THE KING OF THE CRAFT.

Wairarapa Age, Volume XXXII, Issue 10139, 9 December 1910, Page 7

THE KING OF THE CRAFT.

(Marlborough Express.) An announcement which will bo welcomed by Freemasons throughout the length and breadth of the British Empire is that King George has consented to become the Grand Patron of the lloyal Masonic; Institution for Boys. In accepting this office His majesty succeeds the late King Edward, and thus another link is added to the honourable chain which associates the Crown with this great and successful charity. For nearly eighty years the reigning Sovereign has been Grand Patron of the Masonic school, and the tradition is so wellestablished that there is no reason why it should ever bo broken. Nor should there ho a stronger testimony than this—which, after all is only one of the numerous marks of Royal favour—both to the excellence of the particular institution, and to the abiding and flourishing virtues of the system of Freemasonry itself. In tho British Empire alone there arc between 3000 and 4000 lodges, of varying numbers, importance, and status, but all closely bound to the same organisation, practising the same ceremonies, and inspired by tlj same sentiments. Freemasonry is a secret society—no doubt by far the greatest and widely-spread in the world at the present day—and it maintains a very jealous and effective guard over its arcana. But, after all, there is no secret whatever about the causes of its triumphant spread, chiefly among which are thaiit appeals more powerfully to the love of mystery, and sense of belonging to a company of the elect, which are ineradicable in lmman nature, and also because it hinds its members together by the most ' enduring of all ties—the common practice of tho virtues of good feeling, friendship, conviviality, and charity, British Freemasonry must bo judged by its own record; it is is practised eisewliere. The origins may be, and, I no doubt, are the same; the ritual J may be similar, or in certain cases identical. But there is no universal organisation and common membership, and the result happily is that British Freemasonry is entirely free from those obnoxious traits which are said, often with only too much justice, to spoil what is otherwise excellent in Continental Freemasonry. Nothing seems stranger to the ordinary Englishman than to see Freemasonry at Home honoured with the patronage of tho Crown, and with, the most exalted in the land acting as.its chief officers, while abroad it is condemned root and branch by the Roman Catholic Church, and not infrequently looked at askance by the State.