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Article UNITED GRAND LODGE. ← Page 2 of 2 Article PROVINCIAL GRAND LODGE OF WORCESTERSHIRE. Page 1 of 1 Article PROVINCIAL GRAND LODGE OF WORCESTERSHIRE. Page 1 of 1 Article REVIEW. Page 1 of 2 →
Note: This text has been automatically extracted via Optical Character Recognition (OCR) software.
United Grand Lodge.
Lodge having the election of Grand Treasurer , the election would be in the hands of the Board of General Purposes . Another Brother explained that the last brother entirely misapprehended the purport of the motion . It was only to simplify the method of election , which would still be by Grand Lodge . The Board of General Purposes would have nothing to do with it .
Bro . HOGARD said if his motion was carried , paragraph 19 of the Book of Constitutions would read , "The Grand Treasurer shall be nominated at the Grand Lodge in December , and be elected at the Grand Lodge in March , in the same manner as the elected members of the Board of
General Purposes . " The confusion at the election last March was so great that the Deputy Grand Master had to deviate from the Book of Constitutions , as it was found impossible to tell with exactitude the members who voted . The motion was put and carried , and Grand Lodge was closed in form .
Provincial Grand Lodge Of Worcestershire.
PROVINCIAL GRAND LODGE OF WORCESTERSHIRE .
The annual meeting of the above Provincial Grand Lodge was held on Thursday , the 28 th ult ., at the College Hall , Worcester , by the permission of the Dean ( Lord A . Compton ) . There was a very large attendance . Sir E . Lechmere , Bart ., M . P ., the R . W . P . G . M ., presided . From the abstract of accounts of the lodge it apoeared that during the year £ 92 had been
received on benevolent fund account , and £ 37 ns . 9 d ., on general fund account , and after various payments out of each account there were balances in hand of £ 58 19 s . 5 d . and £ 16 7 s . 66 . respectively . The accounts were passed . A report was received on the state of Masonry in the province , and reports were read from the Benevolent and Charity Committees . The R . W . P . G . M ., on behalf of the lodge , presented the Charity jewel to Bros . J .
E . Stone and J . W . C . Chadwick , 377 ; H . Rowe , 280 ; T . F . Bland , 564 ; and H . Wilson , 1204 , they having served as Stewards at two of the Charity festivals . The following were appointed Provincial Grand Officers and invested by the R . W . Prov . Grand Master :
Bro . G . W . Grosvenor , Kidderminster ... ... Prov . G . S . W . „ VV . B . Williamson , Mayor of Worcester ... Prov . G . J . W . „ A . Brown , Malvern ... ... ... Prov . G . Treas . „ H . Wilson , Malvern ... ... ... Prov . G . Reg . „ G . Taylor , Kidderminster ... ... Prov . G . Sec . „ Rev . C . Black , Malvern ... ... ... Prov . G . Chap .
„ Rev . H . Sayers , Tenbiiry ... ... ... Prov . G . A . Chap . „ I . Foley , Stourbridge ... ... ... Prov . G . S . D . „ J . E . Stone , Kidderminster ... ... Prov . G . J . D . „ H . Rowe , Worcester ... ... ... Prov . G . S . of W . „ A . Comber , Kidderminster ... ... Prov . G . D . C .
„ W . Waldron , Worcester ... ... ... Prov . G . A . D . C . „ H . G . Budd , Worcester ... ... ... Prov . G . Std . Br . „ G . Bagott , Worcester ... ... ... Prov . G . Std . Br . „ T . Vale , Halesowen ... ... ... Prov . G . Swd . Br . „ W . Haynes , Malvern ... ... ... Prov . G . Org . . . E . A . Hicks ... ... ... ... Prov . G . Purst .
