11::= 13 ..40.fs \ . k i stinittrLiuntri( \\!,3c*' Lvittpil Lot L"-- , Z it AO poper---litooto to politico, Agriculture, fittraturt, sfitUft, Art / fort*, ponitstir nub 415entrat jutellignice, 4kte ESTABLISHED IN 1813. THE WAYNESBURG MESSENGER, PUBLISHED BY B. W. JONES & JAMES S. JENNINGS WAYNESBURG, GREENE CO., PA ar OFFICE 'NEARLY OPPOSITE TEE PUBLIC SQUARE..L3 te mamma SVESCRIPTION.-16 2 . 00 in advance ; $2.25 at the ex piration of six mouths; $2.50 after the expiration of the year. ADVERTISEMENTS inserted at 1tt.2.5 per square for three insertions, and 25 cts. a square for each addition al insertion; (ten lines or less counted a square.) F 5 liberal deduction made to yearly advertisers. Jos Pawns°, of all kinds, executed in the best style, and on reasonable terms, at the "Messenger" Job Oelce. IN agatsburg 'gusintss tarbs. JITTORMETS. Oft. L. WYLY. J. i. J. EVCILANAN. D. a. P. au.. WYLY, BUCHANAN & HUSS, blarneys & Counsellors at Law, WAYNESBURG, PA. *fill practice in the Courts of Greene and adjoining etianties. Collections and other legal business will re thrive prompt attention. Office on the South side of Main street, in the Old sank Building. Jan. 28, 1963.-13, FURMAN.RITCHIE PURMAN & RITCHIE, ATTORNEYS Wa ANI? COUNSELLORS AT LAW. ynesburg, Pa. pfrOritra—Main Street, one door east of ihs old Bulk Building. ErAll Justness in Greene, Washington, and Fay ertte Counties, entrusted to them, will receive promp attention. Sept. 1861-Iy. R. W. DOWNEY, ATTORNEY AND COUNSELLOR AT LAW. MOffice in Ledwith's Building, opposite the Court BllFase, Waynesburg, Pa. R. A. tt'CONNELL. J. J. HUFFMAN. 31WCONNALL & UUITMAN, 17.'eolurErs AND COUNSELLORS AT LAW Waynesbiag• Pa. Ui "Office in the "Wrighilitlc Lie," East Door. Collections, &c., willeceive prompt attention. Waynesburg, April 211:11362-1y. -DAVID CRAWFORD, Attorney and Counsellor at Law. 01Ice in Sayers' Haitilfni, adjoining the Post Office. Sept. 11, 1861-Iy. ♦. BLACK. BLACK. & PHELAN, ATTORNEYS AgiD COUNSELLORS AT LAW Office in the Court House, Waynesburg. s e pt. 11,1861—1 e. SOLDIERS , WAR CLAIMS: 7:1:, Xt. X". 33.17 E S, ' irtORNBY AT LAW, WAYNESBURG, PENN•., PwsA. received from the War Department at Wash ington city. D. C., official copies of the several passed by Congress, and all the necessary Forms and Instructions. fur the prosecution and collection of PENSIONS, . BOUNTY, BAGS FAY, due die- Charged and disabled soldiers, their widows, orphan Children, widowed mothers, fathers, sisters and broth mg, which business; (upon due notice] will be attend &l to promptly, and accurately, if entrusted to his care. Ogkee in the old Bank Building.—April 8, 1863. G. W. G. WADDELL, ATTORNEY & COUNSELLOR AT LAW, 0717" in Campbell's Row opposite the Hamilton Hoffse, Waynesburg, Penna. Business of all Rinds ofkliated. Has received official copies of all the haws passed by Congress, and other necessary instruc tions for the collection of PENSIONS, B 0 UNTIES, BACK PAY, row diecharged and disabled soldiers, widows, Orphan Children, &E., which business if intrusted to hie care WM be promptly attended to. May 13, '63. PHYSICIANS B. M.. MACKEY, M. D. • mrsactALEr'et ,, SUBAIZON, 0111ce—BlaehleVa Building, Main St., ItEBPECTFUI.LY announces to the citizens of Waynesburg and vicinity that he has returned from * Hospital Corps of the Army and resumed the pret ties of medicine at this place. • Waynesburg, June 11, 1362.-13. DR. A. G. CROSS WOULD very respectfully tender his services as a PHYSICIAN AND SURGEON, to the people or Waynesburg and vicinity. He hopes by a due appre ciation of human life aad health, and strict attention to business, to merit a share of public patronage. Waynesburg, January 8, 1862. DR. A. J. EGGY 1 ESPECTFULLY offers his services to the citizens of Waynesburg and vicinity, as a Physician and nrgeon. Office opposite the Retbiblican office. He hopes by a due appreciation of the haws of human life and health, so native medication, and Strict attention to business, to merit a liberal sham of public patronage. April 9, 181111. DRUGS M. A. HARVEY, Druggist and Apothecary, and dealer in Paints and Oils, the most celebrated Patent Medicines, and Pure Lkuors for medicinal mimosas. 'Sept. 11,1881-Iy. IVEXRCINANTS WM. A. PORTER, 'Wholesale and Retail Dealer in Foreign and Domes ' Dry Goode, Groceries, Notions, !Lc., Main street. Sept. 11,1861-Iy. R. CLARK, Dealer hi Dry Goods, Groceries, Hardware, Queens ware and notions, in the Hamilton HOUlle, opposite pre Court House, Main street. Sept.. 11, 1861-Iy. MINOR & CO., 'Venters in Foreign and Domestic Dry Goods, Oro Queensware, Hardware and Notions, opposite the Green House. Main street. ; Sept. 11, 18411-Iy, SOOT AND SHOE DEALERS b. D. ,COSGRAY, Host and elme maker, Main street, nearly opposite the "rarater'e and Drever's Bank." Every style 01 jim, and Shoes ernerttuatly on Mod or trade to order. Sept. 11, - • :• ~ Gaoczazza & inmivrize: JOSEPH YATER, ,Dealer in Grows:lea and Confootionerier, Notions, perfumeries, Liverpool Ward, dre...9laaa of 411 nom and:Glit'dloulding,and Looking Glaaa.Places. , Divrellnk liaidtbrgood eating Amin. flopt. n. 1861-Iy. . ' NUNTIELL, Dealer in Grocirie; and Confeetionarieseand Variety Goode Generally. Wile is New Minding, Main Street. Sept. 11, 11361-Iy. BOORS, iko. De ~ sile 2Ya i i t i elasomU Y,s ooti4 swim. THE MASONIC CELEBRATION AT Greensboro, Pa., June 