St. John The Baptist.

philosophy , but the wilderness educated him . Nature waa hiB teacher ; God in His revelation was his instructor . In patience and waiting that great spirit grew in strength and fitness for his work . Thirty years pass , while his body is framed by discipline and his mind

enlarged by contemplation and thought . And then from the silence of tho desert , from close communication with the God of his fathers , he comes forth with his mission his divine charge in his hand , and from that hour writes a moral history of mankind .

Among the Bymbols of Masonry , and holding the great truths of the Order as in some consecrated sanctuary , is the symbol of a point within a circle . By some this has been taken to mean God as the centre of the world . But

while God is the centre of all things , He cannot be symbolised and cannot be confined to any point in the universe He has created . " Behold the heaven of heavens cannot contain Thee , how much less this house which I have budded . " It is doubtless intended to represent

man as the centre of God a providences on the earth . The circle of divine guardianship is about him ; the parallel lines on the right hand and on the left support * - the Prophet and the Evangelist , while above him in opened page is the Holy Word , to draw him to its study ; to cast

a light on his moral and spiritual nature , and to be the guide to his life , the lamp to his feet . Passing by the second figure , who was a pupil of the first , wo come at once into the presence of that character whom we have partially considered , and whose morality and lofty sense of justice are the abiding features of Freemasonry .

Early tradition has given Saint John the Baptist a special position in the Order as a Burning and Shining Light . Later tradition has connected him with Masonry through the crusades . In the Wars of the Cross it is said that twenty-four thousand Scottish Masons were engaged

side by side with the Crusaders . They were inspired by the grand idea that the Temple would again be built on Mount Zion . After severe struggles and deeds of valour among the bravest in history , they were admitted to the Order of the Templars . In return for this favour , the

Knights of the Temple were initiated into the mysteries of Freemasonry , and thus have been joined in the bonds of enduring brotherhood , the Royal Order of the Temple Workers , and the Royal Order of the Cross . Amid the many battles which took place with Turk and Saracen

was one on Saint John's Day , and it proved to be a victory in answer to earnest prayer on the part of the Crusaders . From that victory the Baptist has been regarded as connected with Masonry and has been one of the patrons to whom the Lodges of Masonry are dedicated . He was

in a high sense the incarnation of those principles which give life and power to Masonry and make it among the Institutions of man's formation the most beautiful and the most enduring . And it is the glory of the Order that whether he was connected with it through the form of the

Jbssenes , that pnre society of the desert , or with it in a more modern form , he is more than a memory it celebrates . He comes into it by his splendid victories of morality and righteousness . For , like all Institutions which claim an interest in humanity , it has its prophets

and seers , who proclaim its right to live and abide . And Saint John takes his place in it among the rulers and benefactors , the exalted ones who have adorned it by their

teaching and work . Standing against that circle with its parallel lines , he ia a pillar of strength in the Temple whose inspiration is the brotherhood of man , and whose chiselled walls are the men of all nations .

Saint John occupied a unique position in history , one peculiarly his own . He appears at the close of one dispensation and at the opening of another . He laid his left hand on the older covenant of God ' s way of dealing with man , and his right hand on a new covenant to be written in the

Jaws of a kingdom for time and for eternity . And for this he needed the special discipline of the wilderness , and did not , therefore , pass his days amid the heaving and tossing sea of human activities . But the desert was fashioning his life purpose into distinctive form and giving it the shape to labour and endure . It was not the hermit life : not

« was the silence of inactivity , of indifference and iorgetfulness , but the silence that prepares the heart for moral duties and the mind for work to be done . It was the silence that at length blossoms into the richest fruitage ° l greatness and goodness achieved . It was power , and the sphere of the working of power . Out of its discipline tame manliness ; out of its patience camo strength ; out

St. John The Baptist.

of its waiting came knowledge ; out of its hours of think , ing came august conceptions of man ' s destiny , and out of its seeming waste of opportunity came definite design and righteous purpose . It was the silence travailing with great forces ; the silence that guides the river to the seas ;

propels the forest to full Verdure ; the ocean to flow with numberless tides ; the night to glitter with star dusts which are worlds , and the heaven to move under the march of the planets or tremble under the swing of the constellations . Saint John was epoch man—one of those unseen powers which come forth from time to time to work revolutions

in thought and morals . He waa one of those powers in human affairs , which make the age stand out distinct from other ages as a temple or a pyramid . The moral impulse he awoke in many hearts attests the largeness and the supremacy of his power . Years had brought with

them knowledge of men ; increasing desire to awaken their conscience ; to take away the evil whioh waa paralyzing their moral powers and undermining their national life . This placed him by acknowledged authority among those who in all ages have asserted a claim to a

people ' s remembrance . Like them , he worked to one sublime end , and under the inspiring force of some great truth for God or man . All the powers of their being were

marshalled into one disciplined host , and by concentration of action they gained victories . But , unlike many great workers in human affairs , he was not surrounded by large armies , he waa not the leader of hosts educated to conquer empires ; he was a solitary prophet of

the Highest , a single soldier valiant for truth , and yet he ushered in a revolution which has stirred and quickened mankind ^ and which goes on silently as tbe light in the heavens to give life and power to men ; to enfold as the air in its sweep and freedom the nations of the world , whether grand in their moral and intellectual

being or barbaric in the lowliness and poverty of their

achievement . Saint John was a man consecrated to his work . He had a profound moral sense of that whioh he had to do . He was sent to be a voice calling men to a purer life . To this end he was the fulfilled burden of prophecy . To

overturn the old , to bring in a new life , with every power set in action , was the conviction that animated and kindled his purpose into the white flame of a pure passion . Lifted above the temptations that might draw him from his purpose , overcoming the desire to form a system or philosophy ,

casting aside all honours to be won only by the bartering of conscience ; indifferent to personal safety , he waa grandly loyal to duty . His soul was open to the call of duty and felt its touch as fully as the leaf on the pine tree feels the touch of the summer wind . He was clothed not

alone with camel ' s hair , or girt about with a leathern girdle , but clad with faith and girt with majestic earnestness . He believed that man was sent into the world to work and to achieve a destiny . That made him heroic , aa the sense of duty has made men heroic in all times and

places . No shining point in human life is ever reached without the example and uplifting force of those heroes of duty . Their consecration to work has made the world better and nobler and like the sun to give light ; they have given heat also to quioken into deeds of morality and

power . It was belief in that which held the prophet stedfast to his duty , as the anchor holds the ship amid the fiercest beatings of the seas . And faith in duty gives dignity to every calling , and is the grand motive power to achievement , the secret law of success in life .

—Voice of Masonry , ( To be continued . )

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UNITED KINGDOM TRUSTEES' EXECUTORS' ASSOCIATION . —A meeting waa held at the Cannon Street Hotel , oa Tuesday , for tha purpose of establishing an Association for the guidance , co-operation and mutual benefit of Trustees and Executors . Mr . Stanley A . Latham presided , and resolqtions forming the Association were adopted . Particulars of the movement can be obtained of Bro . T . Bowden Green , 1 Finsbnry Circus , E . C .

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MASONIOLITERATURE. Wanted to Purchase . ODD VOLUMES of the FREEMASONS' MAGAZINE and MASONIO MIRROR . Tho Volumes for 1863 especially wanted . Address , stating price asked , W ., Office of the FBEBJIASOH ' UuKOHici . it , Bolvidoro Works , Hermes Hill , Pentonville , London , N .