The Literature Of Freemasonry.

Lecturer , who used to carry about with Mm a drunken man as " the terrible example " of the evils of intoxication . Our friend of the " monthly " is not under the necessity of aggravating Ms hotel expenses by any such costly expedient . He brings a charge of intellectual " sluggishness " and " inefficiency , " against the Masonic body , and lie is himself the terrible example of the truth of his accusation . What he says , is in effect

this" We , Masons , are sluggish , inert , inefficient in matters intellectual . If you doubt it , LOOK AT ME ! " With the solitary exception of the man of whom we remember to have read in an Eastern story , that he was so modest that lie died of sltaine , Ave cannot call to mind any such instance of modesty as that with which the writer in the " Freemason ' s Monthly" has in Ms OAVU person furnished us . That he

cannot for one moment have intended to include us of the " Mirror" in Ms tremenduous censure is evident from the fact that he ignores our existence altogether . He takes no more notice of us "than if we had never been such , " as the grave-digger saj r s in Shakespeare ' s play . He gives it forth to the world that his own magazine is "the literary organ of the Craft , " " the expositor ot * the Craft" and the Mason ' s " oira

autho-, rised periodical . " In fact , lie claims , to be the sole personification of Masonic literature . L ' etat cest moi is Ids motto , and as he assumes the dignity , it is clear he cannot refuse the responsibility of so exclusive a position . It is really painful to observe how sensible he is of his OAVU shortcomings . " How , " he asks , " docs the Mason regard the literary organ of Ms Craft ? " meaning the " Freemasons Monthly Magazine , " " does it

challenge competition with any periodical , as containing whatever is highest in science , noblest in history , rarest in literature , and latest intelligence ? " —to all of which we reply that it may if it please challenge competition , but that as surely as it does , it will suffer in the conflict . " Does the literature emanating from the Masonic Order , " he again inquires , " prove intellectual advancement to be their study , "—to which we again

take leai r e to reply that if it does not , the greater shame and the more bitter reproach to the " Freemasons Monthly Magazine , " ivhich having had the field of Masonic periodic literature to itself for twenty-one years , and being , as it loves to boast , the Mason ' s " own authorised periodical , " is at the end of that time compelled to point to its oivn deficiencies as tie strongest attestations of the intellectual " sluggishness and inefficiency" of

the Masonic body . So far as we are ourselves concerned , we have experienced from our contemporary , a course of treatment which savours of anything rather than that zeal for " intellectual advancement , " which he here affects to value so highly . Our plan of publication ivas such as could not have interefered with that of any other periodical in existence , at the time of

our first appearance . When the "Masonic Mirror" was started , its proprietors were most distinct and emphatic in the declaration that it was " the hand of good-fellowship , " not the glove of defiance , which they offered to their contemporaries . They put themselves forward not as rivals , but as allies . They invaded no man ' s territory—they removed no man ' s landmark—but , finding that there ivas no ' monthly organ of