24th, 1863. The following beautiful poem was writ ten by Mrs. ELIZA BARKER, of Pittsburgh, for the recent Masonic Celebration of St. John's Day at Greensboro in this county, and is published by order of the Lodge, which passed the following Resolution complimentary to the gifted lady : Resolved, That the thanks of the Fra ternity be tendered Mrs. Eliza H. Barker for the contribution of her poem, written for, and so well adapted to, this interest ing occasion, and we heartily commend her to Masonic regard, and hope that through time she may be encircled with their purest affections. In the morning of creation, while its yet unbro ken sleep Hung o'er undivided Matter, as doth darkness o'er the deep : Ere the Architect Masonic had, with its voice electric, sent Living words upon the waters of the botWdless firmament— Then in Heaven the secret counsels of the mystic order lay, Waiting but the mighty fiat, when from light should come the day. Througb the dim and distant ages of the unre corded time, Down through lines of priests and sages, came thy mysteries sublime, And the veiled and mystic Isis was but the shadowy type of lore, (Clothed in beauty allegoric,) of the learning known before, When the "voice" was heard in A hien, ere the darkened shadow fell— While the presence of the angels saved us from the grasp of hell. In the fair Egyption Edes, hidden from the vulgar gaze, Were thy sacred rites enacted, did thy fragrant altars blaze, Where the eastern Hells's presence on the Hierophant could shine, Where the light of Astral systems taught the majesty divine— There the patient Hebrew, Moses, learned the wisdom deep, that planned Rescue for his captive nation, guidance to the Promised Laird. El= In the golden jeweled temple of the "glorious Solymene," Wheve the smooth and polished masses, fitting . silently, were seen ; Where no sound of pick or hammer e'er be trayed the workman's hand— So, in grand, impressive silence, do thy sacred altars stand— Figured silence, ever telling of His power, sublimely shown, By the Temple's mighty structure growing up wards, from the stone. Lever, Roller, Screw and Pulley are but sym bols of thy might; Square and Circle, Compass, Measure, guide thy true disciples right, Where on earth man's footstep presses, spread the doctrines of thy fane, Strong as everlasting mountains be the pillars of thy reign— Wide in Mercy,—strong in Power—blending Wisdom most sublime, Wisdom of the great Eternal, with the passing years of Time. CRAFT LODGE, No. 329, A. Y. M., GREENSBORO, Juue 24th, 1863. I J. A. J. BucuaNex, ESQ : Dear Brother—The following Resolutions were adopted at a meeting of the Craft Lodge, held this day : Resolved, That a vote of thanks be ten dered to Brother J. A. J. BUCHANAN, for his able and eloquent Address delivered on this occasion. Resolved, That a Committee be appoint ad to request a copy of the Address for publication. In compliance with the above, the un dersigned have been appointed a Commit tee to solicit a copy of your elegant and instructive Address at our Anniversary, for publication. Believing it will help all who read it to discharge more fully the duties devolving on them, we hope you will be able to comply with the request so universally made. We have the honor to be yours frater nally, JNO. A. STONE, J. C. G. BLACK, S. R. DILLINER, Com. ADDRESS OF I. A. J. BUCHANAN, ESQ, RESPECTED AUDIENCE :- Masonry approaches man through the medium of his affections and intellect—two of the grandest attributes of our nature. In the cultivation of the former, earth's forms pass from utility to the very sublimity of pleasure. How deplorable would be our condition were they not sus ceptible of cultivation I If the genius of Love had never encircled our hearts with the wreaths sal affection, the social virtues would have remained in chaos ; pity would have been a stranger to man, and only the spirit of revenge cast its dark shailows before him. Love approaches the heart fiom various points. It is not alone deflOed by that fascinating.language we sometitues read in woman's blush, or the magic that flashes from her eye ; but in the profound darkness of the night, when we look into the chambers' of our Own soul and find a spirit of benevolence and charity moved by that same myEteri ous hand, gently and silently wooing us, as the drooping plant wooes the evening dews. Nor is it any more to be exemplified alone, in that exhibition of heatt-love, where we witness the yours; mother iso lated from the world, training the little Child in paths of virtue and honor. But . . MASONRY. ECE MRS. ELIZA H. BARKER. TAE ADDRESS. WAYNESBURG, GIVNE COUNTY, PA,, WEDNESDAY, JULY 15, 1863. it is defined in our reflective moments, when we become wedded to some project that /ill, in its fruition, bless our race Whilst they are smothered in the breast of the brigand and the murderer, they are cherished and needed by the Christian and philanthropist who may be able to extend them, till earth again becomes a paradise without the serpent's slime to curse it. In the development of the latter, not only are we to turn to the grand pageant of earth's recorded and unrecorded histo ry—to the dim types of good or evil that blackened or brightened the days of former centuries, but by thought we are to look forward down through the vista of circling ages, that as yet darkle around the