Money, Morals, And Expenditure.

ability , of her long and faithful services . All theso have been considered in the salary she receives . Tho breakdown in her health was unfortunate , but it was ono of those incidents of life to which all are subject , and against which no protection can grant an immunity . The

Committee very properly allowed Miss Davis to seek health in retirement , paying her the same salary as if she wero fulfilling her office . It does not appear whether or not any one filled Miss Davis ' s place during her absence , or whether tho ordinary staff discharged the usnal duties . In either

case the claims upon the funds would be paramount ; in the first instance they would bo absolute , and in the second moral . Nor is there anything to show that Miss Davis desires the help that is proposed to be given her . That , however , is of little importance , as one word

from her would at once put an end to the proposition . It is unfair , perhaps , to place her in the position of being made the snbject of dispute . Prudent counsels would have obviated the probability of contention , and a careful consideration of all the facts would have suggested

silence at the present time . Such motions should never be proposed unless there is a very good prospect of their being carried unanimously , and of meeting with the full sympathy of those concerned . Under the circumstances , the better plan would be to withdraw the motion in

deference to the feeling that has been exhibited , and in justice to Miss Davis , who is worthy of all praise , but whose case , just now , is neither urgent nor important . It may be a good bargain to give * £ 70 for the accommodation of the girls at Clapham Church , but the question will naturally

arise—Was it necessary ? Apart from tho sum itself , there are other questions which bear upon the matter . It is supposed that tho Church is endowed , and it may be it is supported by rates . If so , it is a question how far the Committee were justified in

incurring so large an expenditure . It is just double tho outlay that sufficed for a Chaplain . It is not a serious item ; did it stand alone there would be little if anything to question ; but in every direction there are signs of increased expenditure , a tendency to

excessive generosity , if not to extravagance . With the prospect of an enormous outlay in the rebuilding of the Temple , in the face of bad trade and the scarcity of money , it is not tho timo to indulge in chivalric liberality , and to mortgage the future . Without being mean , or neglecting

any reasonable demands the Institutions of the Craft may make upon the brethren , it is imperatively needed that greater regard should be paid in the future to expenditure , and less to show ancl experiments of a sentimental character .

Rameses The Great.

RAMESES THE GREAT .

BRO . John A . Weisse , M . D ., of New York , author of " The Obelisk and Freemasonry , " styles Rameses II ., otherwise Rameses the Great ( named Sesostris by the Greeks ) , " the Masonic Pharaoh par excellence ; " and the subterranean palace or rock-tomb discovered in ] j 1818 , by Belzoni , he calls "the Masonic Temple of Seti I . and

Rameses II , " This is large language . If it could be substantiated , it would shed lustre on the Masonic Fraternity . That there is some ground for the assertion we admit . Reginald Stuart Poole , one of the greatest of modern Egyptologists , in his article on Egypt , in the ninth

edition of the " Eneycloptedia Britannica , " awards to Rameses the Great " the first place among the architect Pharaohs . " In the Astor Library , Now York , very beautiful illustrations of Belzoni ' s discoveries may be seen and some of these " mystery chambers , " as Bro . Weisse

terms them , are finely portrayed , in colours , in the work of our Brother , referred to above . These represent ,. he tells us , " nine distinct initiatory meetings of candidate and master , and the intermediate persons , attendants , and even horrors , that have ever belonged to some of the Masonic

initiations . " Perhaps so . But , undoubtedly , Rameses the Great is one of the most noteworthy personages in E gyptian history , an " architect Pharaoh , " a famous builder , whose stupendous structures even the destroying influences

incident to the flight of three thousand years have not been sufficient to waste away . As the greatest figure in a long line of Pharaohs , the noblest patron of the O perative Masons of his time , and the alleged " Masonic Pharaoh far excellence" we shall devote a few paragraphs to a

Rameses The Great.

