and promoters of that institution which they may perpetuate. Hence the necessity of a sure foundation. May Free Masonry be established among you, on the rock of ages; may its moral precepts make a deep and lasting impression on all who profess it. the corn, vine, and olive: the minister should be prepared with meekness, piety, and useful knowledge: the Mason should be prepared in heart to receive those charitable impressions which characterize all worthy men; he should learn to subdue those passions which impede his improvement in the sublime order; he should have a disposition so softened by the miseries of the human family, that he could not turn a deaf ear to the cries of the indigent; to him the widowed hearting with the one hand, let the sword of might pour out its sorrows and distress, and prefer its suit with confidence and success. Had none ever been Masons but such as were thus prepared, the tongue of slander would have been for ever silenced, and calumny would have seldom reached us; but sorry am I to say, this is not the case. The door of admission has been too widely thrown open; some have entered, actuated by the basest designs; they have calculated on obtaining the most implicit confidence, and then betraying it.Nevertheless, some of those have been compelled to shudder, and shrink back in confusion; convinced, by a glance, of the sacred purity of our rights, and struck with their importance, they have been ready to retire, self-condemned, from the consecrated spot, and blush at the recollection. Should any have the hardihood to persevere, they only add difficulty to danger; for error and confusion being the concomitants of vice, they will not be able to stand the test by which they will be tried; and if discovered, they are infinitely more to be despised than if they never had been Masons. Notwithstanding Free Masonry has occasionally suffered by the admission of improper persons, yet it is a pleasing reflection, that the place we inhabit was but a few years since, the haunt of wild beasts, and the savages of the wilderness; but is this day the abode of men of science, morality, and brotherly loye; men and Masons, to whom future ages must look up as the founders Companions, Mark well the progress of all your work, that it may stand the test of the Grand Overseer's square; while work faith be grasped with the other, to protect your sacred banner. Subdue hatred and animosity, overcome envy, and every turbulent passion, that you may partake of the hidden manna, and receive the white stone, in which the new name is written. Let love cement you; and charity stand pre-eminent before you; receive to your bosom the forlorn stranger; convert the unknown land into a peaceful home; pour the balsam of consolation into the afflicted heart; ward off the weapons of adversity; and bestow on them the best of gifts, timely admonition and advice. And finally, my brethren, when our work shall be completed here below, and the key shall be found in the ark of time; when the last trump shall sound, and the proclamation of the King of Heaven shall relieve us from the captivity of the grave, and we are invited to the sanctuary of eternal rest; may we be prepared to trace our true genealogy, and be possessed of those essential virtues which will give us admittance within the vail of white, there to be presented to the grand council of angels, where the eternal high priest presides. Amen and Amen. PRESENT OR PAST MASTER'S DEGREE; FIFTH LECTURE. This degree is highly important, and should be well understood by every master of a Lodge. It treats of the government of our fraternity, the disposition of our officers, and elucidates their requisite qualifications. It shows None but such as have served a faithful apprenticeship, and laboured as fellow-crafts, a sufficient length of time to entitle them to take rank among the master workmen; none but those who have received the indelible mark, whose work has passed, with approbation, the inspection of the master overseer, and who by the unanimous suffrages of their brethren, have been seated in the Oriental Chair, can be admitted to this degree. When the temple at Jerusalem was completed, and the capstone celebrated He who hath not lifted up his soul unto vanity, nor sworn deceitfully. shall receive the blessing from the Lord, and righteousness from the God of his salvation. This is the generation of them that seek him, that seek thy face, O Jacob. Selah. Lift up your heads, O ye gates, and be ye lifted up, ye everlasting doors, and the King of Glory shall come in. Who is this King of Glory? the Lord, strong and mighty, the Lord, mighty in battle. Lift up your heads, O ye gates, even lift them up, ye everlasting doors, and the King of Glory shall come in. Who is this King of Glory? the Lord of Hosts, he is the King of Glory. Selah." The following Psalm is read, or recited, during the ceremony of receiving a candidate : PSALM CXxii. "I was glad when they said unto me, let us go into the house of the Lord. Our feet shall stand within thy gates, O Jerusalem. Jerusalem is builded as a city that is compact to by the fraternity, Grand Master Solo-gether: whither the tribes go up, the mon admitted none to this honour, but those who by their virtue, skill, and