cryptic altars of the coming time, in which, by the conjoined power of mind and heart, man will stand redeemed from passion,, walk the earth in his original purity and in the "image of his God" for a thousand years. If man's estate ever passes to so happy a termination, it will be the result of the cultivation of those ennobling attributes of his nature. In the circle of our order, intellectual love is the presiding goddess: she causes her votaries to meet a brother around her altars, and swear to love and cherish him and his. Masonry is not the result of any acci dent, but the result of sound principle arising upon the affinities of man to his Creator, and the necessities of man for his comfort. No rational being would, fur one instant, believe that a society could be established, and pass down time's stream, with the sanction of the great and good, through successive ages, with out having its foundation in natural wants, and hence moral and physical principle.— Taking this, then, as au admitted fact, we will con eider Masonry as so established, and so discuss it. When we are elucidating principle, it sounds fulsome to measure its age by years of time ; if principle it is, it must necessarily have existed coeval with the human understanding; but the application of it to the necessities of man is quite a different matter. This idea may be illus• trated in various ways—for instance, the principle of gravitation kept the planets within their spheres for more than five thousand years before . a Newton startled the world with the assertion that it was so. The lightning leaped from the bosom of the storm-cloud that passed over the head of Adam, but it was not till near six thousand years after, when Franklin wooed it from the skies, and handed it over to Professor Morse, who adapted it to the wants of man, that electricity became known as a useful principle. How idle then to talk of new or old prin ciple: when we speak of it, it implies an existence from the beginning of creation. It is true the changes that are constant ly going on in the physical world tend to develope those hitherto hidden by the veil of ignorance. The products of the earth increased till commerce demanded, and man's inventive genius suggested the application of steam as a motive power; the billy at once, startled and amazed, denominated it a new principle, but the wise man in computing its age ran back to the dawn of creation where it was christened principle, anct dis covered it was only its development aris ing upon new physical necessities. Then you will understand me, if Mason ry contains a material principle within it, it dates from all creation—it a moral one from all eternity. If it contains a moral principle it is susceptible of being mould ed into 'Cm for the intellectual enjoy ment of man. h it contains a material one, then it is susceptible of administering to his physical wants ; and it is my purpose now to show that it possesses' both, and nobly fulfills its mission. I remarked a moment ago that there were around us constantly recuring phys ical changes. Then if Masonry is what its votaries profess, and I know desire it should be, it is proper it should exist to promote the enjoyment, and alleviate the suffering produced by those changes, for they will alternately visit us on the wings of joy and sorrow. A person will not forget the loved scenes of hie childhood;—home, though he stray from it for an hundred years, still fresh will linger in the waste of memory the haunts of truant hours: the cascade and the dell; the grove and the hillside, can never be forgotten; but if possible, after the lapse of that hundred let him revisit those scenes, and it will seem a stranger land. A new tenant with a different taste has changed the *scene.— The cascade no longer pours its gurgling music on the ear, the corn is ripening on the site of the grove, and the dell and the hillside have been cast upon a level ; _ But again, go out from the circle of your friends and remain but for thirty years: as you reture. let not your hopes beat too high in response to your heart's desire, for mayhap the hand you would should greet you, has mouldered with its mother earth, the heart that last and longest beat in sympathy with your own, moves no more the warm impulses of a generous humanity, for the hand of death has long since stifled its pulsations and given it a ti tle to the tomb: voices you never heard be fore will greet you, and you will be treat ed as a stranger. But we need not go to those hundreds or thirties of years to mark saddening changes, eaoh day counts to us its new made orphans, and the morning and the evening bring up to us the sigh of the widow. Death unbidden visits the family circle, and ere ha departs leaves us childless; blooming innocence withers in despite the mother's love,—it spreads its raven wing over the light of conjugal af fection and clothes the heart iu widow hood—it follows in the path of friendship, reigns in her councils and riots in her fall. It is under all such circumstances tl,at the principles of our order can be applied Then we can gn back to the Lodge room, and hear the same language spoken, and see the same principles applied that we heard and saw an hundred years before;— then principle rises up in bold relief and claims no change for it, and if we have not the friend or companion of other