Masonic Stories.

of Wales , which has branches all the world over , ancl which is greatly famed for its august secrets , its great charity , and its good dinners . He had heard over and over again round the hospitable table , when cigars were lit ancl " worthy Freemasons all " told tales of foreign travel , striking adventure , or lonely sentiment , or sang the song , or re-echoed the chorus , that the dul y instructed Mason would find Masons almost anywherein the strange

out-of-, the-way places , and that the magic circle begun at home , extended in truth over intervening seas ancl distant continents . Tho owner ruminating all this , determined to put it to proof ; so hoisting out the gig , the crew pulled to the shore , to which a somewhat stately Arab , who seemed to be the chief , had walked swiftly ancl ahead of his band . Tho owner had taken with him some beads and sonic coloured cotton , ancl some gunpowderand some articles of English

, manufacture , and when the bow of the boat ran up on the sand he jumped on shore . Advancing to the chief he made a well-known Masonic sign . What was his delight , kind reader , when he had that sign answered ; yes , answered as distinctly ancl Masonically as if he had been in England , and our good Bro . J ohn Hervey was consecrating , as of old , a new lodge , or any one of us was being raised to the sublime degree of a Master Mason . The dullest reader of Bro .

'Kenning ' s magazine , though such a person does not , I feel , exist , ancl cannot possibly exist , need hardly be told what the " denouement " was . All the time the encampment lasted until the good yacht got under weigh again , did the attention of that good Arab Mason continue , and most unwilling was he to receive any return for his most fraternal aid . I believe the story to be true as I have told it , at any rate in its actual occurrence and main incidents , and chief attraction for Masonry , though I may have " touched up" after a lapse

, of years , the accessories and the episode itself . I heard it many years ago in the Mediterranean , and a story very like this , perhaps the real and original one , after all , appeared many years ago in our then Freemasons' Magazine . But as a "labella exoleta rodeviva , " "true sir , true , " however in its great fact and graver reality , I now commend it with all fraternal good feeling to all Masons who , happily for themselves will sometimes peruse Masonic literature .

If any young man , sceptical or sybaritic , should ask , as they do ask , " what ' s the good of it all , " all I can say is , that my young enquirer must get some one to propose him , and vouch , above all , for his respectability , morality , sobriety , and common sense in the good Lodge Affability , 4140 , ancl he will then understand what 1 cannot now offer to explain , or about which I dare not now profess to be a " mystagogos . " Yes , he will , above all , realize that though he may be very knowing at bets , billiards , Nevnnarket , or nips , there are yet sonic things in this world of ours " not dreamt of in his philosophy . "

A Sorcerer Of The Eighteenth Century.

A SORCERER OF THE EIGHTEENTH CENTURY .

npOWARDS the close of the last century a traveller , modest in his appearance ¦ * - ancl in his baggage , alighted at the principal tavern of Wurtzburg , a small city of Germany , and asked for a room in a remote part of the building ) where nobody could disturb him . This alone would have been enough to excite curiosity , but everything about this man was so strange ancl so mysterious that all were struck bit from the moment he entered the house .

y At first there might be discovered , notwithstanding the simplicity of his dress something that betrayed the man of distinction . Although not a youth , he wore his hair long , like the students of the University , and his pale aud melancholy visage wore , even when he smiled , a sombre cast . The next day after his arrival , instead of asking his hostess , as all other travellers did , cither