„ R . Eager , Stourbridge ... ... ... Prov . G . A . Purst . „ A . J . Beauchamp , 280 ... ... ... ~ J ,, R . C S . Carrington , 280 ... ... ... j " A * n r ? a'e' « l-Prov . G . Stwds . „ A . B . Rowe , 280 ... ... ... 1 „ W . B . Hulme , 280
„ J . V . Stallard , 280 ... ... ... J „ J . Smith , Worcester ... ... ... Prov . G . Tyler . Bros . J . W . C . Chadwick , J . Jordan , and F . Underwood were appointed members of the Benevolent Committee . Bro . G . Taylor , Prov . G . Sec , was re-appointed Secretary to the Charity Committee . Kidderminster was fixed upon as the place for holding : the next Provincial Grand Lodge .
At the close of the business of Grand Lodge , at 2 . 45 , the members attended a special service in the Cathedral , marching thence in procession from the CoV . ege Hall , and occupying seats in the choir , where the service was conducted . There was a numerous attendance of the public . The Dean of YORK , Past Grand Chaplain of England , preachexl from Acts x . 35 : " In every nation he that feareth Him and worketh righteousness is accepted of Him . "
He remarked that these words portended an acknowledgment of God's recognition of those who had grasped , or were seeking to cultivate , simple truths which were the initial elements which must underlie all religion . Such commendable but Utopian generalities as those in the text were not the sum of the religion which the preacher of the Gospel of the Crucified was to preach . They could only be attained by it . Without it they were hut a dream , a theory . They were but the utterance of the voice of the natural man . Perhaps the token of the Spirit brooding within on the unresting troubled
chaos of the soul , of the God implanted feeling which would over pervade all reasoning humanity and intelligent beings , that there must be a great first cause Which was to be feared , and that there must be eternal laws of purity and order Which were to be cultivated for peace on earth . What was their Craft but the utterance of this primaeval universal voice ?—an utterance which had been sounding through all the ages , and was sounding still . Theirs was no creed to supplant or supplement Christianity . It exDressed , thev believed , the conviction of the human heart long before
the Sun of Righteousness arose to dispel the dark clouds of human ignorance and the thick mist of superstition . Unless these traditions were utterly imaginary and fictitious , they believed their Craft expressed the voice referred to , as it were , of one crying in the wilderness for light , sympathy , order , power , shaping its ideal by some graphic analogy which seemed to express most adequately what it had at heart . Their ideal was surely a commendable one , which God accepted and man should therefore acknowledge and honour ? To fear God and work righteousness was the " raison d etre and aim of the earnest who had felt
Craft . They but represented many generations of thoughtful , men the same . It was surely nothing , irreverent nor incongruous that men should perceive in their simple handicraft an analogy of that after which their soul was longing , that in the sure foundation laid , the stones carefully prepared and accurately fitted , and the mutual order and co-operation of the several degrees of Craftsmen essential thereunto , they should see types and expressions of those principles which they felt essential to the peace and stability of daily life , and should adapt them as illustrations and exponents of those principles of faith and order and conduct which th ' ey
would inculcate and practise . If the weapons of warfare became in mediaeval times the epic of chivalry , surely it was not strange if in more ancient days the implements of a peaceful and necessary Craft became the epic of Freemasonry . And was it unreasonable that men should have sought to fence their Order from the prying gaze , officious interference , ridicule , sarcasm , and contempt of those who had neither part nor lot with them in the matter , by signs and tokens , which should not shut in secrets which they were ashamed to acknowledge , but exclude from their community any but those who had given solemn pledges of their sincerity to principles which they would fain preserve untampered with and inviolate ? Look back through the
Provincial Grand Lodge Of Worcestershire.
