A Council of Deliberation was held in the City of Chicago, on the 10th day of May, 1877. I send with this a copy of the Proceedings. I beg to call the attention of the M.. P.. Sov.. Gr.. Com.. and the Council to a Memorial, (pages 9 and 10 of the printed proceedings,) asking for a change in the organic law of the Rite.

Fraternally submitted,

H. A. JOHNSON, 33,

Deputy for Illinois.

WISCONSIN.

To Ill.. JOSIAH H. DRUMMOND, M.·. P... Sov.·. Com.. of the Supreme Council A.. A.. Rite, N... M.. Jurisdiction of the United States of America: In submitting my report of the condition of the A.. A.. Rite for the District of Wisconsin, it affords me pleasure to state that the bodies located at Milwaukie have with commendable zeal secured and prepared suitable apartments in which to hold their meetings, separate and apart from the other masonic organizations of that city, and are now able to confer several of the degrees in an impressive and creditable manner, and the result has been that a reasonable increase of membership of the several bodies has taken place during the past year, as will appear from their returns to the Supreme Council.

I regret to report that the Bodies located at Portage, owing to reasons beyond the control of their officers or members, have failed to do any work during the past year.

It is to be hoped that during the coming year such influences may be made use of as will result in causing those Bodies to become prosperous organizations.

No Council of Deliberation has been held during the past year, there being no important business presented for consideration.

Respectfully submitted,

ALVIN B. ALDEN, 33°,

Deputy for Wisconsin.

Foreign Correspondencé.

Since the close of the session of the Supreme Council, I have received the following reply of the M.. P.. Sov.. GR.. COMMANDER of the Supreme Council of the Southern Jurisdiction, to the Balustre of the Supreme Council of England, &c., proposing to cease relations with the Supreme Council of Scotland.

J. H. D.

DEI OPTIMI MAXIMI, UNIVERSITATIS RERUM FONTIS AC ORIGINIS AD GLORIAM.

SUP.. COUN... 33D DEGREE ANC.'. AND ACC.. SCOTT.. RITE OF FREEMASONRY FOR THE SOUTHERN JURISDICTION OF THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA.

Having its See at Charleston, South Carolina.

Atelier of the Sov.. Gr.. Commander Or.. of Washington, the 23d day of the Heb.. M.. Ab, A.. M... 5637, corresponding to the

2d day of August, 1877, V.. E. ·.

DEUS MEUMQUE JUS.

To the P... Ill.. and Very Dear Bro.. Captain Nathaniel George Phillips, 33°, Lieut.. Gr.. Comm.. of the Supr.. Council of England and Wales,

etc.:

VERY DEAR BRO...

I have the honor to be in receipt, this morning, of your private note of date July 21, with the printed letter of the Ill.. Bro.. the Gr.. Chancellor of your Sup.. Council, in regard to the proposed assembling of Delegates of our Council and others, at Edinburgh, in September.

As that letter has been sent to those Councils only who are members of the Confederation of Lausanne, and I owe to your courtesy the copy sent to me by you, as our Grand Representative, I shall, of course, not make public this answer, until I may be empowered to do so, either by publication of the letter or by the coming to me of a copy from some other hand. I print it, only to be ready to publish it at the proper moment.

This proposed Congress, to be held in pursuance of the articles of alliance between the Supreme Councils of Scotland, Ireland, Greece, Central America and ours, is stigmatized by the printed letter of your Supreme Council as diametrically opposed" to the Congress at Lausanne, and as a "Masonic

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schism," whose results "will be in direct opposition to the best interests of the whole of the Supreme Councils forming the Lausanne Confederation."

It is quite true that our League and Alliance was first proposed by the Supreme Council for Scotland, and upon the sole ground of the substitution by the Congress at Lausanne of the phrases "Force Superieure" and "Principe Createur" for the word "God," in the Manifesto of Principles adopted by that Body.

