To the Editor of the New Zealand Tablet.

New Zealand Tablet, Volume IV, Issue 201, 9 February 1877, Page 9

To the Editor of the New Zealand Tablet.

Sib, —l have to ask of you, as a matter of common justice, that you Bhould insert a reply to your leader of last week on the subject of Freemasonry. In that leader you accuse us English Freemasons of being -accomplices of those foreign Masons whose opinions you quote, "lfhave no means of verifying the quotations you make, but admitting, for the sake of argument, their correctness, I beg to state that no one would condemn them more strongly and earnestly than the great body of Masons belonging to the English, Scotch, and American Lodges, who form, of themselves, the immense majority of Masons throughout the world. Perhaps no better proof of the non-complicity of English Masons in such opinions as you have quoted, can be given, than the character of the men who are our chiefs. Bishop Nevill himself is a Freemason, and was the Master of a lodge in England but a short time before he came out to New Zealand. No one who has the pleasure of a personal acquaintance with Bishop Nevill can doubt that he is a man of the highest honor and of deep religious feeling, and is an earnest and con* scientious adherent of the church in which he holds high office. No one who knows him can believe, for one moment, that he is capable of belonging to an organisation which has for its objects the destruction of Christianity. He has proved his disinterested zeal in his work, by giving up a valuable living in a town where he won for himself the admiration and esteem of all classes and all Beets, and coming out here at an enormous pecuniary sacrifice to work for nothing. His episcopal income is, to .the disgrace of English Churchmen, next to nothing. It certainly would not pay bis travelling expenses. Is it likely that such a man would invoke the aid of a body, guilty of the conduct you ascribe to Freemasons, in laying the foundation of a church ? The fact is, that you wholly misunderstand the position of the so-called higher orders of Masonry. Masonry proper includes three degrees —that of Entered Apprentice, Fellow-Craft, and MasterMason. The Grand Lodge of England recognises no other—including in the last named, the degree of Royal Arch Mason. It has always, and does now, refuse to recognise in any way the socalled higher degrees. It has no more to do with them than it has with any other association into which Freemasons choose to enter. The principles and objects of Masonry, as thus defined, are not secret; they have been published in scorces of books which are open to all the world. There is no concealment made of them. The charges given to the Master of a Lodge at his installation comprise them all, and are printed in every copy of the laws of the ■Grand Lodge. The charges given to the Masters of Lodges holding under the Scotch and American Grand Lodges are almost identical. Many staunch and worthy Masons regard the so-called higher degrees as so much childish nonsense, and absolutely refuse to have anything to do with them. They are contrary to one of the most elementary principles of Masonry, namely, its universality. In Masonry proper, Jews and Mahommedans, Hindoos and Buddhists can join, but these so-called higher degrees exclude them. I know very little about them, but I believe they —or some of them — require a declaration of faith in the Christian religion. It must be remembered that Masonic lodges in Italy were ■established at a period when Masonry was illegal in that country; they were, therefore, in direct opposition to the established governments. It was not unnatural, therefore, that their members should take advantage of their bond of brotherhood to plot against some of the most atrocious despotisms the world has ever been cursed with. Can it be a matter of wonder to Englishmen that educated Neapolitans, under King Bomba, should make use of Masonic lodges as a cloak for conspiring against his tyranny ? I submit that, even if all that your article states can be proven, it is most unfair to charge us, the English, Scotch, and American Masons, forming about nine-tenths of all the Masons in the world, with the guilt of a small minority whose tenets we absolutely disclaim, and whose so-called degrees our Grand Lodges refuse to recognise. We are a very harmless set of very ordinary individuals in England, composed chiefly of the smaller tradespeople, with just a sprinkling of the educated classes, who when once initiated hardly ever attend a lodge except on some special occasion. Here there are not only tradespeople, but numbers of working men. In England the attendance at the lodges is pretty good because there is always something in the shape of "refreshment" —either a dinner or a supper. Some of the lodges are very famous for their feeds, and take good care that no " work" interferes with the sacred hour fck of dinner. Here so little interest is taken in Masonry that notwithstanding the hundreds who belong to the Order in Dunedin, it is extremely difficult to get a lodge meeting formed at the time for which it was summoned, and often half-an-hour elapses before the requisite officers can be got together, or substitutes for them provided. All this arises from the fact that we have no suppers except once a year, on St. John's Day —then we have a good attendance! And these are the people the Vatican thunders against, and Bishop Moran denounces! If the ecclesiastical authorities were worldlywise they would adopt the policy of severely letting us alone. The great majority of Masons are secretly flattered to find themselves of so much importance, and are rather pleased than otherwise to hear themselves denounced as dangerous to society, to monarchy, .and to religion. You may fancy the secret elation of Chobbles the butcher, or Smuffkins the grocer, when he finds a telegram in his 'Fenny Dreadful* stating that his Holiness the Pope has issued a fresh denunciation of the " sect" of Freemasons. He gets chaffed