long vista of past years into the dark ages when the world seemed peopled with a very race of lshmaels , when the foundations of the earth seemed out of course , when violence and lust were , for the most part , simply limited by opportunity and controlled by capacity , when rapine and plunder were the rule rather than the exception ! Should they despise or scorn any of the simple efforts of those who strove , according to their lights and opportunities , to mitigate the trials or provide for the needs of men in those dark and troublous times ? Was it a condemnation that all their membeis had not
always grasped this high idea?—that their fellowship had been abused and made occasions merely for social conviviality and even of excess , and that in other lands- never in our own—privy councils of the Order had provided opportunities for plots and conspiracies ? What body of men were free from mixed motives ? What flock ( not excepting the flock of the Great Shepherd himself ) was altogether without black sheep ? That they did not profess a form of godliness , while they denied the power thereof , was manifest from their deeds as well as words—their schools for the young , refuge for the aged ,
their seasonable and substantial help in almost innumerable cases of distress . That their gatherings were conducted in harmony with religion was manifest from the number of clergymen amongst them ; that they were compatible with true loyalty from the fact that the Heir Apparent was their Grand Master , and members of his family were their brethren too . If they still sought to ensure that none but those who were at one with them should be members of their Order , was there any cause for blame that they were endeavouring by the maintenance of the ancient customs of their predecessors to secure
for themselves what other communities were endeavouring in their own particular ways to secure ? It might be urged that what their predecessors proposed to seek had been found , what they essayed to provide had been long ago established , and that therefore for all practical purposes in these practical days their Craft would be swept away as something which had served its purpose and was effete . He ventured , on the contrary , to submit that such a community as theirs , with its high object , long history , and grand traditions , was as much , if not more than ever , needed . This was an age of civilisation
and light and knowledge . But was it not an age also which , in its specious self-sufficiency was spurning the old principles for which their fathers laboured , aye bled and died , and pressing on in quest of new and vague theories which were to supersede these dry and played-out superstitions and conventionalities , and to be the religious and political creed of the future ? When the recognition of a God was being swept away from our Legislature ; when the voice of the Throne no longer exhorted at each assize the people to morality and purity ; when " national education '' was becoming more and
more mere secular instruction ; when an invertebrate and jelly-fish agnosticism was paraded as the panacea for all the differences concerning the faith ; when the infinite incomprehensible mysteries of Heaven were to be subjected by finite minds to a captious positivism j when things secular and sacred were being separated as by an impassable gulf , and when the wise men of the day met in Congress , the very mention of the name and existence of a God was hushed as at variance with scientific inquiry ; when a pseudo-liberality was clamouring that the Church should
be disestablished , and that the last traces of any national acknowledgment of God should be blotted out—was _ it a time to disparage those who at least put the Being and attributes of God in the forefront of their society , and never met without His name and attributes being frequently and reverently uttered . When morality was depreciated , and the newspapers day by day contained the unsavoury records of impurity , dishonesty , and vice ; when order was divided and submission to anything or anybody was coming to be disregarded as antagonistic to freedom and
intelligence , —was it a time to set at nought that which still , as throughout many generations , set forth the beauty , power , and liberty of discipline , obedience , and subordination ? In days when the storms of political and religious controversy wero piping so londly that those who were actuated by the same motives and had the same ends in view were sundered wide as the poles , and regarded each other as heathen or publicans , or turned aside disgusted to deem religion and patriotism alike to be shams ; when distinctions of social rank and position must make many strangers to each other
who were one in heart and hope , was | it not merely something to find one place where these considerations did not enter , a neutral ground where , without any unreality or compromise , man met his fellow man and learned to know him apart from any differences or inequalities which would and must prevail without ; and thus to cultivate that feeling of mutual kindness and respect which , if they did not prevent , should at least leaven and soften any differences in the outside world for the future . Was this the age for
disbanding or disparaging such a community as their Craft ? Surely the temper of the times called for something exactly opposite . From those not of them the Craft demanded respect . From those who were its members it required that they should be more than ever circumspect in their lives and conversations ; more than ever careful to proclaim and promote the principles which their fathers through many generations had tried and proved .
During the offertory , which was applied in aid of the Worcester O phthalmic Hospital and the Worcester Society for Providing Literatuie lor the Blind Poor , the hymn " Lord of Glory " ( 367 A . and M . ) was sung , and as the procession left the Cathedral for the College Hall , Mr . Done played , as the concluding voluntary , the overture to "Saul , " of which Bro . W . Haynes is also the author . On the arrival of the procession at the College Hall Grand Lodge was closed . In the evening a banquet took place at the Guildhall , which was attended by M asons from all parts of the country . Sir E . Lechmere , M . P ., presided .
Review.
REVIEW .