years to greet us, we have those who can.epeak is language, those to whom he has im parted the-warm impulsee of his Masonic heart, to take us by the hand and call us brother still, amid when calamities over take us, or death viSits our - Vwu home, we always fitict - a heart to sytOpathise with and a hand to help u s . These are what way he formed some. of 4twoooleitiMg at tributes. of. Masonry, arising from a emu muoity Of thought and a , unity °llan- IPINN among Whipth *s might ettentoratit ten thousand more, but must pass on to trace its physical and moral principles. If I am correct in asserting that every material principle existed from .the begin ning of creation—and every moral one co eval with the creation, is it not a legiti mate consequence that when the great Architect of the universe set his com pass to strike the circle of his vast crea tion, if there is in our order anything worthy the name of moral principle, it was traced in dim and nameless charac ters upon the new created intellect, there to sleep in secret, like the rough marble lying in fft native bed, till the divinity of its creation bid it forth to bless humani ty : or if there was a material principle, it was impressed by the hand of God upon some atom of his creative power, that iu his good time some traveller of earth might gather it up to show the world by its application the advent of another cycle in the ceaseless march of time. We here assert that Masonry does possess both these principles. The precise time of their adoption by our order, or rather I should say the precise time that wan organized an institution upon them, is lost in the confusion between written and tradition ary history. That time can be no more ascertained than one of you can tell me by marking on the dial-plate the precise time at which the darkness of the night merges into the first first gray streaks of the morning, to enable you to say this is night, and this is day; when through a veil of darkness you can read the starry characters of heaven, you can say 'tis night—when the sun rides in his chariot of fire and darts his rays into the darkest I recesses of the earth, you can say 'tie day. But how ignorant you are, when I ask you at what precise moment of time that deep mantle of darkness first dips its Eastern 1 fringe in the floods of approaching sun ' light. ! So with regard to the exact time of the I application of moral and material princi pies to theawants of man through the me dium of Masonry. And before I begin to trace this connection between those prin ciples and our order, 1 desire to be heard in one word of explanation, lest I might be considered as claiming for Masonry a precedence to christiauity and thus seem irreverent. Some Masons of high religious character have denominated it the hand maid of christianity. I shall call it by no such name. If it will bear sa high an analogy as. that to the christian church, 'you can make the application. lam go ing to assign to Masonry, what I believe she deserves, a high position in the scale of morality, but it there is on earth anoth er institution, which I believe there is in the church, constituting a higher conserv atory of morality, surely it is no argu ment against the existence of one of less pretensions. We are taught,:as Masons, that the laborer who rough-hews the marble at the quarry, is not Lobe despised because there exists an artist who can dress it into monumental shape or statuary beauty. The private citizen who by word and deed is a worthy exampler of morali ty, is not to be censured because there are brighter christians in the church, and I presume the same reasoning will apply to all moral institutions of less pretensions than the church, and in the light of this qualification I wish you V) regard my re marks. The precise time then of the institution of our order upon those principles cannot be told—history has been too cautious, tradition too reckless, and neither positive. But as 1 said before this can make no pos sible difference in discussing its present merits. True a lapse of time passing over any institution with the sanction of the great and good is some evidence of its utility. But, I can say to you outside the circle of our brotherhood to-day, if the Mason believes the order existed in the garden of Eden when the serpent fled be fore the angel of light, and the spheres first struck their music in numbers to the harmony of creation and decorated the new-wade altar of love with the wreath of immortal sone—or notes its date a few ages later in days that are numbered with te years before the flood—or coining down still later he finds the evidence of its first existence when the laborer found the long lost book of the law in the ruins first Temple—his belief is founded upon evi dence satisfactory to himself, and is the business of no one else. We hold our or der up to to-day not merely as a relic of the past, but a beacon light blazing in the darkness of life's stormy sea to guide our course in the gloom of the future. To demonstrate its utility in this respect we will note some of its more prominent foot imints in the sands of the past. Its his tory is a noble record, it has gathered its fruits by the sequestered stream and si lent brook, by the winding river and ma jestic ocean, on the mountain top and in the vale, from the palace and the hovel, every place