Eminent Masons At Home.

golden glory of eventide , to blacken and destroy the peaccfulness of repose , and hasten by its own blackness the blackness of the gathering night . Frederick Binckes was initiated into Freemasonry in the Enoch Lodge ( n ) in December thirty-eight years ago , and passed through the chair five years later , having been exalted the previous year

( 1855 ) in the Mount Sinai Chapter . In 1856 he was elected on the Board of General Purposes , and was a member of the first Building Committee appointed to consider the re-erection of Freemasons ' Hall . In 1 S 60 he filled the chair of the Crescent Lodge ( 788 ) , and has since occupied the same position in the Peace and

Harmony , urand stewards , and Lewis Lodges . In 1862 lie passed the eighteenth degree , Rosicrucian , and that of P . M . W . S . thirtieth

degree , in 1864 . In 1866 he was installed K . T ., and three years later joined the Order of the Red Cross of

Constantino , and in due course filled the chair as Sovereign , and held office as Intendant-General unattached .

From 1862 to June , 1 SS 9 , he occupied the position of Grand Secretary of the Grand Lodge of Mark Master Masons , having acted as Assistant

Grand Secretary for two years previous . He has served many times as Steward at the Festivals of the Charities .

But in 1861 he was elected to the Secretaryship of the Royal Masonic Institution for

Boys , a position he will in all probability vacate at the end of the present year . Perhaps there is no man in the Craft who

has been more feted than Frederick Binckes . When Mr . Blizzard Abbot wrote his " History of the Royal

Masonic Institution for Boys , " in ' 85 , he completed the work with these remarks : —

In fine , if it was Bro . William Burwood who founded the Institution , it is Bro . Binckes who lias made the School , and our hope is that he maybe spared yet many years to confirm and even extend successes , in the achievement of which lie has played so conspicuous a part . He , more than any brother of whom we have read or heard , is entitled to bear on his achievement of arms the proudly-expressive device ' Non omnis moriar , ' and thrice fortunate will our liojs' School be , if , in what we hope and trust will be the far distant futurethe inheritor of Bro . Binckes' and responsibilities shall

, s cares prove to be the possessor of Bro . Binckes ' s energy , ability , and will . " That Frederick Binckes has possessed this " energy , ability , and will , " may perhaps be allowed b y those who are seeking to reward his efforts with a summary dismissal from the post he has for twenty-eight years so successfully filled . But the ways of the

MR . EREDE 1 UCK IilXCKKS .

aid of a bill of indictment drawn with a view to condemnation , instead of a report upon imperfections with the object

of amendment . You can yourself possess no opinions beyond those gathered from a perusal of that terrible Report ,

barren from Dan to Beersheba , without an oasis in the desert . The world of Masonry is asked to forget

twenty - eight years of successful working . It is not to remember the brilliant festivals , nor the services of the eighty-six members of

world get stranger day by day . Masons are mortals , and have all the idiosyncracies of mortal beings ; and generous men will no doubt forgive much of the vituperative outbursts of a certain section of the Craft . But it will be hard for Frederick Binckes to forgive , and it will be impossible for him to forget . Could you but place yourself for one moment in the position of the unfortunate Secretary of the

R . M . Institution for Boys , you would perhaps comment on the absence of judicial fairness in the Report of the inquiry committee . You could not but regret that , if objections were to have been made against the administrations of the institution , they should have been accomplished in an open and judicious manner , without the

the various Committees who have given their time to the welfare of the Institution . It is to have no thought of the large sums of money

which Frederick Binckes has , entirely by his own persuasive energies , weaned from the pockets of the charitable

Brethren . It is to forget the welfare of the boys who have left the Institution to become active members of the

great community outside ; and it is to ignore —if the wish of the minority were takenthe benefits which

Frederick Binckes has undoubtedly secured for the most important of the Masonic

Institutions . These are points which he will press upon you as you sit with him this October nig ht—with Frederick Binckes the man , and not the Mason . He discards for the moment any of the influences Masonry might be supposed to cast upon the situation . He will ask you to point out one instance in his connection with the Institution that can bring down upon him the

condemnation of honest men . He will tell you of the charge of forgery that his brother Masons have brought against him , a charge which he will not , he tells you also , disgrace his Brotherhood by meeting . He points out , and disposes of to your satisfaction , many of the matters which his enemies lay much stress upon , and