ORIGIN OF THE ENGLISH RITE OF FREEMASONRYEspecially in relation to the Royal Arch Degree . By Bro . VV . J . HUGHAN . London : George Kenning , 16 , Great Queen-street . FIRST NOTICE . We owe no apology to our readers for calling attention to the latest work of our well-known and able Bro . W . J . Hughan . We have no doubt that this new book will be much sought alter and carefully studied , and we sincerel y thank the author lor it as a most
valuable , and interesting , and lucid contribution towards the study and realization of the true history of Royal Arch Masonry . For some reason or other , thathistory is somewhat in haze and confusion , and , until recent yt ars , the interest ot our body in Royal Arch Freemasonry was not commensurate with that given to Craft Masonry , nor with the importance , and value , and importance , and antiquity of the Grade . Bro . Hughan ' s thoughtful and
effective work comes opportunely to draw our attention to , and fix our thoughts on , the evidences affecting the history , progress , and quality of the Royal Arch . To us Anglo-Saxon Freemasons such contributions are most valuable , as it is practically in Anglo-Saxon Freemasonry alone that the true position is given to Royal Arch Masonry , or by it that it- , in iatc excellency is acknowledged . Abroad it is hardly known , and , unwis . l y ,
undervalued . And therelore for this purely English Gradi-, ol home origin and manufacture , ( in no invidious sense ) , utterly unlike and different Irom any professed foreign original , —which , in truth , does not i-xist—* e claim today , as Bro . Hughan very fitl y does , the grave consideration of Masonic students , and the thoughtful perusal of Masonic archaeologists , when so well known a writer puts forward a distinct and important work or its
origin and annals . Bro . Hughan's treatise naturally divides itself into two great heads , —the orig in of Degrees , and the history of the Royal Arch itself . Our esteemed Bro . Hughan knows , from long correspondence , that we ourselves do not accept the Monograde theory , which is , to us , surrounded by peculiar and insuperable difficulties . We are quite ready to
admit that the present arrangement and terminology as adopted and adapted from the old Guild ceremonies , may perhaps be not actually earlier than the Revival in 1717 , —but we are ol opinion , that the three grades existed in the seventeenth century , though the arguments are too long to be entered on here , and that peculiar ceremonies and distinctive
Note: This text has been automatically extracted via Optical Character Recognition (OCR) software.
United Grand Lodge.
Lodge having the election of Grand Treasurer , the election would be in the hands of the Board of General Purposes . Another Brother explained that the last brother entirely misapprehended the purport of the motion . It was only to simplify the method of election , which would still be by Grand Lodge . The Board of General Purposes would have nothing to do with it .
Bro . HOGARD said if his motion was carried , paragraph 19 of the Book of Constitutions would read , "The Grand Treasurer shall be nominated at the Grand Lodge in December , and be elected at the Grand Lodge in March , in the same manner as the elected members of the Board of
General Purposes . " The confusion at the election last March was so great that the Deputy Grand Master had to deviate from the Book of Constitutions , as it was found impossible to tell with exactitude the members who voted . The motion was put and carried , and Grand Lodge was closed in form .
Provincial Grand Lodge Of Worcestershire.
PROVINCIAL GRAND LODGE OF WORCESTERSHIRE .
The annual meeting of the above Provincial Grand Lodge was held on Thursday , the 28 th ult ., at the College Hall , Worcester , by the permission of the Dean ( Lord A . Compton ) . There was a very large attendance . Sir E . Lechmere , Bart ., M . P ., the R . W . P . G . M ., presided . From the abstract of accounts of the lodge it apoeared that during the year £ 92 had been
received on benevolent fund account , and £ 37 ns . 9 d ., on general fund account , and after various payments out of each account there were balances in hand of £ 58 19 s . 5 d . and £ 16 7 s . 66 . respectively . The accounts were passed . A report was received on the state of Masonry in the province , and reports were read from the Benevolent and Charity Committees . The R . W . P . G . M ., on behalf of the lodge , presented the Charity jewel to Bros . J .
