New York Dispatch

Masonic Matters.

M. W. JOHN W. SIMONS, P. G. M., Editor

ADVERTISEMENTS for the Masonic Department, to insure their insertion, must be sent in by six o'clock P. M.

SOME MILD SUGGESTIONS.

In old times, as every properly constituted person of middle age knows, the Summer ended with the month of August, and everybody from the schoolboy to the merchant, expected to go to work on the 1st of September with renewed zeal and activity. Latterly we seem to have changed all that, and whether it is owing to the deflection of the gulf stream, or some more obscure cause, we are apt to have more Summer in the current month than during its immediate predecessor, notwithstanding the traditions of the dog star, so that while nominally our lodges resume labor the temperature is hardly an improvement on that which compelled a recess in July. The open air, especially that found at the beach, still holds the best hand, and probably will do so until the real cool evenings of October put in an appearance. That time, however, is not far off, and it is while looking to it that a gentle note or so is here sounded. First, it is a good time to begin correcting an evil that has often been pointed out without any serious effort at amendment, and that is the tendency to long sessions and late hours in all the branches of the institution. Ten or half past ten at night should find darkness presiding in every meeting place of Masons and the brethren either at home or making good time toward that place; for more harm is done the good name of the fraternity by inattention to this precept than by almost any other of its proceedings. And it is the one most easily observed, provided the lodges are so minded. In the first place there is a very general lack of promptitude in beginning labor. If the hour named be half-past seven, eight o'clock gets the best of the brethren in nine cases out of ten before anything is done. Then the lodge being open, there follows a long string of visitors to be admitted one by one; then the routine business; so that it is usually something considerable beyond nine P. M. before the ceremony of a degree commences. If the lodge is ambitious to report a large number of degrees conferred, it will be very apt to exemplify two on the same evening, and this will rarely fail to carry the meeting to midnight, and men get home in the small hours. The remedy for all this is very simple—open promptly at the hour named, read your minutes and transact your preliminary business with reasonable dispatch. By that time intending visitors ought to have arrived, recorded their names in the visitor's book, and given a copy to the Tyler. Their admission could thus be secured in half the time and without the usual interruptions that now occur. No lodge should permit itself to work more than one degree on the same evening, and one hour is enough for this, so that, allowing an hour for the preliminary business, an hour for the degree, and another, if needed, for gathering up the odds and ends and closing, the whole would be finished by half-past ten at latest. Finally, add to these the rule of going home at once, and you will have done a good thing for yourselves and for the reputation of the craft. Turn the picture for a moment, and consider a Masonic proceeding where promptitude is not required, and that is the Investigation into the character and antecedents of candidates. The committee need not be composed of lazy men, but rather of deliberate and thorough-going ones, and it should have plenty of time to do its work so completely that there will be nothing to find out afterward, and no need of contrary ballots to stop the progress of a candidate. These are old lessons, oft repeated, and ever recurring to the thoughtful; and it may be taken for a surety that where they are heeded the Winter's work will be better and more satisfactory to the participants.