Letters were read from the Great Priory of Canada, and from His Royal Highness the Prince of Wales, on the differences heretofore existing between these Great Priories, and announcing all trouble at an end. We give in full the correspondence on this subject, and offer to all parties interested our sincere congratulations:

ALBERT EDWARD:

To the Very High and Eminent Sir Knight Colonel W. J. Bury Macleod Moore, Grand Cross of the Temple, Great Prior of the Dominion of Canada.

His Royal Highness, Albert Edward Prince of Wales and Duke of Cornwall, K. G., G. C. S. I., G. C. B., K. T., K. P., etc., etc, etc., Grand Master of the United Religious and Military Order of St. John of Jerusalem, Palestine, Rhodes and Malta, sends his Royal and Fraternal Greeting.

Being well assured of the loyalty and true affection of the Knights of the Order toward Us and of their sincere resolve that in the Dominion of Canada the brotherly bond of union shall ever exist among all joined together under Our Grand Mastership; and further desiring to show to you our continuing affection toward you, and to assure you that the prosperity of the Order and the Union and Brotherly Love of the Great Officers and Members of the same under Her Majesty the Queen our Patron, have been, and are an object of our most con-' stant care; we have therefore charged our trusty and well-beloved Chancellor of the Great Priory of England, Alexander Staveley Hill, D. C. L., one of Her Majesty's Counsel and Member of Parliament, to be the bearer to you of this our letter and our said Chancellor hath it further in charge to express towards you, Very High and Eminent Great Prior, Our Royal favor and good will, and our affection towards the Brethren Sir Knights of the Order, and to the Dominion of Canada.

Given on board the Osborne R. Y. S., the 18th day of August, A. L., 5885, A. D. 1881, A. O., 763.

To the Very Eminent Frater Sir Knight Alex. Staveley Hill, Q. C., M. P., D. C. L., and Chancellor of the Great Priory of England and Wales, United Orders of the Temple, and Hospitallers of Malta.

VERY EMINENT AND DEAR BROTHER:

It is with the greatest pleasure and satisfaction that I, as Great Prior of the United Orders of the Temple and Malta in Canada, welcome you to our new dominion, and, with all knightly courtesy, receive and greet you as one of the chief officers of our Sister Great Priory of England, duly accredited to us H. R. H. the Prince of Wales, the Illustrious and Supreme Grand Master of our Order. I

only regret that the annual meeting of Great Priory of Canada for this year has already taken place; but permit me, in the name of the National Great Priory, and in behalf of the officers and members of the Richard Coeur de Lion Preceptory of this city, under whose auspices we are now assembled, heartly to tender their fraternal greeting, and I feel cofident, Very Eminent Frater, that I am also expressing the sentiments of the sovereign Grand Commander of the Ancient and Accepted Scottish Rite 33 for the Dominion, and of the other officers of the Supreme Council here present, and of the Grand Master and other grand officers and members of the Grand Lodge of the Province of Quebec, and of the Most Excellent Principals and other grand officers of the Grand Chapter of Royal Arch Masons of the same, who are now with us as Knights Templar on this occasion, in saying that we very highly appreciate the honor conferred on us by the letter from the Supreme Grand Master of the Order; we fraternally request you, on your return to England, to be pleased most respectfully to convey to H. R. H. the Prince of Wales our due appreciation of his gracious favor and fraternal kindness, and of our profound esteem for him, and our unswerving loyalty to the person and throne of our Most Gracious Sovereign Lady the Queen, the Patron of our Knightly Order. For myself, I look upon it as one of my greatest honors and privileges that I received my patent as Great Prior of Canada from His Royal Highness the Prince of Wales, and heir apparent to the throne, and that from the powers and prerogatives conferred by the said patent the Templar nationality of our dominion derived its existence.

We further beg you most respectfully to assure H. R. Highness, as Grand Master of the United Orders of the Temple and Malta, and of the Most Worshipful the Grand Lodge of Free and Accepted Masons of England, and Grand Patron of the Ancient and Accepted Scottish Rite of Freemasonry, that while on account of our peculiar circumstances, the several rites and orders of the craft in our Dominion are establishing local Masonic government, and while we are seeking to have such carried out and perfected in harmony and unity we are more than ever desirous of having and perpetuating the most intimate fraternal relations to the co-ordinate Sovereign Grand Bodies of every regular and duly recognized Rite of Freemasonry and allied orders, and to establish and maintain a perpetual alliance of loyal and fraternal amity and correspondence therewith.

Again proffering you a hearty and knightly welcome and wishing you a pleasant voyage across the Atlantic, and a safe and happy return to England,

I have the honor to be, Dear and very Eminent Frater, fraternally yours, W. J. B. MACLEOD MOORE. G. C. T.

Great Prior Dominion of Canada.

Montreal, Province of Quebec, 19th October, 1881.

This Great Priory held its Sixth Annual Assembly in Masonic Hall, in the city of Hamilton, commencing on Tuesday, July 12, A.D. 1881, A.O. 763.

M. E. Sir Knight W. J. B. MacLeod Moore, Grand Cross of the Temple, Great Prior of the Dominion of Canada, on the Throne.

R. E. Sir Knight Daniel Spry, Chancellor.

Your Committee hope they may be pardoned for not quoting at length from the Proceedings of this Grand Jurisdiction. We would fain freely extract from the good things said, did space and time but permit.