E . Stone and J . W . C . Chadwick , 377 ; H . Rowe , 280 ; T . F . Bland , 564 ; and H . Wilson , 1204 , they having served as Stewards at two of the Charity festivals . The following were appointed Provincial Grand Officers and invested by the R . W . Prov . Grand Master :
Bro . G . W . Grosvenor , Kidderminster ... ... Prov . G . S . W . „ VV . B . Williamson , Mayor of Worcester ... Prov . G . J . W . „ A . Brown , Malvern ... ... ... Prov . G . Treas . „ H . Wilson , Malvern ... ... ... Prov . G . Reg . „ G . Taylor , Kidderminster ... ... Prov . G . Sec . „ Rev . C . Black , Malvern ... ... ... Prov . G . Chap .
„ Rev . H . Sayers , Tenbiiry ... ... ... Prov . G . A . Chap . „ I . Foley , Stourbridge ... ... ... Prov . G . S . D . „ J . E . Stone , Kidderminster ... ... Prov . G . J . D . „ H . Rowe , Worcester ... ... ... Prov . G . S . of W . „ A . Comber , Kidderminster ... ... Prov . G . D . C .
„ W . Waldron , Worcester ... ... ... Prov . G . A . D . C . „ H . G . Budd , Worcester ... ... ... Prov . G . Std . Br . „ G . Bagott , Worcester ... ... ... Prov . G . Std . Br . „ T . Vale , Halesowen ... ... ... Prov . G . Swd . Br . „ W . Haynes , Malvern ... ... ... Prov . G . Org . . . E . A . Hicks ... ... ... ... Prov . G . Purst .
„ R . Eager , Stourbridge ... ... ... Prov . G . A . Purst . „ A . J . Beauchamp , 280 ... ... ... ~ J ,, R . C S . Carrington , 280 ... ... ... j " A * n r ? a'e' « l-Prov . G . Stwds . „ A . B . Rowe , 280 ... ... ... 1 „ W . B . Hulme , 280
„ J . V . Stallard , 280 ... ... ... J „ J . Smith , Worcester ... ... ... Prov . G . Tyler . Bros . J . W . C . Chadwick , J . Jordan , and F . Underwood were appointed members of the Benevolent Committee . Bro . G . Taylor , Prov . G . Sec , was re-appointed Secretary to the Charity Committee . Kidderminster was fixed upon as the place for holding : the next Provincial Grand Lodge .
At the close of the business of Grand Lodge , at 2 . 45 , the members attended a special service in the Cathedral , marching thence in procession from the CoV . ege Hall , and occupying seats in the choir , where the service was conducted . There was a numerous attendance of the public . The Dean of YORK , Past Grand Chaplain of England , preachexl from Acts x . 35 : " In every nation he that feareth Him and worketh righteousness is accepted of Him . "
He remarked that these words portended an acknowledgment of God's recognition of those who had grasped , or were seeking to cultivate , simple truths which were the initial elements which must underlie all religion . Such commendable but Utopian generalities as those in the text were not the sum of the religion which the preacher of the Gospel of the Crucified was to preach . They could only be attained by it . Without it they were hut a dream , a theory . They were but the utterance of the voice of the natural man . Perhaps the token of the Spirit brooding within on the unresting troubled
chaos of the soul , of the God implanted feeling which would over pervade all reasoning humanity and intelligent beings , that there must be a great first cause Which was to be feared , and that there must be eternal laws of purity and order Which were to be cultivated for peace on earth . What was their Craft but the utterance of this primaeval universal voice ?—an utterance which had been sounding through all the ages , and was sounding still . Theirs was no creed to supplant or supplement Christianity . It exDressed , thev believed , the conviction of the human heart long before
the Sun of Righteousness arose to dispel the dark clouds of human ignorance and the thick mist of superstition . Unless these traditions were utterly imaginary and fictitious , they believed their Craft expressed the voice referred to , as it were , of one crying in the wilderness for light , sympathy , order , power , shaping its ideal by some graphic analogy which seemed to express most adequately what it had at heart . Their ideal was surely a commendable one , which God accepted and man should therefore acknowledge and honour ? To fear God and work righteousness was the " raison d etre and aim of the earnest who had felt
Craft . They but represented many generations of thoughtful , men the same . It was surely nothing , irreverent nor incongruous that men should perceive in their simple handicraft an analogy of that after which their soul was longing , that in the sure foundation laid , the stones carefully prepared and accurately fitted , and the mutual order and co-operation of the several degrees of Craftsmen essential thereunto , they should see types and expressions of those principles which they felt essential to the peace and stability of daily life , and should adapt them as illustrations and exponents of those principles of faith and order and conduct which th ' ey
would inculcate and practise . If the weapons of warfare became in mediaeval times the epic of chivalry , surely it was not strange if in more ancient days the implements of a peaceful and necessary Craft became the epic of Freemasonry . And was it unreasonable that men should have sought to fence their Order from the prying gaze , officious interference , ridicule , sarcasm , and contempt of those who had neither part nor lot with them in the matter , by signs and tokens , which should not shut in secrets which they were ashamed to acknowledge , but exclude from their community any but those who had given solemn pledges of their sincerity to principles which they would fain preserve untampered with and inviolate ? Look back through the
Provincial Grand Lodge Of Worcestershire.
