Notes And Queries For Freemasons.

NOTES AND QUERIES FOR FREEMASONS .

CONSERVATISM IN EBEEMASONKY . EADING your Prospectus , I Avas struck by tho expression of your intention to adA'ocate "A thorough Conservative Ileform in all branches of Freemasonry , " and although you do partially explain your meaning , I should 9 he lad if Avouldin the first number

B g you , , be a little more explicit . QUAL . [ There are two parties in Freemasonry , —the upholders of Fogoyism and the Radicals . Tho former , —generally having sat at the feet of some unlettered innovator , —regard all the errors and absurdities taught them by their mentor as incapable of improvement ^ and as unalterable as the decrees of the Modes and Persians

. "Leges Anglice nolunms imitare , " is a favorite motto Avith them , and , like the feudal barons of old , Avhilst being foremost in every innovation , in an age when there Avere none to say them nay , they respond to every proposition for improA'ement Avith the magic and , as they think , unansAverable sentence , " AVe are opposed to innovation . " The radicals betake themselves to the other extreme , and are as much too

prone to a change as the fogies are too averse . The radicals , as then- name imports , are not content , Avhen they discover a rotteu branch , to lop it of £ -md it alone , but they are for applying the axe at once to the root , and for felling the Avhole tree . If the fogies believe CA'ery thing to be a landmark , the radicals inA'est nothing Avith that character . Tho radical is , in Freemasonry , a very dangerous character . As much a despiser of precedents as tlie fogey is their Avorshipperhe is too readildisposed

, y to yield his rash , and often unfledged , opinions to no force of authority and to no argument of expediency . For him it is sufficient that a change has been proposed , and , in his lov- ' . of change , he frequently forgets his love of truth and his love of right . He cannot tolerate an evil , however trifling in its nature or transitory in its duration , and is ever ready to abolish it by the adoption of a

remedy as questionable , m its expected results , as the evil it is proposed to cure . In the hands of tho fogies , Freemasonry Avould long since have lost all its vitality , and , becoming lifeless and effete , must have been cast aside as a Avorn-out engine , Avhich had done its work and Avas incapable of repair . In the hands of the radicals , Freemasonry Avould soon lose its identity , and , amid a multitude of dangerous and irrational experiments , must , in brief time , wear out its forces , and , like tho unfortunate patient celebrated in the Italian epitaph , die of too much

physic . It is evident , then , that both fogeyism and radicalism are opposed , —hut in different ways , —to true and healthful progress , and that either system is dangerous to the Avelfare and perpetuity of Freemasonry . Fortunately there is a middle system , Avhich , partaking of the excellencies of both , —for both have excellencies , —is Avithout the faults of either . Conservatism is tlyj . t mezzo iermina from which every thing is to he hoped and

nothing to be feared . Conservatism is not , —at least in the sense in Avhich we here use it— "the desire and eftbvt of preserving Avhat is established . " By no means . That is exactly the definition Avhich suits fogeyism . Conservatism , on the contrary , has no blind and superstitious respect for things established , simply because they are so . Precedents , with it , have no authority unless they are founded on principle ; and , on the other hand , changes have no support unless they ; u- e prompted bnecessity and guided breason .

y y .To fogeyism Ave are indebted for tho retention of a thousand puerilities in Freemasonry , Avhich crept into the institution during times of great ignorance , and which have been since preserved by force of habit . A'OL . X . T