has been visited by it. Pros perity has invited it to the palace of the king, persecution has driven it to the highest hills and lowest valleys; the high and the low have struck hands in frater nal greeting on its broad level; tradition has assigned it an origin in the earliest ages of the world ; history has followed it far back in those retreats. When the great Architect of the universe placed man on earth, lie provided for his spiritual wants by giving him a con scious consolation in his own Creator's wor ship, and taught him his fearful responsi bilities to that Creator, man never was in tended to administer to man's spiritual welfare. For that purpose there was a God; but not so with his physical comfort, his intellectual enjoyment, and in a great de gree his moral improvement : for these he was left to his own resources and his af finities to his fellow man. It is not then to be wondered at, that in the dark ages we find him an outcast front home pleas ures and a stranger to social comforts.— Fresh from the hand of Deity had been placed in his breast a consciousness of good and evil that redeenikd him front an otherwise appropriate analogy to the straggling brute, and elevated him to a knowledge of the necessities for his com fort. This advanced him to that demi civilization that broke the darkness of earlier ages, but left him still a wanderer in the forest and field. The gedus of Aar had dot yet come to bless him with her holy mission, and it was not.till after man's utor4 nOute 'drove hitn to his af finities with his 'fellow man, that' their • conjoined efforts in social lodges brought to the light of earth, Aev, with her un- , told wonders, and unnumbered blessings, to provide him with a h3tute to.ehettek him from the storms, and protect him from the burning suns of heaven. Josephus, the Jewish historian, is the first to give us a written history of the works of art proceeding from associations of men ; he tells us of the rude huts or tents of Jebel and the warble columns erected before the flood; lie traces most clearly the principles of our order back to days beyond the flood, in the light I will trace them hereafter. YOu have often beard it asserted that Masonry was one of the most ancient institutions upon earth; to prove its antiquity the investigator has taken you back to the plains of Shiner, that rich and beautiful land drained by the Euphrates and Tigris, at whose conflu ence Eden reared her flowers and shed her fragrance, and tells you that there on those lovely plains our ancient brethren built majestic Babylon. History tells of her hundred gates, her tower of Belus, and even her artificial mountains. You have heard of the Egyptian Magii who held the key to the hieroglyphics. You hear of Thales and Pythagoras, who spent . long years travelling in search of more light respecting our ancient craft, and the Egyptians admitting them step by step through all the familiar initiating pro cess. You have heard of Thebes with her hundred gates, and her statue of Memnon, from which the sun could draw that mys terious voice. On the same plain too stood Heliopolis, or the city of the sun, where Plato was initiated, who afterwards with .Heroditas and Eudaxus dissemina ted their light throughout the laud of Greece. You hear after so many ages of those imperishable monuments of art, the marble pyramids that grace the valley of the Nile ; history informs us that one of these majestic monuments bathes its head in the clouds of heaven six hundred feet from the earth, and was built by sixty thousand Masons in the long period of twenty years. That, Sir Knights, was a long pilgrimage, and must have required much patience and perseverance, great con stancy and courage, from which it would be well for you to draw a lesson. You have also heard of ancient Tyre and Sidon, the most ancient cities of the world, whose people once sported on the banks and bathed their limbs in the dark waves of the Mediterranean: they were the great emporiums of the ancient world; Sidon ex isted in the days of Joshua and Jacob, ' and Tyre was built two hundred and for ty years before Solomon's Temple. But'. we must not stop this running history till we visit the once classic shores of the AEgean Sea, for from them comes down to us at last those patterns of art, most famil iar, and therefore dearest to every Mason ic heart, the lonian, Doric, and Corinth- ' ian. orders of architecture and other me morials of departed greatness. To Greece are we indebted for three of the seven wonders of the world ; the Mausoleum of Mousoins erected by his widow Artimesia, the temple of Diana, and the Collossus at Rhodes. • These monuments of art erected for or nament are typical of the houses, the toan ples, and palaces of those ages, as every historical description of Solomon's temple verities. But the important question now comes up, in this connection, were those cities, temples, columns, monuments, and pyramids, the result of Masonry proper ? Brothers, this is an important question, to a answer, and 1 must claim the right to n." s. , er it in such a manner as to preserve my reputaCon for truth, and my judgment of history, to meet with no contemptuous eueer from this intelligent audience. If I answer it in a manner at variance with your own convictions of truth, bear with me, for whilst on the one hand I will pledge myself to tear down no land marks, I, on the other, promise to erect no false image. I will give the answer as it occurs to me in the light of history; and on some other anniversary, when the du ties that have this day been imposed upon me, much against my will, shall fall to your lot in the division of labor about the temple, you can correct my shortcom ings with your advanced intelligence.