To paraphrase a well-known saying, nothing is sacred to an idea, in France at any rate. In every direction enthusiastic reformers are pulling down the relics of the past and doing their best to bring the national institutions up to date. This rage for modernization is especially conspicuous amongst Freemasons. The preservation of the ancient landmarks of the order is the last thing they trouble themselves about. Tu fact, French Freemasonry has become unrecognizable from the English point of view. It is now an organised political and anti-clerical force. The Lodges discuss all sorts of social and political questions from various points of view, but they are all strongly Republican. They form centres of anti-monarchism all over the country, and in this they have rendered conto the present Government. They will also have an important part to pay in the forthcoming general elections; nut the ancient allegories of the craft have no interest for them.
Women as Masons.
TheGrand Orient Masons, who form about three-fourths of the entire body, have gone to great lengths in their craze for modernity. The "trials" to which novices were once subjected have been given up, and the mystery with which popular imagination has clothed the order is passing away. Grand Orient Masonry is hardly a secret society at all, but her a combination of debating clubs and pullers. A Paris illustrated paper recently published two drawings showing the position of the hands and fingers in two of the Masonic grips. The uninitiated are often admitted to Masonic gatherings. The Grand Orient has even introduced a form of Masonic marriage, wherein the bride, after plighting her oth before the: Master and brethren, takes her partner by the hand and leads him to his seat, to signify that she will never seek to interfere with his attendance at the Lodge. The most startling novelty consists of the "Mixed Lodges," to which both sexes are admitted. The largest of these groups is nearly one hundred strong, and holds its meetings twice a month, in Paris. Three or four others exist in the provinces and all form part of an order called the "Droit Humain." They have a ritual based on and strongly resembling that of the Scottish Rite.
The Paris group has a lady as Worshipful Mistress. It also possesses a sort of dispensary at which one of the members. a lady doctor, attends daily and gives free advice to the bre-throu, sisters, and their children. Thi tion of a woman in the presence of her husband and son, who were already_members, was recently witnessed in this Lodge. I should add, however, that neither the " Droit Humain" nor any other form of mixed Masonry (so called) is officially recognised.
Text read from the printed page and cleaned; old type leaves the occasional error.