long vista of past years into the dark ages when the world seemed peopled with a very race of lshmaels , when the foundations of the earth seemed out of course , when violence and lust were , for the most part , simply limited by opportunity and controlled by capacity , when rapine and plunder were the rule rather than the exception ! Should they despise or scorn any of the simple efforts of those who strove , according to their lights and opportunities , to mitigate the trials or provide for the needs of men in those dark and troublous times ? Was it a condemnation that all their membeis had not
always grasped this high idea?—that their fellowship had been abused and made occasions merely for social conviviality and even of excess , and that in other lands- never in our own—privy councils of the Order had provided opportunities for plots and conspiracies ? What body of men were free from mixed motives ? What flock ( not excepting the flock of the Great Shepherd himself ) was altogether without black sheep ? That they did not profess a form of godliness , while they denied the power thereof , was manifest from their deeds as well as words—their schools for the young , refuge for the aged ,
their seasonable and substantial help in almost innumerable cases of distress . That their gatherings were conducted in harmony with religion was manifest from the number of clergymen amongst them ; that they were compatible with true loyalty from the fact that the Heir Apparent was their Grand Master , and members of his family were their brethren too . If they still sought to ensure that none but those who were at one with them should be members of their Order , was there any cause for blame that they were endeavouring by the maintenance of the ancient customs of their predecessors to secure
for themselves what other communities were endeavouring in their own particular ways to secure ? It might be urged that what their predecessors proposed to seek had been found , what they essayed to provide had been long ago established , and that therefore for all practical purposes in these practical days their Craft would be swept away as something which had served its purpose and was effete . He ventured , on the contrary , to submit that such a community as theirs , with its high object , long history , and grand traditions , was as much , if not more than ever , needed . This was an age of civilisation
and light and knowledge . But was it not an age also which , in its specious self-sufficiency was spurning the old principles for which their fathers laboured , aye bled and died , and pressing on in quest of new and vague theories which were to supersede these dry and played-out superstitions and conventionalities , and to be the religious and political creed of the future ? When the recognition of a God was being swept away from our Legislature ; when the voice of the Throne no longer exhorted at each assize the people to morality and purity ; when " national education '' was becoming more and
more mere secular instruction ; when an invertebrate and jelly-fish agnosticism was paraded as the panacea for all the differences concerning the faith ; when the infinite incomprehensible mysteries of Heaven were to be subjected by finite minds to a captious positivism j when things secular and sacred were being separated as by an impassable gulf , and when the wise men of the day met in Congress , the very mention of the name and existence of a God was hushed as at variance with scientific inquiry ; when a pseudo-liberality was clamouring that the Church should
be disestablished , and that the last traces of any national acknowledgment of God should be blotted out—was _ it a time to disparage those who at least put the Being and attributes of God in the forefront of their society , and never met without His name and attributes being frequently and reverently uttered . When morality was depreciated , and the newspapers day by day contained the unsavoury records of impurity , dishonesty , and vice ; when order was divided and submission to anything or anybody was coming to be disregarded as antagonistic to freedom and
intelligence , —was it a time to set at nought that which still , as throughout many generations , set forth the beauty , power , and liberty of discipline , obedience , and subordination ? In days when the storms of political and religious controversy wero piping so londly that those who were actuated by the same motives and had the same ends in view were sundered wide as the poles , and regarded each other as heathen or publicans , or turned aside disgusted to deem religion and patriotism alike to be shams ; when distinctions of social rank and position must make many strangers to each other
who were one in heart and hope , was | it not merely something to find one place where these considerations did not enter , a neutral ground where , without any unreality or compromise , man met his fellow man and learned to know him apart from any differences or inequalities which would and must prevail without ; and thus to cultivate that feeling of mutual kindness and respect which , if they did not prevent , should at least leaven and soften any differences in the outside world for the future . Was this the age for
disbanding or disparaging such a community as their Craft ? Surely the temper of the times called for something exactly opposite . From those not of them the Craft demanded respect . From those who were its members it required that they should be more than ever circumspect in their lives and conversations ; more than ever careful to proclaim and promote the principles which their fathers through many generations had tried and proved .
