Not For Naught.

need of man is ever the impulse , the motive , which supports and perpetuates it all . The individual man needs strength , protection , sympathy in the great task of existence , and first he found it in the family compact . These insulated

groups recognized the same great need , but more extended , and found it in the tribe , where all of common blood protect the common welfare . The tribes themselves , from wars and toil , found in their greater compacts their safety

and relief , and thus it is that nations grew out of the very -weakness of mankind . We find the truth still further illustrated by the process of accretion , other than by birth , within these families . By the practice of adoption , the

stranger , alien in birth and blood , was admitted into and amalgamated with the original brotherhood . The compact was preserved and strengthened by the fiction , for every coming stranger feigned descent from the stock on which

they were engrafted . And so again it was in tribe and state .

We also learn another proof of what we claim , from the change in power and government which appeared when families became combined in tribes . A despotic power was

vested in the patriarchal head , as best to carry out fche smaller needs of youth and personal dependence—the fear of force without increased the force within—but in the

safety of their strength combined , this power was modified and tempered by the counsels of the elders and the common sacrifice in which all members of the tribe , by birth , and by adoption , joined . But with the growth of wants came

commerce , then wars , and exile , and captivity—the tie of blood and kinship , weakened by excess of fiction , and by absorption into aggregates , lost force and power—the youth

threw off the yoke , the tribe rebelled against the absent lord—the principle of local contiguity became established as a basis of union for common ends—and the atoms of

humanity became sifted over the surface of the earth , until now the individual is the unit of society , and the family tie is limited to the condition of dependence in childhood and physical infirmity . And thus the remedy for his great

need , which man so early planned , was dissipated and lost in the advance to modern civilization , and civilization gave nothing in return save only law , and the rule of force ,

competent enough by combination of the individual units in resistance to save the state from aggression from without , but ineffectual to supply all closer needs of those same units in relation with themselves .

The modern laws are founded , it is said , on the wisdom and experience of the world , and are the ripe product of the best human thought . But general rules , as laws must be

will always gall the weaker spot , and often in the name of justice work injustice . They furnish remedies for wrongs after the wrong is done , and punish for the crime for which no reparation can be made—and here their mission ends .

We cast about to find the harbour of refuge that has supplied the place of the lost family compact . The tie of kindred blood no longer binds , but in its stead we find our mystic tie of brotherhood . Brothers by adoption , we draw

apart in groups about our patriarchal head , under whose rule we all must bow . We gather about the common altar , and by our friendly zeal supply the kindred part of sympathy from heart to heart—anoint the bruise , bind up the

wound , snpport the weak , admonish error , and ward off the threatened evil . We wage our struggle with the world as men ; but here we reproduce the kindly graces of the ancient family , with all its ties in semblance and in

meaning . With common aims and common ends to serve ¦ we labour here for the common good , nnder the common Master , and thus we typify the world's first life and law . Brothers by adoption , indeed , the fiction of our relation to

each other is no more than that which made the alien all of •kin , and the tie which imitates could never have been closer in reality . And then , we , too , are gathered in our councils of the elders , and make our mutual sacrifice and

obli gation , consider common needs , and make our common rules to regulate the whole . We do not need to claim a kindred blood , or that our Order had its origin in the early dawn of life , before its history began . If it has filled a

primal need and want of man , left out of the problems Solved by Governments of force ancl law , then it has justified its being . But more than this we claim . This need "We have supplied , but with the growth of thought have

come such other needs and wants as were not known to tho rude past , or known but to be unattained . And these it has supplied , and proved itself the abiding place of all the higher hopes , the purer joys of life , that come to us from the angels' wings , shedding effulgence over all the world .

Not For Naught.

It teaches love and fellowship—the ever-present wants and longings of our nature—extended and comprising the multitude of all the brotherhood , as though again all were but members of one familv .

Love , indeed , we have , as from the gentle mother o ' er her babe , returned with the first dawn of thought—celestial rapture falling out of heaven , the essence of divinity , expanding and unfolding as the life expands , enwrapped

about tho home , the early friends , the toys , the very work and cares of youth . The angelic passion comes and fades , but over all the love light of the soul ever reaches outward , for ' over enlarging its circles , as the light of the sun of the

universe , permanent and unchanging , shedding its first rays o ' er friends and objects most familiar—we bring within its range the universal brotherhood , and the kindly gleam ,

purified and impersonal , falls o ' er all , and the sweet harmony of brotherly love , which we mast ever cherish , finds its reponsive chord in every soul .

Wifch love comes fellowship—less of the soul , more of tho

human—but the love , pure and exalted , thafc embraces the unknown , has fitted us for that great human passion . D jes it not argue much for the wisdom and strength of fche principles on which we rest , that we so early learn to cherish

fche belief thafc wifchin our numbers there are no strangers —none who stand without , unbidden to cross the threshold of the heart—that we are all brothers with a common home , a common thought , and wifch the warm impulse ever

ready to extend and take the cordial grasp—the symbol of affection and fraternity . We meet as strangers of the world may meet , without desire to change that cold rela . tion—we read the language of the Order , and the heart

throbs faster , the blood flows quicker to the grasp , the eye lights up with kindly interest , the barrier is down , the sympathies go forth , and we have found a friend , selected

and cut out of the great mass , tried and purified , unknown but now , and now well known as though by years of wear and use , who has , with us , a corner of his life shut out from selfishness and strife , distrust and passion .

" The fountains of our hiddden life Are throngh onr friendships fair . " And there is that within our Order that makes us worthy friends . The elements of friendship are always truth and

tenderness , and to be good and true are the first lessons we are taught in Masonry . Truth , sincerity , integrity of heart and life and memory are characteristic of the Masonic friendship . Where else can we so freely repose the keeping

of our honour , our interests , our hopes and fears , as under the Masonic shield ? We stand erect within our halls , equal among ourselves , with none fco fear or favour , wifch the same obligation resting over all ; hypocrisy and

simulation are put aside , and we may be sincere , as each is ever with himself . Elsewhere it is not so . In business life , and iu society , we ever wear the mask , we court and fawn , we exercise command —we acfc our part , and watch the way our fellows act oufc theirs—all conscious we are actors in

the play , and laugh or grieve , with farce or tragedy , as go fche times . And then of tenderness . The strong hand reaches forth to stay the falling , to support the weak ; the destitute , the helpless sick are cared for . These are

common virtues , but the tender pity—the fidelity wifch which the erring brother's secret is preserved , his grief respected , and his sufferings relieved without publicity or shame—may clothe the coarser grace with the fairer gift

of friendship . The right hand may not know the other s acfc , and mercy joins with charity to throw the kindly mantle o'er the broken vow and the repented wrong , while the wandering feet are tenderly led back to bidden paths .

We dwell but lightly on each other ' s faults and foibles , and make our fellowship our aid and comfort in the rough and thorny passages of life and death , and in our joy and sorrow finds its wealth of sympathy an unmixed blessing .

Freemasonry teaches justice , uprightness of action , the moral virtues , on which we rest our manliness and selfrespect . And what more sterling qualities can be grouped about the character of man , subject as we all are to the

influence of passion , the weakness of desire , the temptations of necessity , and love of gain and the delights of life P 'Tis true it teaches these in common with all moral schools , but none the less its work is being done in this great field

of training men to so adjust their lives that progress maybe possible , aud the world go forward toward tfiafc high standard where all men ' s lives shall illustrate the Godlike character marked on the face and form by the Supreme Architect Himself . And while we learn these rules of daily life and conduct