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ESTABLISHED IN 1813.
THE WAYNESBURG MESSENGER,
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ar OFFICE 'NEARLY OPPOSITE TEE
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JITTORMETS.
Oft. L. WYLY. J. i. J. EVCILANAN. D. a. P. au..
WYLY, BUCHANAN & HUSS,
blarneys & Counsellors at Law,
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*fill practice in the Courts of Greene and adjoining
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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
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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,
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Ui "Office in the "Wrighilitlc Lie," East Door.
Collections, &c., willeceive prompt attention.
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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:
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PwsA. received from the War Department at Wash
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Charged and disabled soldiers, their widows, orphan
Children, widowed mothers, fathers, sisters and broth
mg, which business; (upon due notice] will be attend
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Ogkee in the old Bank Building.—April 8, 1863.
G. W. G. WADDELL,
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PHYSICIANS
B. M.. MACKEY, M. D.
• mrsactALEr'et ,, SUBAIZON,
0111ce—BlaehleVa Building, Main St.,
ItEBPECTFUI.LY announces to the citizens of
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* 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,
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Oils, the most celebrated Patent Medicines, and Pure
Lkuors for medicinal mimosas.
'Sept. 11,1881-Iy.
IVEXRCINANTS
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'Wholesale and Retail Dealer in Foreign and Domes
' Dry Goode, Groceries, Notions, !Lc., Main street.
Sept. 11,1861-Iy.
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ware and notions, in the Hamilton HOUlle, opposite
pre Court House, Main street. Sept.. 11, 1861-Iy.
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'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'