FREEMASONRY.

Pukekohe & Waiuku Times, Volume 9, Issue 591, 10 December 1920, Page 3

FREEMASONRY.

WHAT IT MEANS.

1 (By a "W.M." in the London Daily Mail). If in the early afternoon you see-a man in evening dress carrying a little brown leather case or portfolio hurry4ng along-the streets you can safely put him down as a Freemason on his way to a lodge meeting. If, furthermore, he has a fixed, far-away look about him and is muttering to himself you may assume that he is an officer of his lodge rehearsing his part. It is a rule of Freemasonry that in lodge no book of reference is allowed. Everybody who takes his share in the ceremonies and ritual must know his part by heart and be word-perfect in it. As a man progresses in Masonry he has more and more to learn. Adequately to fulfil the duties of mastership of a lodge involves committing to memory nearly as much as the chief actor in a three-act play might have to learn.

Freenfasonry in England is making gigantic strides. Several hundred new lodges have been formed during the past few years, and the war was responsible for many recruits .to the craft.

The governing body is the Grand Lodge of England, of which the Duke of Connaught is the Most Worshipful Grand Master, a position' which was also held by the late King Edward VII.

Our present King is not a Freemason, but the Prince of Wales was initiated into the craft shortly before his recent tour.

So much has Freemasonry increased that a scheme has been proposed by the Grand* Master for raising the sum of £1,000,000 as a memorial of Freemasons who fell in the war and to provide adequate offices and accommodation for Grand Lodge. English Freemasonry is entirely unpolitical and unsectarian. It has never meddled with politics, but has conspicuously allied itself with social order with the great institutions of the country, and above all with its monarchy. ! Its tennets and doctrines ure a practical antidote to Bolshevism.

No woman can become a Freemasom An unauthorised order has been started among women in England, who hold lodges and profess to be in possession of the secrets of the craft, but the movement is entirely out. of order and has never bee.i recognised by the Grand Lodge of England.