about it by his brother tradesmen at their weekly club, and tries to assume an air of solemn mystery, and look as, if he-habituaUte. carried a dagger in Mb breast coat pocket, and were prepared to emulate the deeds and death of Ravaulac. All the while the good man never- did anything more terrible in his lodge than express "hearty, good wishes and welcome to our visiting brethren" with much slaughter of the Queen's English, and destruction of the letter "h." You talk about "Secret Societies"! I would reply in the wordsof Canning's "Needy Knife-grinder": — " Secrets ! God blew you ! Trt none to tell, Sir !" The most amusing thing about Freemasonry is that you are perpetually thinking you are going to find out some wonderful secret, and when you have arrived at the highest degree of all — the Royal Arch — you find there are no secrets ! No wonder that they are so carefully preserved ! Of course there are certain signs and passwords which one is pledged upon honor not to reveal, but there is absolutely nothing else but what may be known to all the world. I am not arguing now in favor of the toleration of Masonry by th« Pope. This is quite beyond my province. His Holiness has, of course, a perfect right to make what rules he thinks proper for the government of the Roman Catholic Church, and those who belong to that Church must obey those rules, or they have no right to complain about being excommunicated when living, or denied the funeral services of the Church when dead. It is perfectly childish to join a forbidden organisation, and then go whining about the world that the members of it are denied Christian burial. As they have made their bed, they must lie on it, and no one can with the slightest show of justice complain of being excluded from the rites and sacraments of the Roman Catholic Church because he is a Freemason. If the Pope chooses to say that no Catholic shall.be a Fellow of the Zoological Society, I don't see that the Zoological Society has any ground of complaint, although it might have of remonstrance. What I complain of is not that you say you shall not be a Freemason if you are a Catholic, but that you say you. shall not be a Freemason and a Catholic — because the Freemasons are so wicked. I don't mean to say that I am not wicked, for I know that I am, but lam not wicked qua Freemason. Or as a priest of your Church once said to me when I was describing with great joy, how a Protestant friend of mine (an Englishman of course) wanted to see the procession on Corpus Christi Day in a Catholic country without taking off his hat, and kneeling when the Host passed; and very properly had his hat knocked off his head, and was pushed down on his knees by the indignant crowd — the priest said, in his tenderest tones, " Poor fellow ! we must remember that he acted as he did, not in his character as a Protestant, but in his character as an ass !" — I am, &c, Dunedin, Jan. 31, 1877. A Royal Abch Mason. P.S. — I omitted to state that the Grand Lodge of England forbids the wearing in any lodges under its jurisdiction of any " honorary or other jewel or emblem which shall not appertain to, or be consistent with these degrees which are recognised and acknowledged by, and are under the control of the Grand Lodge as part of free and ancient Masonry." These degrees are, as stated above — Entered Apprentice, Fellow-Craft, and Master Mason.