— But for this day and this occasion I must be permitted to answer for myself only , and in doing so I assert that some wri ters, ancient, as well as modern, have not preserved a proper distinction in the use of terms. hence erroneous opinions have been formed at variance with sound phi losophy, and contravening what may rea sonably be supposed matters of fact. Take up a masonic history, or any of our ordinary text books, and the mind is at once struck with the familiarity of names—as, for instance, when the writer in discussing this question takes occasion to speak of Adam or Noah, they call them Grand Masters, and the impression is that these men actually presided over an association similar to the usage of the present day. Why, my friends, to my mind such au idea is the very trump to nonsense. This misapprehension of the unlearned is not surprising when from ma sonic history we read the names of our officers attached to all the patriarchs as though they had been handed down through successive ages. Hence readers of our history are led to believe that we actually intend to assert that our institu tion itself, of which we are members, had an organized existence even from the days of Adam ; this 1 cannot believe ; it is not true. But when those writers assert that Masonry has existed coeval with the hu man race, no one will deny it, independent of its connection with modern free and ac cepted masonry. There can be no doubt from what I have before stated upon the authority of undoubted history, that craft work called masonry began with the first permanent structere for human habitation ever erected, and it is also true that Free Masonry, in the sense that term was used, is equally ancient. It simply meant that the work was per formed by freemen, not slaves, which was ever true. But notwithstanding these frames are used in common in reference to ancient and modern times, still there is a wide difference as to what is denoted in the two cases. In the former, little more is meant than craft labor as an occupa tion. In the latter, a permanent organi. zation, recognizing fraternal relations as members, and embodying a system of sci entific truths and moral duties. This, then, embodies my answer to the question: I say Masonry, in the earlier ages of the ; world, existed only as an art. But f .. n liter tinier; toueliktby the 140 of genius and moulded into the forms of a sterner inor aliticit blazed along the darkened earth like a meteor through the midnight sky to light and bless mankiud as it passed from operative or physical masonry into specu lative or moral masonry. This is the Ma sonry of the nineteenth century, as hand ed down to us from former ages. It has been established on principles compatible with every generous feeling and ennobling impulse of the human heart Masonry progressad so far, as an art, that the civilized world had been filled with the results of its material principle, and it was only after the wilderness had been reclaimed and marked as the sure heritage of man, when the landscape bloomed un der the culture of his hand, when houses had been made, fit for homes, and temples in which to worship the living God had. been erected, and when, in the course of improvement, the bumble dwelling, in its simple rudeness, and the little church in the growing village, yielded their claims to the fastidious taste of man in the erec tion of the more splendid palace and gor geous cathedral, it became evident that art masonry haei fulfilled its mission, and hence pass*d in to speculative masonry, and hung the walls of its temples with the drapery of a pure moralit3band converted the implements of its labor into the lan guage of a high-toned intellectuality. Here, then, we have arrived at the threshold of that Masonry which we claim to-day possesses a moral principle. In exemplifying its material principle we travelled back through the dusky cham bers of the past and brought home along the lighted aisles of history, the name of many an ancient landmark, and to your honest judgment the indubitable evidence of its existence. And now, for the illustration of this branch of our subject, we again take our stand on the point of history and send you greeting its hallowed message. In what land soever the God of revela tion is known, the masonic altar supports the holy Bible; by a belief in its holy word the mason first enters the Lodge, and by its teachings is he ever after governed there. But wheresoever the light of that Bible has not been shed, the works of na ture constitute the masonic chart by which they work, by rules of concord and harmony, in keeping with those natural laws, around them their moral rectitude • just as Adam, after the fall, had lost moral standing was dependent upon the laws of nature operating around him and within him for a recovery from his moral fall by looking "through nature up to nature's God." Revelation bad not yet visited the earth. And so to-day, away amid the lost islands of the