The 1st January 1876.

THE 1 ST JANUARY 1876 .

As we gaze thro' months to come Before our eyes the pathless Future reaches ; Expected weal will fructify for some , And some will learn the moral Sorrow teaches ;

To Brethren dear , whose hopes are soaring high , The year beams , as with Gladness * oil anointed ; Others may think the months too loth to fly And linger , disappointed .

But let us commence , at least , With kindly sympathy for every Fellow ; From high to low , alike in work or feast

'Tia Love , Belief and Truth , our lives that mellow . Around us , tho' the raging tide may roar And groan with wrongs our fondest hopes forsaking , Yet still—above the tesselated floor

We see a Glory breaking ! Mark the Symbols of the time—The sacred Lights an op ' ning heav ' n revealing !

Whilst upright flag-staffs plumb each unknown clime , Unwilling Nature ' s secrets all unsealing . A giant change this year may yet record

Of upveil'd Truth supplanting crook d tradition , Evangelists of Science are abroad—God speed them on their mission !

The 1st January 1876.

See the Argo of the age , " Enquiry , " into further realms advancing ! Where Art and Science peaceful conquest wage , There Craftsmen ' s keen and practised eyes are glancing !

See Sion ' s rocks , thro' ages hid from sight , Since Judah ' s daughters left the threshhold weeping , There and where ' er a Truth is bared to light , The Craftsmen watch are keeping !

Each year records a change Of landscape , past which all mankind are marching : The " Promised Land" before us spreads its range , And desert tracks lie bare behind us parching .

One day , our hosts into that land must pour , The Level true on all our ranks descending ; Envy and War will then be known no more Brotherly Love offending .

Then turn with the New Year ! And mark the right of every step before us : With perfect points our entrance should appear

Beneath th' All-Seeing Eye that watches o ' er us ! A sacred symbol we can all discern : Keep to the road ( or quicksands nigh may swamp us ) , In Fellowship and Love , to live and learn BETWEEN THE SQUARE AND COMPASS . Walter Spencer .

Some Objections To Masonry Considered.

SOME OBJECTIONS TO MASONRY CONSIDERED .

IT has more than once occurred to us there has been , on the part of those who have shown themselves the persistent enemies of our Order , not only a great deal of disingennousness , but also a remarkable absence of ingenuity and originality in the charges they have made . We are

continually being told that we are the enemies of all religion , yet the published Constitutions of the Order require of every member , ou joining , a distinct and emphatic declaration of his belief in one Omnipotent , and Omniscient Being . Similarly , it has been argued against

us that we are the enemies of order , yet the Constitutions contain an equally emphatic injunction on all Masons to respect and obey the laws , not only of their own country , but of that also in which they may be momentarily resident . Thus there are Masons in Russia , but they yield an

unhesitating obedience to the Ukase , published by the Emperor Alexander I ., in 1822 , forbidding strictly the holding of Masonic Lodges . These are the principal charges adduced against us , and they are repeated again and again , with a malevolence only equalled by their utter untruth .

Again , we have been told , and the charge was more than once repeated in the course of the year , which ended yesterday , that in seeking the countenance of the hi gh and mighty in the land , we are guilty of an act of flunkeyism .

We enlist the sympathies of kings , princes , and nobles , and invite them to preside over our destinies , not because we feel any great respect for them , but on the principle which animates many a nouveau riche to grovel at the feet of a

Some Objections To Masonry Considered.

lordling , simply because he has a handle to his name . Thus the enthusiasm of English Masons , when the Prince of Wales accepted the Grand Mastership of England , was more than once , and in more than one quarter , described as a gross display of flunkeyism . We cared little , it was

said , about his fitness for the post . We had caught a live prince , heir apparent to the British Crown , and were guilty , accordingly , of any amount of obsequiousness . It was overlooked that three generations of the Prince ' s ancestors had been Masons before him . His great-great-grandfather ,

Frederick Prince of Wales , his great-granduncles of Cumberland and Gloucester , his grandfather and granduncles were Masons , while three members of his family had held the position of Grand Master , the last of them havinodied as recently as 1843 . Thus the Prince had , if we may

be permitted to say so , an hereditary claim , not only to become a member of our Order were he so minded , aud subject to the conditions imposed equally on all candidates , but being so minded , and having fulfilled those conditions , to hold a prominent , and , as it happens , the most prominent

position iu our English section of the Craft . There was no flunkeyism , when once he had entered our ranks , in assigning him , in the first instance , the position he was entitled to , and then in inviting him to be our chief , when he was already patron or chief of nearly every other

Masonic body in the United Kingdom . The charge was a silly one to make , and there are silly people who will believe it because it has been made , but as to this view of the

charge , or to this class of persons , we have nothing farther to say . There might have been some sense in urging that those who first assigned the Mason Princes of the English Royal family a position in the Order , not unworth y of their