inflexible integrity, had proved themselves worthy, and were complete masters of their profession. The duties incumbent on every brother who is admitted to the degree of a most excellent master, are such as to render it absolutely necessary that he should be perfectly acquainted with all the preceding degrees. The following psalm is read or repeated, at the time of opening the lodge. PSALM XXIV. "The earth is the Lord's, and the fulness thereof; the world, and they that dwell therein. For he hath founded it upon the seas, and established it upon the floods. Who shall ascend into the hill of the Lord? and who shall stand in his holy place? He that tribes of the Lord, unto the testimony of Israel, to give thanks unto the name of the Lord. For there are set thrones of judgment, the thrones of the house of David. "Pray for the peace of Jerusalem; they shall prosper that love thee. Peace be within thy walls, and prosperity within thy palaces. For my brethren and companions' sakes, I will now say, peace be within thee. Because of the house of the Lord our God, I will seek thy good." The sixth chapter of the second Chronicles is also occasionally introduced, accompanied with solemn ceremonies. Charge to a Brother, who is received and acknowledged as a Most Excellent Master. "BROTHER, "Your admittance to this degree of hath clean hands, and a pure heart; || Masonry, is a proof of the good opin ion the brethren of this lodge entertain Let this of your Masonic abilities. consideration induce you to be careful of forfeiting, by misconduct and inattention to our rules, that esteem which has raised you to the rank you now possess. "It is one of your great duties, as a most excellent master, to dispense light and truth to the uninformed Mason; and I need not remind you of the impossibility of complying with this obligation without possessing an accurate acquaintance with the lectures of each degree. "If you are not already completely conversant in all the degrees heretofore conferred on you, remember, that an indulgence, prompted by a belief that you will apply yourself with double diligence to make yourself so, has induced the brethren to accept you. "Let it therefore be your unremitting study to acquire such a degree of knowledge and information as shall enable you to discharge with propriety the various duties incumbent on you, and to preserve unsullied the title now conferred upon you of a Most Excel lent Master." Fulfill'd is the promise, By the ANCIENT OF DAYS, There's no more occasion for level or plumb-line, For trowel or gavel, for compass, or square; Our works are completed, the ark safely seated, And we shall be greeted as workmen most rare. Now those that are worthy, Our toils who have shar'd, Have gain'd our good will. We accept and receive them most excellent masters, Invested with honours, and power to preside; Amongst worthy craftsmen, wherever assembled, The knowledge of Mason's to spread far and wide. ALMIGHTY JEHOVAH, True pleasure in teaching The following song is solemnly Thy wisdom inspired the great institution, sung. MOST EXCELLENT MASTER'S SONG. By Brother T. S. Webb. All hail to the morning Shall hail us no more. To the Power Almighty, who ever has guided The tribes of old Israel, exalting their fame; To him who hath govern'd our hearts undivided, Let's send forth our voices, to praise his great name. Companions, assemble Thy strength shall support it, till nature expire; And when the creation shall fall into ruin, Its beauty shall rise, through the midst of the fire! The ceremony closes with the fol lowing passages of scripture. 2 CHRON. vii, 1—4. "Now, when Solomon had made an end of praying, the fire came down from heaven, and consumed the burnt offering and the sacrifices; and the glory of the Lord filled the house. And the priests could not enter into the house of the Lord, because the glory of the Lord had filled the Lord's house. And when all the children of Israel saw how the fire came down, and the glory of the Lord upon the house, they bowed themselves with their faces to MASONIC. THE CHRISTIAN MASON. Hail, mystic art, in mercy given, I shall therefore attempt, in a series of numbers, to show that the origin of Masonry is divine; that its principles are spiritual, and that its end is salvation. If I succeed, as I trust I shall, I may be instrumental in removing the doubts and prejudices of our opponents, and of elevating the dignity of our art, in the estimation of its professors. In pursuing this intention, however, I shall deviate from the plan of all who have written on the subject before me, and leaving the porch of the temple, penetrate, with all due reverence, into the sanctities of its interior, where, if the reader will accompany me, he shall ere long, become convinced of the following fact, as expressed in the language of the Rev. Salem Town, viz: The principles of Speculative Free Masonry have the same co-eternal and Ddd unshaken foundation-contain and in- It is a truth taught in the holy scriptures throughout, and abundantly confirmed by reason and experience, that mankind have sadly degenerated from the state in which they were originally created, and in which the Great Architect of the Universe pronounced them "GOOD." It is also a truth, founded on, and confirmed