At Refreshment.

AT REFRESHMENT .

fTPHERE is the very highest authority for the periodicity JL of Labour and Refreshment . The Grand Architect of tho Univcrso rested after His work was finished . " On the seventh day God ended His work which he had made ; and He rested on the seventh day . " The summer months of July and August are the Craft ' s

" seventh day . " After ten months of Labour , Craftsmen are eutitled to two months of rest and refreshment . It is justified by the example of the Grand Architect , and it is equally justified by His handiwork , our physical bodies and our minds , which require a cessation of ordinarv

toil , for a period , in order that they may be refreshed . Everything that has life needs refreshment . Even the plants havo their winter ' s rest , and the more complex the organism , the greater the necessity for recuperation . The man who labours all the time will not labour nature ' s

allotted time . He must have periodical refreshment if he would live a long and healthy life . Sleep is nature ' s compulsory rest . Some men would do without it , if they could . But overwork often gives them their desire . Insomnia is the penalty paid for overtasking the mental and nervous energies .

No Freemason needs to have enforced upon him an argument for periodical refreshment . Refreshment is a part of the Craft ' s curriculum . No Lodge meeting is perfect unless it includes both labour and refreshment—both actual . But whether it be actual or not , it must bo

technical . Wherever Labour in the soveral degrees is performed , it is interspersed with Refreshment . This seems to have been ordained by tho Craft for the very purpose of emphasising the necessity of alternating work and rest . And it accomplishes its pnrpose .

That Lodge is wisest , and acting most in consonance with Masonic principle and the best practice , which refreshes its members after the work of the evening is over . This is good for both body and mind , and is one of the cords of the mystic tie . In the hours of relaxation

all the Craftsmen in a Lodge—visitors as well as members —are nnmistakably knit together into one society of friends and brethren . Montaigne once said : " Have you known how to take repose ? You have done more than he who has taken cities and empires . " It is wise to know how to

rest and when to rest . Freemasonry does , and it teaches us by sign and symbol , by word and act , that refreshment should succeed labour . During the months of July and August its formal meetings are few , and Freemasons are

discreet who are taught by the Fraternity ' s example , and not only rest from their Masonic labours , but rest in some measure from all their labours . The most labour may be performed by him who takes some rest and refreshment .

Nature , at this season , not only calls , but woos us to refreshment . Often the days are sleepy as well as the nig hts . Often the weather is so relaxing that our muscles

relax whether we will or not . Often a siren appears on the forest hills , or the green carpeted valleys , or the placid lake , or the rippling brook , or the majestic river , and we are drawn to her before we are aware of it .

iThe "City of Brotherly Love , " during the snmmer season , is surrounded by natural attractions of almost miraculous beauty . The river Schuylkill passes our doors , and upon it , in either steamer or row-boat , we may soon forget the city and all its labours . The romantic

Wissahickon is a tributary of the Schuylkill , and along its sequestered walks and drives we may stroll at pleasure , and breathe in air laden with the aroma of the pines . Fairmount Park is a country seat which belongs to every one of UB , and we should not fail to visit it often during the

summer . The Cape May and Atlantic City , and a host of sea-shore resorts , are but ninety minutes away , while the mountains and lakes of Pennsylvania are all within easy reach , so that no one need laok for refreshment if he would have it . We must have it if we would live long and

joyfully . Nature demands that we rest every night , and one day out of seven , and by this she indicates that all through life rest is just as much a normal part of our health y existence as work . We "must play as well as labour , and

when we rest our heart must be in it , if we would derive the proper benefit from it . Brethren , let our summer ' s refreshment be real and earnest , and then when we meet together , as is our wont j in the autumn again , it will be with reinvigorated bodied

At Refreshment.

and minds , and with ability to labour with all our might for the prosperity of the best Fraternity ever known among men . —Keystone .

The Butterfly W.M.

THE BUTTERFLY W . M .