Sir Knight Moore does much to instruct in Templar Law, and we would not think our duty as reporter discharged, did we not endeavor to lay before our Sir Knights some of the valuable information which we ourselves gleaned from a perusal of this Eminent Sir Knight's address.

He criticises some of our United States reports, but we do not purpose to discuss any questions,--simply give his say so.'

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In his opening, he says:

I may now congratulate you that your long-cherished wish for "Home Rule" has become fully realized, "Convent General" as a representative body having for all practical purposes ceased to exist; at the same time it is impossible not to regret that the admirable scheine of a "Convent General," to organize a Templar Order worthy of the name, did not meet with that support it unquestionably deserved. and that the time and labor of years employed for its accomplishment should have been almost thrown away, with the opportunity lost that will never probably again present itself.

Our connection with England, which it was hoped since the memorial sent to "Grand Conclave" in 1873, would at least have been maintained in theory, at all events, appears to be well-nigh at an end, and Sir Patrick Colquhoun's efforts to establish a United Order in the three Kingdoms seems to possess as little reality. This, however, is no fault of ours, "Convent General" not having assem

bled once a year, as required by the Statutes, has "ipso facto" dissolved itself,

thus leaving each Nationality free to adopt whatever course they consider best for

their own interests; although I maintain that as a National Great Priory, we were always independent, having the full powers of a Federal body, subject only to the combined action that bound the whole Union.

It now appears questionable whether a "Convent General" should ever have been formed, even with the prestige of H. R. H. the Prince of Wales. It was composed of too conflicting elements, and matters were not ripe for the radical changes contemplated by the new Statutes. The idea of one cosmopolitan Order as of old, with a Supreme Grand Master, was a grand conception of the originator, Sir Patrick Colquhoun, but the material to work it was wanting. We can now look back more calmly and dispassionately, than perhaps we could at the time, to his ennobling views for the Order, and we may well add our sympathy for what to him must have been a great disappointment.

The secession of Scotland at an early period of the negotiations, rendered it doubtful whether the union of the English and Irish Branches, with the subsequent adhesion of Canada, should have been carried out.

It was manifest that our Brethren in the United States, for political reasons, would not acknowledge the supremacy of the Prince of Wales, and their totally different system of Templary would have prevented any amalgamation. The final collapse of the Union was the result of the infelicitous step of calling the special and last meeting of "Convent General on the 8th December, 1876, when with the surrender then made, by its undoubted illegal proceedings, (which called forth our protest), and the opposition shown to the Irish members, broke the frail thread that kept it together.

Any one acquainted with the discussion that took place at the time, must admire the remarkably discreet and correct Masonic feeling of the Irish members throughout, during the determined opposition shown against their views. From these circumstances, it cannot but be admitted that the disruption of "Convent General" is mainly owing to the prejudices of a section of the English members; and, perhaps, not improbably, to some conflicting interests, associated with the more popular and exclusive high grade system in England..

Apart from all other considerations, "Convent General" has achieved one great object by promulgating a correct knowledge of the Order, and introducing a strict historical rendering of the Ritual, from which nearly all objectionable features have been expunged. We are principally indebted for this to the untiring zeal and exertions of one of the Irish members of the Ritual Commission, the eminent Brother "Richard Baker de Burgh," Grand Cross of the Temple, and Past Grand Chancellor of the Great Priory of Ireland, who had been from

the commencement of the negotiations for the consolidation of the Order, appointed representative of the Irish section of the Committee, with full power to act for them, and make arrangements with that of England, to whom he submitted a draft ritual, which, being subsequently amended in some parts, was adopted, and the report drawn up and signed by the Committee, whose names are a sufficient guarantee of its being well and thoroughly considered by men of judgment and education.

Under the sub-heading, United States and Canadian Templary, he says:

The occasional sarcastic remarks indulged in by some writers in the Foreign Correspondence, of the Grand Commanderies of the United States, on our customs and usages, display so little knowledge of social life in Europe and the United Kingdoms, together with the Republican dislike to hereditary rank and titles, as well as the morbid antipathy towards loyalty, seems to quite warp their better nature and judgment, leading them into most erroneous deductions, only calculated to provoke a smile, and which had better be passed over in silence.

What our recognition of but one Grand Master for the whole Order (as of old), in the person of H. R. H. the Prince of Wales, has to do with the complete independence of the National Great Priory of Canada is difficult to understand. The Supreme Grand Master does not interfere with the Representative Government of the National Great Priories in any particular, but has it exclusively in his power to confer honors which members might be proud of possessing; and in his exalted station of life, his acceptation of the office adds materially to the status and dignity of the Order, at once stamping its character by placing it amongst the recognized honored societies of the Empire.

It certainly appears to us strangely inconsistent that our American Brethren, who pride themselves on their levelling principles and democratic constitutions, should assume a title of English aristocratic civil life, by addressing each other as "Sir," prefixed to their names, frequently making the great mistake of leaving out the Baptismal name altogether, as the title of "Sir" can only properly be applied in conjunction with both christian and surname. Whatever ideas they may entertain about our independent position cannot in the least affect us, a totally different organization This is fully admitted in their Foreign Correspondence, which also distinctly shows the Templary of the United States to be a modern, fanciful, military degree of Masonry that does not represent, either in ritual, doctrine, or its acknowledged attributes, the old Chivalric Templar Order which we profess to do, knowing it to be historically a fact. When "Convent General," on its organization, recognized the American Templar system as being the same Order as that of the British Dominions, and the Arch Chancellor, Sir Patrick