Municipal Freemasonry.

admitted tbe Freemasons they would be bound also to allow the Oddfellows , Foresters , and kindred societies the same privilege . The Mayor supported the adoption of the report , aud was proceeding to give his reasons for doing so , when Alderman Starkey said : I think it is a question whether you are in order ,

Mr . Mayor , as you are a Mason . The Mayor : I may aay it is quite immaterial , but I am sorry this little animosity against Freemasonry should arise . Alderman Starkey : I musfc object to that remark ; it is not animosity . Alderman Hare : There haa been animosity , and you yourself have made remarks about it .

Alderman Starkey : I do say that there has been too much Freemasonry here on certain occasions . Alderman Hare : There has been no introduction of Freemasonry into public business . You have no right to say such a thing . Prove it ! The Mayor said his only object in desiring to let the rooms was to add to the revenue from the Castle . The rooms would be used only nine

times in the year , and mainly in the winter months , when there would be few visitors . At the last municipal election a candidate , who happened to be a Mason , was defeated mainly because the electors had been stirred up against Freemasonry on the Council . Eventually fche minute was rejected . — " Birmingham Daily Gazette . "

Foreign Freemasonry.

FOREIGN FREEMASONRY .

THE Pope has been visited by a French Catholic of distinction and His Holy Eminence has unconsciously made one more pronouncement iu favour of liberty of conscience and opinion . Incidentally , he made more than one admission , bufc , as often happens , the open and intentional statement was of less value than that for which we have to seek . For instance , ' the Pope

sees no harm in a Republic . His predecessors saw deadly harm there , and did not hesitate to say so , or to curse with very heavy emphasis the men who substituted that form of Government for Monarchy . But as Galileo said of the world , " il semuove , " and even Popes must move with ifc . His eminence can tolerate a

Republic , and can , in fact , " conceive nothing grander than a powerful and really Christian" Government of that form , but he remains convinced that neither Italy nor France can fully prosper until fchey have freed themselves of the evil of Freemasonry . And thereby hangs a lesson .

Freemasonry , as it exists in England and in other free countries , has two purposes . It studies to promote friendship and good fellowship , and on that side of it it is neither more nor less than a vast club , every branch of which is closely affiliated

to every other branch throughout the world . Here its aims are merely social . On its more serious side it is one of the most valuable of philanthropic agencies , and it does a quite incalculable amount of good in the way of charity . It founds orphanages and maintains them . It sustains almshouses without number . It

succours distress in a thousand ways which are never made manifest to the outer world . Thafc ifc is not at war against thrones and dominations is made evident by the fact that in England princes of the blood royal are among its most honoured officers . That it is not inimical to religion is proved by the

existence within its borders of many of the most illustrious of those who make the propagation of the Christian faith the business of their lives . The secrets of the Craft are known , and have long been known , to politicians of all parties , to thinkers of

every grade , to controversialists of every colour of opinion . Thafc its hidden ceremonial and meaning are , to say the very least of them , entirely harmless to good government and religious belief is so very obvious that it would be almost absurd to argue to that effect .

At the time when the architectural expression of faith had its greatest value in Europe , and more especially in Germany , the knowledge of the Masonic signs and passwords was beyond doubt shared by Prelates aud Princes of the Catholic Church , some of whom were amongst the designers aud executants of

those majestic edifices which dignify and make beautiful a thousand centres of religious life . But when the Craft of Masonry , as then understood , drifted gradually into its modern form , when it ceased to be associated with the building of cathedrals , or fche erection of sacred shrines , the clergy nofc merely

ceased to take a friendly interest in it , but to perceive in it a something inimical to their own pretensions . And so it has gradually come about that a suspected society has grown to be worthy of suspicion . In England Freemasonry is known not merely to be harmless but practically benevolent , and being so regarded it includes within its ranks men of such varied

professions and beliefs that any combination except for ends entirely beneficent is impossible and undreamed of . In France and Italy the clerical suspicion has created the very bugbear of which it was afraid , and in both countries a Freemason is a freethinker , and is in enmity with the Church because the Church will have it so . And here is the head of the great Catholic Church , wise in the affairs of the world , and approaching the end

Foreign Freemasonry.

of a life which has been already lengthened beyond the common span , still preaching that doctrine of enmity which is in itself the creator of enmity , and by his very defiance and suspicion helping to perpetuate the warfare he deprecates . Of course , no real

friend of L'berty would have ib otherwise . The rescript of tbe intellectual tyrant is the charter of freedom . The Papal refusal of recognition to Continental Freemasonry is the very thing to make Freemasonry on the Continent the enemy of thafc spiritual domination which would fain enslave it .

