Appendix.
]12
[Oct.
CONCLUSION. In concluding this report, we wish to draw the attention of our Grand Lodge, as well as of our Brother Foreign Correspo~dent~,to some few important facts which we deem worthy of consIderatIon. In perusing over ten thousand pages of printed matter for your information, we have noticed the following points: ]fTirst-More Masons are initiated than raised. JS1~wond-More Masons
dimit than affiliate. Third-Very few published proceedings give the number of Lodges" l"epresented" at the proper place, viz: at the foot of the column of Representatives.
Fourth-Very few Grand Masters give the number of "Dispensations" for new Lodges that they isssue, and merely give the names and dates. Fifth-In some Grand Lodges the important committees, such as Grievance, Appeals, By-Laws, Lodges, etc., will make many snpplenlental reports, instead of combining all the matter in one report for eaoh committee. Relative to our ji'tst item, we will say that we believe" more l)ersons are initiated than raised" arises from a radical defect in modern Masonry, viz: that it does not take the world as it finds it. This is a speculative age, and many men apply for our 111ysteries either through curiosity or from the hope of worldly gain. The first class are often disappointed, because the first degree is bunglingly done, aIld the officers show so little soul in their work that the candidate raJiionally becomes so dissatisfied that he never goes any farther. What should have been "Light" to him is nothmg but a, miserable "darkness; " when" brought to light," he probably found the officers sitting with their feet on the pedestal spitting tobacco juice into a spittoon three yards off, and the Worshipful Master, when he came to deliver his lecture, instead of standing up, with the dignity and perfectness of manhood, sitting down, poised on the back of his neck, and mumbling out inooherently what he did not properly understand or appreciate himself. III looking over the list of Entered Apprentices who have remained such for years, we find the great bulk of them are very intelligent mell, alld naturally came to the oonclusion that if the Entered Ap}Jrentice degree was a sample of the balance, that they h~d enough of it; that is, the degree in the shape in which it is too often conferred. When 'Vorshipful Masters will properly learn their work ~o