sea and deso late continents untouched by civilization, where revelation has not yet blessed the inhabitants, nature clothes them with a clumsy morality, and catching the inspi ration of harmony from her laws, the heathen mason lives in keeping with the laws of a al icter civiliption, Then if I tell you in this land of en lightenment the Bible constitutes the great light of Masonry. I judge it will be consid ered by every candid mind a sufficient ba sis for our claims to morality. Every Lodge room in tile civilized world is light ed by the truths of the Bible, and on its pages are inscribed many an incident that assists in making up the history of our order. When you answer that we have in our order members who do not practice its precepts, in truth we are constrained to admit it ; but does this argue against the principle? it so, if the fact of our order con taining one, or one dozen immoral mem bers is to condemn it, Oh ! Christianity where is the power to shield you from the fearful sentence? If we are to disbelieve the existence of moral principle in every association for such a cause, then indeed siay be blot from memory all that is pure and holy, and virtuous, and truthful, and good in the church, and convert the brightest spot of the christian's hope into the darkest spot of the anostatelskliell; f for where is the church wiclikoCts-411& , v.1 4 1e5t hy pocrite? It you charge upon us an asso ciation with the votaries of immorality, we answer the works of man know no per fection; earth with all her attributes is clogged with imperfection. In intellectu ality, the sciences and the arts, in mor als, every social, benevolent, and charita ble institution encounters them. When new problems are to be demonstrated in the one, prejudice, superstition and ignor ance beset them. When good works would proceed from the other, bad men will thwart them. This imperfection is attend ant upon man in all his walks. We have eyes, but our visior. is circumscribed. If we would lain follow by the eye the sun to his setting, the hill -top rises in the far perspective to obstruct the view. If we turn to trace the course of the river that moves away so gently before us, it soon becomes lost in many a curve. If we would follow the ship that breaks from old Ocean's beech, freighted with our hearts' fondest love,— soon it goes down till the blue waves impede the vision. We have hills and slopes, and plains and vales over which to ramble, but our feet will weary. We have a social principle within us that bids us kneel at Pleasure's shrine, but Morpheus will draw the veil of forgetfulness before the drowsy eye.— In the vegetable world, among the most beauteous flowers, God has placed the poisonous plant and tinged it with the hues of a matchless beauty. In the land where blooms the most delicious fruit?, beware lest you approach tile poisonous upas. So in the Church, beware the,hypo crite, and in Masonry beware the apos tate. You say many a man has gone into the Lodge a pure and virtuous and honest man and fallen after ; and so have they approached the Church, and so fallen, and yet both the Church and Masonry may be all they claim. The oak that has graced the forest and battled the storms of an hundred years, at last becomes the object upon which the flying thunderbolt spends its force ; so may man stand among hie the fellows, lapse a ornamentf mathaorf t yph eaeasetsroxsi passion. But e d t y a , t t r last, o ug i I n some unpropitious i hour, fall a victim to s t a h e e h th ca u s n e d s er th bo u lt did not cause it, Masonry did tio n ßn o u t tß ca ei u nli s g e iao i l t n , l it was the absence of both. Jr the true principles of Christianity were studied and properly . practiced, there would be no hy pocrisy in the Church. If the principles of Masonry were also studied, there would be within the circle of our brotherhood s lees i i Inmlity freely I contese it with : a blush of burtiiug - shave on my ma heoerka, me in 'this humiliating confesion, and whilst you do so, let me reminPyou my masonic c haenheart.p y an o g u, of Masons, regret wiu from Join that in your breasts coigne the power ea- VEW SERIES.-NOL. '6 l NO. .6% preme to wipe the stain away, that you may stand redeemed -from such a charge before another anniversary day shall be marked in the archives of the past. But my friends while you are pointing to oar unworthy membership as objects of contumely and reproach to our order, let rue pass in rapid review before you the long line of illustrious names that grace the page of,listory, and ewell that, pro cession of Masonic fame that traveled in the paths of the past; —their name is le gion and they love the tenets of our faith,—from around the standard of pa triarch and prophet, apostle and saint, king, scribe, priest, „philanthropist and christian, thus drawing it from the foun tains of everything that is holy in religion, everything that is pure in humanity, everything that is commendable in knowl• edge, everything that is exalted in pa triotism, and mingle. it with every benifi cence worthy of man. Then .it is not be cause Masonry has had some bad men in the circle of her membership, that she has in days past been visited with the sword and fire of persecution, so much as an un holy jealousy on accountof the great and good who have swelled our lists. This is the true cause of complaint, that thosie great exemplars of earth might have given their whole attention to some other association if Masonry had not attracted them, for there are no objections to the principles of our order. .Every objection has been answered a thousand times.