The lesson is twofold afc the least . Entire freedom has not merely left a secret society in our own midst harmless , bufc has permitted it to develop on natural lines into an association of active benevolence , for the existence of which thousands have daily reason to be thankful . The same society , formed with the

same harmless and benevolent initial objects , is forced by suppression and suspicion into conflict with the suspecting and oppressive force . The Pope has no more chance of putting an end to Freemasonry than he has of arresting the earth in its orbit , because he and the Church of which he is the head have

themselves endowed it wifch fighting powers , and have converted a social into a warlike movement . It is but an eddy in the great tide of rising freedom the wide world over , but it has its own significance , and is worth looking afc if bub for a moment only . — David Christie Murray , in " Morning Herald . "

The following anecdote is told by the Eev . Thos . McNamara , one of the band of the Catholic Missionary Union in the United States , in the current number of the " Missionary . " Father McNamara in the course of a missionary tour , was preaching in and about Scranton , on the Gulf of Mexico : In Scranbon ( he says )

the Freemasons are very strong , and they had succeeded in making people there believe that Freemasonry owed its origin fco Solomon , " fche wisest man who ever lived . " One night I received this question ; " Is it nofc a proof that the Catholic Church wishes to keep her children ignorant when she forbids them to

join that grand organisation , Freemasonry , instituted by the wisest and best man bhab ever lived , King Solomon ? " I traced their origin , and quoted Protestant authorities , showing how fche organisation obtained its name , and that it was but a child of the seventeenth century of the Christian era . " Finally , " I said ,

" let us see wbo this wise and virtuous man , King Soloman , was , anyway . " I opened fche Protestant edition of the Bible at the llth chapter of fche First Book of Kings , and read how Solomon had seven hundred wives and three hundred concubines , and then merely remarked that if the Freemasons wished to take him as

their founder and patron saint we Catholics had no objection . Two days afterwards a Protestant young gentleman and Freemason met Father Ten-Brinck , Scranton ' s devoted pastor , aud said : " Father , the young lady to whom I am engaged

accompanied me to your church the night before last , and on our way home from the church she gave me to distinctly understand that I had my choice between her and Freemasonry ; and let me bell you that I do not intend to give her up . I am astonished that I was duped so long . "— " Tablet . "

Ib was the Freemasons who first set the example of monster bazaars , by their fete held at Ballsbridge in 1892 , when the enormous profits—nearly £ 22 , 000—were given to the Girls Orphan School , and they had then determined in 1900 , when the public ' s pockets were a bit replenished , to hold a similar affair

in aid of the Boys School . But when the arrangements were commenced with the Eoyal Dublin Society this year they demanded a rent of £ 500 down , or a sum down and a percentage of fche profits . This the Freemasons declare exorbitant , and there has been much bitter wrangling between the two powerful

bodies , to the extent that the Freemasons now declare the bazaar ' off , ' though at the most it is not a matter of £ 300 between them —a trifle , one would think , in view of their past profits . But a little bird whispers that many influential Masons are beartily glad to have a valid excuse fco get out of the bazaar , and will subscribe

a large amount toward the School to make up for it . Many of the richer tradesmen in Ireland are Masons , and the tax of bazaars ou shopkeepers in Dublin has become unbearable . A tradesman cannot ri .-k offending his best customers , who come fco him and ask for articles in the name of charity , and the custom has almost

amounted to blackmail in some cases , while fche bazaar itself means the dislocation of trade among the shopkeepers for a week at least . Then many mothers have quite decided against letting their daughters sell at these fetes , in consequence of the talk that went on in connection with some of them ; while there is hardly

an influential dame in Dublin who is nofc heartily sick of ladies ' committees and their inevitable wrangles . Otherwise , wifch so many Masons members also of the Eoyal Society , matters could easily have been arranged between the two disputant bodies . "" Eileen " ( Dublin ) , in " Modern Society . "