic thought , that Freemasonry became an acknowledged institution in Prussia , and the first Lodge was founded at Berlin . A century will soon have passed since then , and great have been the events thronging its onward march .

Still the Houses of Guelph and Brandenburg shake hands across the sea , and the hearty approbation of the two great Protestant nations ratifies and confirms the alliance . We have dared and done much together since those early days ; we have risked ( though with unequal fortune ) great interests in a common cause ; we have

been crowned with a twin glory on victorious battle-fields , and as if encouraged by social amelioration and heightened fame , the strong heart of our time-hallowed Order has beat with vigour ever freshened . Now therefore that the voung hope of Prussia seeks to unite himself

still closer to us by the hand of a much-loved Princess , it is gratifying to see that not only the goodwill and esteem of the great in the outer world are the objects of his ambition , but that he is also desirous of asking for , what he surely will obtain , the friendship and cordial alliance of that dynasty which outlives the nations of the earthand whose sway is bounded but by the sacred

, laws of brotherly love , relief , and truth . It was but to the dry detail of our business that the young Prince was introduced . We may almost assume that the debates which , at the suggestion of the M . W . T . G . M . were postponed , would have been to His Royal Higness a , source of greater and possibly more

instructive amusement . The challenge of the reformer , the rejoinder of the official ; the taunt of the experienced tactician disguised ( like drugs administered to children ) in the honej > - of unexceptionable diction , yet wringing from lips not so well tutored , hot words with their consequent apologies ;—the division ; the orderly

acquiescence in triumph or defeat;—all these reflections of discussions " in another place " might have shewn the Prince that the assembly that so cordially welcomed him combined , with possibly some of the faults of English Masons , their love of constitutional liberty , their tolerance of constitutional authority , their interest in the

prosperous perpetuation of the Craft . But possibly , taking a darker view of human nature in general , and Masonic in particular , the Royal Brother might have consumed moments of thought in seeking the solution of that ju'oblem which we confess is a hard