We were not asked to adopt the cause of the Supreme Council for Scotland, in its controversy with your Council, in regard to jurisdiction in the Dependencies of the British Crown; nor should we have done so if we had been asked. We do not consider that question at all affected by the decision made by the Lausanne Congress in regard to the Sandwich Islands, the two cases having nothing in common. We had always acted on the supposition that your Council had exclusive jurisdiction in the Dependencies, because its title so claimed. But we had never had occasion to inquire beyond that; and there being claim to the contrary, we have now no opinion upon the subject, one way or the other; nor shall we be disposed to assume, in Congress or thereout, to adjudicate upon the question. We should certainly not think it fit to do so in a Body wherein you were not represented, or in your absence, if you were represented; and shall instruct our Delegates to oppose any consideration of the subject.

The Supreme Council for Scotland has sent the invitation to attend the Congress, at our instance, to such Councils as have not united with the Confederation formed at Lausanne. If sent to others, it has been only by way of information, and not as an invitation to be represented in the Congress. No effort has been made to detach any Council from your Confederation; but there were reasons of propriety and courtesy which justified a notice that any of the BB.. of Councils of your Confederation would be welcome as spectators. The phrase "First Congress of the United Supreme Councils" means (as the word "United" shows) the Councils of our League. Yours style themselves the "Confederated" Councils. There is certainly no cause of offence in that. It will be the purpose of the Congress to discuss only such matters as may interest the Councils represented, it having no legislative or judicial power: and it will not, I am quite sure, make any issue with the Lausanne Confederation, or discuss anew questions already sufficiently discussed. Whatever may have been the motives of the Supreme Council of Scotland in proposing an alliance between those Councils that could not accede to the Lausanne Confederation, it is no more responsible for the formation of our League or for the Congress that is to be held, than we are, and we are constrained to accept the letter as an arraignment of ourselves, as directly as it is an arraignment of the Supreme Council of Scotland.

I have read the letter with much more regret than I can express, because of the ill consequences that must flow from it; because if anything else had been

wanted by way of warning to us not to accede to the Lausanne Confederation, and by way of justification for our refusal to do so, it gives what was wanted: and because its sending is a grave and unfortunate mistake.

It was our firm resolution not to be drawn into any re-discussion or controversy in regard to any action taken at Lausanne, and to prevent, if possible, the giving occasion for any hostility between the two Confederations. We were excluded from the Lausanne Confederation, by the decision made in the case of the Sandwich Islands, but we have not made that decision cause of complaint, by a word, against any Sup.. Council except that of France.

:

We could not agree to the change in the manner of recognition of a Deity. We never said, because we never thought, that the Delegates of your Council intended, by agreeing to the change unfortunately made, "to convey a belief in any Creative Principle except in the Personal God," &c. but the fact remains that it is so understood by other Councils of the Lausanne Confederation and by the enemies of Freemasonry. When a Court is called on to construe a Statute of Parliament, it is idle for those who were members when it was enacted, to give testimony as to what they intended by it and meant it to mean. All that is dehors de la question. The Statute's words speak for themselves, and the makers of it are not those who are to construe it. In the case in hand, that right belongs to us as fully as to you, and to our enemies as fully as to us, and indeed, much more so.

And so long as we know that the change was accepted as a concession by Continental Atheism, we have a declaration of intention which is of precisely the same weight as that of your Delegates. Moreover, when we are distinctly told by one having authority to say it, and whose saying so proves it, that to require a declaration of belief in the existence of a personal God would ruin one of the Sup.. Councils of your Confederation, we may be allowed to doubt whether the Supreme Council for Switzerland, acting in its official capacity, has long since disposed of" this reason for our non-accession to the Lausanne Confederation.

That open and avowed atheism is no objection in France to a candidate for initiation into Freemasonry, is a melancholy fact, whose absolute verity is established by the debates not long ago had in the Grand Orient. A proposition to disqualify atheists would hardly receive a vote in that body. No one in the Grand Orient dared to suggest that absolute freedom of opinion ought not to be allowed. Those who opposed cancelling the ancient legend, To the glory of the Grand Architect of the Universe,' did not dare say that an atheist could not be made a Mason.

No one has suspected your distinguished Delegates of intentional treason to Freemasonry. God forbid! But the change which they were persuaded to assent to, was proposed as a concession to French Atheism: was accepted as a concession to French Atheism; and Jesuitism and Ultramontanism have