From A Lodge Of The Saints John.

" Conceding , then , that some Christian usages are found among our Craft in our traditions , ought we to stamp them as un-Masonic and expel them ? It has been distinctly put to us by an acute and learned Israelite brother , that as they are offensive to him as an Israelite , we ought to exclude them . If that is a sufficient reason , what will become of our Society ? A Christian may ask that allusion to King Solomon shall be expunged , because he was a Jew ,

another may ask that all allusions to Hiram " be effaced , "because he was a Pagan . The Trinitarian may ask that the Grand Architect of the Universe shall only be addressed in his triune character . .... None have shown that in our rituals an unjust superiority is given to one tolerated sect among us over another . Certainly , the Israelite cannot say that his creed is belittled in any way . In the scale of equality and justice the Christians'

sharenot-, withstanding their superiority of numbers , is small compared to the race of the actual worshippers in the Temple ; and it is hardly a tolerant spirit that begrudges to Christians the consolation of learning that one of their religious worthies was also an eminent Mason The orthodox and the heterodox must meet in the lodge on the same level and learn mutual esteem throua-h eood Masonrv . "

Our learned Brother Mackey says ( American Quarterly Review of Freemasonry , vol . i ., p , 299 ) : " It is the tendency of every predominant religion to pervade , with its influence , all that surrounds it , or is about it , whether religious , political , or social . This arises from a need of the hum __ n heart . To the man deeply imbued with the spirit of his religion there is ah almost unconscious desire to accommodate and adapt all the business and the amusements of life , the labours and the employments of his every-day existence , to the indwelling of his soul . "

The religion of Freemasonry * "is the universal , eternal , immutable religion , such as God planted in the heart of universal humanity . Its ministers are all Masons who comprehend it , and are devoted to it ; its offerings to God are . good works , the sacrifice of the base and disorderly passions , and perpetual efforts to attain to all the moral perfection of which man is capable . "

After All;

AFTER ALL ;

OR , THRICE WON . BY HENRY CALVERT APPLEBY , Son . Librarian of the Eull Literary Club , and Author of " A Queei- Courtship , " " Tlie Fatal Picture , " etc .,

CHAPTER XXIV . "The final goal of ill . "—IN MEMOKIAM . JT was rather a curious idea that a merchant should be obliged to visit hip . premises surreptitiously at night , in order to examine his own books . But this was the case with Robert Phane ; he wished to be perfectly certain of ¦ his painful suspicions without the knowledge of the culprit , before he entered