Festival Of The Royal Masonic Benevolent Institution.

shire , Essex , Leicestershire and Rutland , and Hants and the Isle of Wight , are also among the more liberal contributors , while West Yorkshire is considerably below its average owing , no doubt , to tho very considerable total it raised ii ! the course of last year . We note likewise that several o !

the Provinces adopted this time the plan of being represented by a single Steward , such as Somersetshire , Leices tershire and Rutland , Bristol , Wilts , and Staffordshire , while Suffolk appears to have entrusted the bulk of its work to ono brother . We should imnirino this must have

the effect of lessening the labours of Bro . Terry and his staff . Among the unrepresented Provinces the most conspicuous , perhaps , is that of Lincolnshire , which has not sent up a Steward for some time past ; yet it has a goodly array of Lodges and , we should imagine , not a few brethren

who might find leisure to go about canvassing for subscriptions . As for Bedfordshire , though it has no Provincial organisation , it musters five Lodges , and it is not unreasonable to expect these will occasionally figure in the lists , like the Lodges which meet in other counties . Bros . Binckes

and Terry have tried their hands at a good many things , and have succeeded ; let them see what , can be done in the case of Bedfordshire . If it is only the opportunity of being canvassed that is wanting , we have no doubt that one or

the other of these energetic brethren will supply the want . An occasional £ 50 or £ 100 from this district would be very acceptable , aud , what is of greater consequence to the brethren , would redound greatly to their credit .

Our duty would be only very imperfectly discharged if we did not pay a tribute of respect to the brother who so generously undertook the dnties of Chairman when all Bro . Terry's previous efforts to secure one had proved unsuccessful . We have more than once said that it is no

light task to preside at one of these festive gatherings , and the credit due to Bro . Allcroft is in no wise diminished because at the last moment he found himself physically incapacitated from occupying the post of honour . He was present in spirit , if not in the flesh , and his own personal

contribution suited well with the liberality so generally shown by the Stewards and their supporters . In fact , Bro . Allcroft ' s year , as we are justified in calling it , stands first , as regards the amount of its subscription list , among Benevolent Anniversaries , and it will need a good deal of hard canvassing to deprive it of this honour .

There remains to us one source of satisfaction , to which as yet we have had no space to give expression . There is an exceptionally heavy list of candidates for the next election , especially in respect of the Widows' Fund , and the largeness of the total that has been received will no

doubt be held to justify the executive in creating some additional vacancies . Our Teaders are probably aware that it has already been determined to take on ten more widows , but the resolution was adopted before the Festival had been held , and when the belief was pretty generally prevalent

that the result would be less instead of greater than it was last year . Perhaps it may be found possible to make the addition even larger still , so that the number of the disappointed , who will have to wait for another election , may be somewhat less formidable . However , there is

time between now and the third Friday in May for an important question of this character to be discussed , and it is possible we may find occasion to offer a few remarks on it in future issues . Certain it is that the expenditure of another

£ 100 or £ 200 will scarcely be felt with an addition of over £ 14 , 000 to the Funds of the Institution , and it is to be hoped that the number of candidates will not always continue to be so numerous . The following lists have since been received by Bro . Terry : —

. LONDON . Unattached : Bro . Torkingtoa - . . £ 40 0 0 Chapter 3 : Comp . Webb - - - - 13 11 0 „ 749 : Comp . Godwin - - . 22 1 0 PBOVINCES .

Warwickshire ; Lodge No . 938 : Bro . W . B . Marshall . £ 31 10 0 Various additions to previous lists have also been received , which , with the foregoing , raise the total to £ 14 , 476 13 s 6 d .

The Bevised Book of Constitutions ; Critically Considered and Compared with the Old Edition . London : Simpkin , Marshall & Co ., 4 Stationers' Hall Court , E . C . Sent on receipt of stamps . One Shilling , by W . W . Morgan , Freemason ' s Chronicle Office , Belvidere Works , Hermes Hill , Pentonville . 1

The Old And The New.

THE OLD AND THE NEW .

A MID the much care and duty of the present and the new , the old is not forgotten . It is in all our hearts , not dead , but lightly sleeping . When the gaiety is great and beautiful all around us , and the decorations of the morrow are so great that we fear we shall diebeforo wo can come to them , even in such absorbing moments the old will

suddenly appear and tho bright morrow will give place to the thrilling yesterday . Nothing brings such peace as looking back . The mind becomes impatient when it looks forward , because with that outlook comes the hope of possession . We want what we thus see ; but when one looks

hack , this disturbing avarice does not appear . When we look upon all the ages and cycles of old , the thought of owning them does not molest us , and , while asking whence came our globe and where , we want neither fine houses , nor fine clothes nor fine furniture , we can only look down upon the ground or up into the night skies and be silent .

Little indeed is said about salvation by faith and by repentance , and little about the fall of man and about conversion and growth in piety , but all these doctrines which once so thrilled the multitude are in our constant sight , magnificent companions of the idea of creation . Those

now living in the sanctuary may not mean , when they use those old words , what their ancestors meant when they spoke of " faith " and " the fall " and " regeneration , " but no change has come to the substance of these old tenets . As the human dwelling house has passed through many

shapes since Abraham owned a tent and David a house of cedar and Cicero and Osesar homes of brick and marble , but as all through the centuries they have contained the good elements of walls and floors and windows and roofs and doorways , varying in styles and heights and curtains

and all decoration , so the doctrines of the church have seen many changes of surface ; but in intrinsic meaning they have been as immutable as the waters and the rocks . Yon may change the raiment of " faith , " but the truth is immortal .

At times all these old truths have been made themes of daily discourse by the exigences of some period . When Christ came the religion of the Pharisees was overrunning the Jewish Empire . As wild and poisonous vines will take possession of a noble fruit tree , and will year after year

make the tree ' s blossom and leaves and fruit grow less and less , so as to make room everywhere for the luxuriant but sickening verdure of the usurper , so the simple truths of religion are often silently approached and entwined and strangled by creeping plants whose blossoms yield no fruit

and whose leaves are full of poison . Thus the valuable doctrines which had beautifully grown in the times between Moses and Isaiah had at last become entangled with the weeds of Pharisaism , and what had been a garden was becoming a wilderness . This was the crisis which called

into new life the " repentance " of John and the " regeneration " of Jesus , and all that eloquence which overflowed from the sermon on the mount into the Gospels and letters of the Apostles . As all the phases and forms of liberty

were discussed when our colonies were oppressed by taxation , and later , when the slavery in our own nation had become a load upon the public heart , so in the days of primitive Christianity all the grand doctrines of piety came up to undergo a new review and a new enforcement .

The immense task had to be repeated in the sixteenth century , and it was this crying demand that lifted Luther to such a height of power . It was his mission to uncover

the old . The dust of a thousand years was upon it . He exhumed buried statues of great beauty . He found the old streets along which had moved the saints of past ages , and where bad rolled the chariot of his Lord .

But the silence of the present regarding the old doctrines does not argue that they are being strangled by poisonous vines or are being buried in falling dust . We need only conclude that no crisis has come to make those great tenets

rise up again in their divine right . The neglect seems to have resulted from that common habit of man to grow silent over the yesterday , and talkative over only to-day and to-morrow . The real . truth is that man ' s world is too

large for ms mind and soul , and when he attempts to think of some one part of the intellectual universe , he must withdraw from some other field . As his natural eye can survey a circle only a few miles in diameter , so his powers of meditation and appreciation are limited , and when they grasp the themes of the day and hour , they must let fall