Freemasonry In Germany.

essential principles , not with respect to particulars , in which variety admitting of change is preferred . The rituals having of old been different hi the eight Grand Lodges , it was not a long way to granting a certain variety within the same Grand

Lodge , and to divide the work and the ritual hito an obligatory and an arbitrary part . The latter principle , followed by the " Eclectic " Grand Lodge at Francfort o / M ., has directed the author of these lines

in composing his ritual . The lodges belonging to the Grand Lodge " Royal York" at Berlin , are working , part of them after the Schroder , part of them after the Fessler ritual ; and those under the Grand Lodge " of the Sun " at Bayreuth , are working partly after the old Fessler ritual

, partly after the later ones modified by Bro . Bluntschli and Findel ; partly after a ritual simplified and altered in a rather radical sense by Bros . A .. Ficke and v . Trentowski at Freiburg , and introduced into several lodges of the Grand Duchy of Baden .

A further difference of German Freemasonry from that in Great Britain and America is , that we are working according to printed or written rituals , whereas those countries stick to oral tradition , which , in my opinion , is most prejudicial in more than one respect . With us

, learning by heart the ritual would be an outright impossibility , for we ask more of a Worshipful Master than to be a mere speaking-trumpet and to excel by a retentive memory . In Germany we are not satisfied with performing the making ,

passing , or raising , only according to the ritual form , and with the candidate ' s being , as it were , shoved into the oven and baked like a loaf of bread ; in our eyes the

Masonic work properly speaking only begins with the instructive or edifying discourse of the orator or Master hi the chair , elucidating and explaining some important matter , symbol ,, or maxim of our Craft , and thus reproducing , as it were , anew the Masonic lore and wisdom

conveyed by them . To be fit thus to fulfil the duties of his office , it is evident that a brother must have no small degree of knowledge , talent , and erudition , together with eloquence and a natural gift for administration without which it would be impossible well to direct a lodge . With us , therefore , lodges of instruction are not , as they are in England , exercising the

ritual , which we do not stand in need of , but they are occupied with instructive discourses on the symbols , history , and institutions of Masonry , or on the relation of the Masonic principles to ^ the great questions of the day and of science . Outworkthereforeis not a mere form ,

, , mechanically repeating the ritual by rote , but it is full of spirit and vigour , penetrating into the inner contents of the Masonic lore , and endeavouring to apply it on

every day hfe . Regarding and treating Masonry hi this manner , we can impossibly stop at accepting and maintaining with a conservative spirit our union such as it has been transmitted to us by way of historical tradition and developed in the course of times ; it gives us a spontaneous

tendency to improve its lessons , ritual , and institutions . The ground on which this continual progress in exterior as well as in interior' affairs may be discussed , is the press , which , wdthin the Brotherhood just as hi jiuhlic lifeis the very standard of

, their value , of the ability attained in their Craft , of the degree of refinement to which they have ascended . Though myself a representative of the Masonic press , I deem to be entitled to

the assertion that , with respect to quality , profundity , scientific character , and cleverness of writing , the papers of the German Brotherhood may boldly vie with the best ones . Besides the Baiihiitte , the paper af the " Association of German Freemasons" edited by myself and pursuing a

, reformatory tendency , there exist in Germany the Freimaurer-Zeitung , edited by Br . Hermann Schletter , Doctor and Professor of Jurisprudence at the University of Leipzig , both of them weekly papers ;

the Latomia , a valuable Masonic year-book , edited by Bros . Schletter and Theodore Merzdorf , Doctor , and several papers of a local character , like those , of the Dresden and of the Hamburgh lodges . All these papers are rigorously confined to Masonic readers and intereststhe political

news-, papers serving only very seldom to communicate Masonic facts . To be sure , the journals of the Ultramontane party , receiving all their watchwords from the Jesuits , meddle very much with our affairs ; in their untiring attacks and infestations

they impute to Masonry every mischief in the world , treating it quite in the style of the Papal hulls and allocutions . Never yet the struggle of these sworn enemies of