by the same testimony, that every operation and dispensation of Divine Providence is intended and calculated to obviate the miserable effects of that lamentable apostacy. Innumerable are the means which Omnipotence has furnished for our reformation; and nothing but a perversion and prostitution of the powers which he is continually giving us for retracing the path of declension, can defeat the merciful intention of the Divine Giver, which is to lead us back to our lost paradise, and reinstate us in our primitive happy condition. To effect this gracious purpose were the scriptures written, redemption wrought, Masonry instituted, and a thousand other means of grace afforded. But notwithstanding the great multiplicity and infinite variety of those means which have been graciously provided to effect our reformation and restoration, there is one wonderful trait that characterizes the whole, and can be traced through them all-each containing within itself the same reproof and the same instruction. For whether we look to the Scripture, or to reason, to the heavens, or to the earth, to the dispensations of Providence, or to the operations of nature, we shall find a wonderful consistency and harmony in so many various modes of inculcating the same truth-that to aberrate from order is to depart from happiness, and that to return to the one, is to enjoy the other. Were this, however, all that they teach, we should be little benefitted by the study. But they not merely represent to us the value of what we have lost; they go much further, and instruct us how to regain it, by pointing out the direct path, and leading us in it, step by step, so long as we will consent to follow. That Masonry was given by God to man, for this express purpose, shall be made to appear hereafter. But the most grand, sublime, and important of all the means appointed for our reformation-that from which all others are derived, and to which they are all subordinate, is the Word of God. This is the great source and fountain from which all truth directly emanates, (however diversely it may afterwards be reflected) whether spiritual, or natural; theological, or scientific. Nay, however bold may appear the assertion, I am prepared to prove that there is not, nor ever has been in any age of the world, a single useful art or science, but its origin may be traced to divine revelation. It is a mistaken idea to suppose, that the advantages of such revelation, (even in a natural point of view,) have been confined to Jews and Christians. Millions, who never heard of the God of Israel, or the Christian Redeemer, have been incalculably benefitted by the religion of each. Civilization, and its attendant blessings, would never have blessed any portion of mankind, had human reason, unaided by revelation, been the sole director of human operations; and those nations and tribes, who are now the most remote from civilization, are those who have been the farthest removed from the enlightening sphere of divine truth. The Greeks and Romans, in their most elevated state of learning and refinement, were totally unconscious that all their wisdom, learning, and arts, were attributable to divine revelation; for though they worshipped some hundreds of divine attributes, in the form of as many gods, yet every single or complex idea of moral rectitude which they possessed, was de rived from the revelation of our own great Lawgiver; who under different characters, has ever been making such dispensations and manifestations of truth to his fallen creatures, as were best adapted to their various states and capacities. But though it is insisted that the fountain is the same, (as there is, and can be, but one fountain of wisdom,) yet it is conceded that the stream approached them through a long and circuitous channel, and had become more or less polluted by the impure medium through which it had passed. Rome was indebted to Greece, and Greece to Egypt, who derived all her intellectual treasures from the descendants of a family who were undoubtedly versed in all the sciences of an antediluvian world, which had originally been revealed to man by God himself, as was the art of agriculture to Adam. The hieroglyphics, symbols, and mystical religious rites of the ancient Egyptians, afford strong presumptive evidence of the perversion of very sublime spiritual mysteries, which had been perfectly intelligible to the antediluvians, but the true end and meaning of which had been gradually lost sight of by successive generations. What a wide field is here open for vague conjecture to all who are not versed in the mys teries of Masonry! But Masonry teaches us that the sublimest science which had thus been retained in external symbols, the genuine internal meaning of which had been forgotten or perverted, was the science of correspondences, or the art of contemplating spiritual subjects in natural forms, of perceiving every physical and material object to be a perfect type or figure of some intellectual or moral principle, according to the idea of St. Paul, where he says, "The invisible things of Him from the creation of the world, are clearly seen, being understood by the things that are made, even his eternal power and Godhead.” But more of this in some future number. |