statement of his characteristic achievements , as revealed by the latest historians of the monuments and hieroglyphics of Egypt—Jjenormant , Rawlinson , Brugsch , Poole , Wilkinson , Maspero , and Mariette . Rameses II . was the third Pharaoh of the nineteenth

dynasty , his reign beginning about B . C . 1360 . Brugsch tell us , that a tablet found near tho Temple of Dekkah in Nubia , built by Rameses , says that when he was but ten years of . age no monuments were erected without his orders . Before the death of his father , Seti I ., he defeated

tho Sardones and Libyans , so that they never attacked Egypt again , until after his death . He was recalled from an expedition into Ethiopia to succeed to the throne , and in the fifth year of his reign evinced the greatest personal valour , and vanquished the Hittites . The famous battle of

Kadesh was fought in this campaign . In his eighth year he captured Shalam , probably ( says Poole ) Salem , or Jerusalem . In his eleventh year he captured Ascalon , and compelled the Hittite king to propose conditions of peace , written on a silver tablet . In the twenty-first year of his

reign the conditions of this treaty were sculptured on the walls of Karnak , where they remain to this day , and have been deciphered by Maspero . This war ended most happily . Rameses II . received in marriage the eldest daughter of the Hittite king , and peace prevailed between

the two great nations for more than a century . Rameses devoted the remainder of his reign to _ devising and completing those architectural wonders which to this day challenge the admiration of every Egyptian tourist . Rameses the Great had his poet laureate , one Pentaour ,

who composed an epic on the battle of Kadesh , and inscribed his poem in hieroglyphics on the walls of the Temple of Karnak . This poem has been translated by Maspero , Professor of the Egyptian language in the College of France ; and Gladstone , in his " Time and Place of Homer

in History , " goes so far as not only to compare the two creations , Homer ' s " Achilles , " Pentaour ' s " Rameses the Great , " but even to say : "Of the great Egyptian empire of Rameses the Great , and the nineteenth dynasty , Homer , or at least Hellas , may , . or rather

must , ' humanly speaking , have known something . " And after referring to the prodigies of valour performed by Pentaour ' s hero , he inquires , "Was it the echo of these feats of war , or of this resounding celebration

of them , that suggested to Homer the colossal scale of his 'Achilles ? ' * * * Not only is it probable that Homer had personal access to these sources , but we may almost say , it is certain . "

But we are most concerned with the great architectural works of Rameses , which distinguished the greater part of his long and prosperous reign of sixty-seven years . To these we shall devote the remainder of this article . Here

we should state , that Lenormant says Rameses II . was the first Egyptian monarch to adopt the plan , so familiar to Asiatic conquerors in later times , of transporting large bodies of prisoners enormous distances , and settling them

in portions of his empire remote from their original homes . He thus planted whole tribes of Libyans and Asiatics upon the upper Nile , and these subject races he employed in raising his great architectural works . Among those so employed were the Hebrews , who had now grown very

numerous . The feats of architectural accomp lishment of Rameses throughout Egypt and Nubia were so numerous that we can only refer to the most notable of them . Firstof these was the building formerly known as the Memnonium , ancl The

now commonly styled the Rameseum , at Thebes . favourite title of Rameses , Mi Amman , "' the beloved of Ammon , " was probably corrupted by the Greeks into Memnon . There can yet be read upon the walls of the Rameseum the achievements of the great king . With the

aid of the " Hieroglyphic Dictionary " of Commodore Bro . E . Y . McCauley , U . S . N ., one may puzzle out the recondite meaning of those hieroglyphics , written thirty centuries ago . Wonderful edifices ! Only less wonderful the manifestation of skill that enables one to decipher the enigmas

on those ancient walls I Over this Rameseum once towered the colossal image of the Pharaoh Rameses II . himself . It was formed out of a block of syenitic granite , estimated to weigh nine hundred tons , and to have been sixt y-four to

feet high . It measures twenty feet from shoulder shoulder , the foot is five feet across , and a toe three feet long . Rawlinson says , "It was the largest of all the colossal statues of Egypt , exceeding in height the two seated colossi , in its vicinity , one of which is known as the