During the offertory , which was applied in aid of the Worcester O phthalmic Hospital and the Worcester Society for Providing Literatuie lor the Blind Poor , the hymn " Lord of Glory " ( 367 A . and M . ) was sung , and as the procession left the Cathedral for the College Hall , Mr . Done played , as the concluding voluntary , the overture to "Saul , " of which Bro . W . Haynes is also the author . On the arrival of the procession at the College Hall Grand Lodge was closed . In the evening a banquet took place at the Guildhall , which was attended by M asons from all parts of the country . Sir E . Lechmere , M . P ., presided .
Review.
REVIEW .
ORIGIN OF THE ENGLISH RITE OF FREEMASONRYEspecially in relation to the Royal Arch Degree . By Bro . VV . J . HUGHAN . London : George Kenning , 16 , Great Queen-street . FIRST NOTICE . We owe no apology to our readers for calling attention to the latest work of our well-known and able Bro . W . J . Hughan . We have no doubt that this new book will be much sought alter and carefully studied , and we sincerel y thank the author lor it as a most
valuable , and interesting , and lucid contribution towards the study and realization of the true history of Royal Arch Masonry . For some reason or other , thathistory is somewhat in haze and confusion , and , until recent yt ars , the interest ot our body in Royal Arch Freemasonry was not commensurate with that given to Craft Masonry , nor with the importance , and value , and importance , and antiquity of the Grade . Bro . Hughan ' s thoughtful and
effective work comes opportunely to draw our attention to , and fix our thoughts on , the evidences affecting the history , progress , and quality of the Royal Arch . To us Anglo-Saxon Freemasons such contributions are most valuable , as it is practically in Anglo-Saxon Freemasonry alone that the true position is given to Royal Arch Masonry , or by it that it- , in iatc excellency is acknowledged . Abroad it is hardly known , and , unwis . l y ,
undervalued . And therelore for this purely English Gradi-, ol home origin and manufacture , ( in no invidious sense ) , utterly unlike and different Irom any professed foreign original , —which , in truth , does not i-xist—* e claim today , as Bro . Hughan very fitl y does , the grave consideration of Masonic students , and the thoughtful perusal of Masonic archaeologists , when so well known a writer puts forward a distinct and important work or its
origin and annals . Bro . Hughan's treatise naturally divides itself into two great heads , —the orig in of Degrees , and the history of the Royal Arch itself . Our esteemed Bro . Hughan knows , from long correspondence , that we ourselves do not accept the Monograde theory , which is , to us , surrounded by peculiar and insuperable difficulties . We are quite ready to
admit that the present arrangement and terminology as adopted and adapted from the old Guild ceremonies , may perhaps be not actually earlier than the Revival in 1717 , —but we are ol opinion , that the three grades existed in the seventeenth century , though the arguments are too long to be entered on here , and that peculiar ceremonies and distinctive