— The masonic orator has followed the thorny path of persecution home to the brazen altars of inquisition ' and in the very teeth of the anti-masonic Moloch burled defiance that withered him down as the wintry blast would wither the tropic doer ret. And I care not, my brothers, whether that inquisition held its commission un der the broad seal of a mighty common wealth, or swelled into importance under the charter of a great political party, the waves of a gentle morality that silently though surely undulate from the sanctum sanctorum overspread it and wiped it from existence as the wavesof the ocean Wet out the footprints of the travellers °Wits' sandy beach. So the day of our persecu tion is past, and now we stand in the dawn of a day,. bright and I hope endur ing in the annals of Masonry. The ma sonic orator has, now, only to recount the history of the past as a matter of interest to wipe back the dark brow of care, and show bow, in the folly of an idle hour; man may oppress his fellow-man, and hoe press masonic duty, and give masonic les sons for future usefulness. If there were no morality in our prinok ples, I could endur ny degree of .9ppo sition. But its mePlPty is written - too plainly for mere words to deny. If we look into the chronicles of the past we will find the history of our race but little else thita a record of wrong and misery—the way ward passion has gone unbridled into So ciety and left its victims mangled and bleeding on every side. Now it seizes the dagger and the victim of the asassin's ven geance freights the midnight air with his dying shriek—then it learns the language of the slanderer and injured innocence with ers at its direful touch. Now it seeks en joyment in the convivial bowl, that dani ni ng sin of poor humanity,and the blooming wife and prattling child, fall to fade in loathsome haunts of squalid beggary.— Now again it goes off on the wings of pleasure, to fold them around the gamblers' ' hell, and a voice comes up from the home circle pleading a return to neglected love and a sympathy ,for bleeding hearts.— Hence it is that tiome crucible is demand ed in which-to melt tirtkee hardened pas sions ant' ould o thens into form more fit for man's enjoyment. The first great lee-- son we are taught in Masonry is to curb , those passion* We all possess them toe , gratere or less degree ; they constitute thy , chief cause of all man's terrestrial'mise ry. If it is good morality to assist in re ti 1171,1 moving the cause of evil„ t n. Masonry needs no advo - foillei ief mission is to learn m ap bdte . - is passions), and walk on t ll, I level, straight as the plumbet line. If it is good morality to affirmatively work out great charities, and perform acts of benevolence, Mason ry stands redeemed. If you could to-day witness the long array of orphans and widows who have been enabled to stem the winter of adversity and poverty, through the helping hand of Masonry, the light of a brighter faith in her peculiar tenets would break upon your mind. If charity is morality, Masonry again claims the name. If a brother is travelling in a distant land,—a stranger from his home, and adversity overtakes him, if he can but speak the masonic language, all his wants are supplied. This feature of our order is most beautifully illustrated in a littlestory that is told by that eminent statesman and wise mason, the Hon. Joseph R. Chandler, of Philadelphia. He says, "it was in a tempestuous portion of the ,y,ear 1790 that a large ship whieb was making a slow progress up the Baltic Sea, found itself suddenly wrapt in one of those wild gales that come down from the mountain gap sacrificing nearly all that stood in its course, and "Reared up the 13afticin a foaminglary." Ic this:situation, after gallant resistance to the tempest, the overladened vessel suc cumbed, and man after man was swept from the deck, and carried onward "down the wind" to he dashed upon the rocks of a lee shore, or to be e buried fathoms be low the stormy surface, when at length the vessel struck upon the shelving shore, bre wards which she had drifted. The re mining portion of the crew lashed them selves to the spars, and awaited the surge that should wash them from the deck.— It came booming onward,—of the few who had been spared thus far, only one, the master of the vessel—reac hed the land.— He reached it exhausted, inanimate.— His first recognition was the kindly care of a frienn in the chamber of a sordid hovel—a chamber whose darkness was dis pelled by the light of friendship, and where pains were assauged by one pledged to help, aid and ass*. The first word of the sufferer was reeponded to by the kind ly voice of a . :11-aeon, unintelligible indeed, excepting in ibe language* ]Masonry. Distance of birth and variety of profession constituted no bar to their humanity.— The utter ignoranea,of each other's yerniie. ular language hindered not the detighifiil communion. A little jewel that rested cis flie bosom.of the shipwrecked noted his masonic oharaotsr. Medusas, goodness, and fraternal love were the gio- 4'
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