THE folly of taking up young members aud pitchforking them to the chair has been well exemplified in tho case of a Lodgo not a hundred miles to tho west of Toronto Street . With an aptitude for acquiring , parrot fashion , tho lectures or other portions of tho ceremonies entrusted to him , a certain young Craftsman was regarded by tho

sido benches as a coming Solomon . Had they cornered him as to the meaning of his utterances and waited for n reply they would probably be waiting yet . Nevertheless , after three or four years in tho Craft he was elevated to tho East , and as a natural result was spoilt . He managed to

get through his year somohow , grasped the forty-dollar jowel that , with well-meant intention , was foolishly presented to him , and because matters did not shape just as desired them , he sent in his resignation , and is now an unaffiliated Mason . If that young member had been given

an apprenticeship of five or six years on the sido benches , and was then advanced steadily , step by step , through tho subordinate chairs , he would probably have developed into a usoful Craftsman , and by the time ho was selected for tho East , would have known something of ' the duties of

the position . He had acted hastily because he did not know euough to remember what was required of him . He accepted a jowel , but if ho retains it he deals a blow at his manhood . His conduct , reprehensible as it may be , is

not so blameworthy as that of the members who foolishly inoculated a youthful brain with notions beyond its years , and inflated a perhaps otherwise modest breast with an ambition that was too much for it . "—Toronto Freemason .

"Tho Mallet , " in the Glasgow Evening News , thus knocks off : — I find in an old print , for a perusal of whioh I am indebted to Brother MaoNaught Campbell , that iu 1745 the Associate Synod at their meeting iu Stirling enacted , "That , as there were very strong presumptions that among Masons an oath of seoreoy is administered

to intrants into their society , even under a capital penalty and before any of these things which they swear to keep secret be revealed to them , the Synod consider the whole affair , and givo directions with respect to the admission of persons engaged in that oath to sealing ordinances . " Eleven years later the Synod , meeting in Edinburgh , " when

a particular cause about the Masons' oath was before them , did appoint all the sessions nnder their inspection to require all persons in their respective congregations , who are presumed or are suspected to have been engaged in that oath , to make a plain aoknowledgmeut whether or not they have ever been so , " & o ., & o ., " and that the sessions should proceed to the purging of what scandal they may

thus find those persons convioted of . " The Synod further appointed that when persons were found to be involved in Masonry , and professed their sorrow for the same , " the said scandal shall be purged by a sessional rebuke and admonition . " A writer of that period , commenting on these enactments ,

pertinently remarks that this august assembly seems to hold it a crime to exact an oath of secrecy before the things required to be kept secret are revealed , and he asks , —Can anything be more ridiculous than this objeotion P The nature of an oath , says the Bame writer , particularly of a promissory oath , comprehends

a solemn invocation of the name of God , the Supreme and Omniscient Being , the Searcher of hearts . The performance of the oath becomes thereby cognosible by the Omnisoienoe of the Divine Tribunal . Can it , then , be imagined that God has left it in the power of man to alter those established rules of His judgment and procedure ? Would not this be , as the poet says , to

Snatch from His hand the balance and the rod , Rejndge His Justice , be the god of God ? The same persecution exemplified in 1745 still goes ou and finds support . A New York contemporary reports a meeting of Baptist ministers , held in Boston last month , at whioh one of their number " strongly denounced Masonry , saying that when a man swears

allegiance , it is to a code antagonistic to God . Rev . Mr . Cleveland rose to a point of order , and said he was a Mason and would not listen to the abuse . The appeal being defeated by a heavy vote , Mr . Cleveland asked that his name be strioken from the roll of membership and left the room . "

Freemasonry has been subjected to attacks of a like kind in all ages and in all countries , but methought the days were past when such bigotry and wilfnl ignorance in an assembly of professedly Christian men was possible , bat it seems that even in this enlightened age men may be foncd who can perpetnate errors disproved over and over again .