Masonry's Work.

Wc take tho wand of the magician to-day to touch your sp irits and awaken them , to look with new eyes upon this great palace , the vast and wondrous Alhambra , which rises in such splendid proportions and pierces the heavens

with its spires , iivery stone which has entered into the structure has been tried by the level and the square , and fouud worthy . The carvings which cover it from

foundation to spire , as light and as airy as the winter ' s frost on the window pane , was wrought by skilful fingers of expert workmen , from the designs traced on tho trestleboanl ol the great Architect of the Universe , to whom be the glory of it all .

" Hail ! royal art ! in humble zeal The Mason greets the gladdening sway "lis thine to teach the heart to feel , And thine to bid his hand obey . 'Twaa wisdom fashioned , 'twas strength thy temple raised , And beauty o'er the fabrio blazed . "

The stones of the temple are , belief in God ; the immortality of the soul ; loyalty to government ; patience ; temperance ; justice ; the brotherhood of man . In wisdom , strength and beauty it has risen , a poem in jewels , frozen music . The materials of the structure are not of wood and

hay and stubble , nor evon of gold and silver , perishable things , but of immortal mind . Whether coeval with the creation , as some enthusiastic brethren would have us believe , or whether it originated at the building of King

Solomon ' s temple , as our traditions indicate ; or , as some students of its antiquity affirm , had its rise from the societies of Operative Masous and Cathedral Guilds , makes but little difference to us . Friend and foe are compelled

to concede—and the memory of man runneth not to the contrary—that its genesis is lost in the mists of antiquity , but its beauty is not affected by its age ; like the angels in the sepulchre of Christ , they were as young meu—its youth is perennial .

If my wand has not failed me , I bid you see yet moresee the white-winged spirits who have gone from this temple over the earth , dropping blessings with every beat of their burnished pinions upon the homes and hearts of

the world . Their names are Brotherly Love , Relief , and Truth . They call us from study and from labour to listen for the sigh of some heavy heart , to go where the orphan weeps , or where any calamity of soul or body is wearinq

away the life . From this grand base of fraternity wo have moved outward in all directions , as the astronomer from the diameter of the earth ' s orbit goes forth with a measuring line among the stars . The clasped hands are a symbol of tho fact of Masonry . We are so constituted that we cannot live without

fraternity . Man is social . His life is a longing for fellowship . There is , now and then , a man who spends his time hunting for the " rapture on a lonely shore , " but ordinarily we sigh for kindred friends , envying no hermit

his barren and lonely cell . In the sunshine of faithful , loving hearts—in the assurance of love and esteem , tho best traits of men are developed , and the purest enjoyments known . Take away pleasant companionships , and

life is very barren . Who of us , who knows what hearthunger is—and who does not know it ?—but has learned to value the blessings of love ? To those who walk a wearisome path in loneliness , who return from the day ' s

battle hearing no welcome , who endure pain and sickness without the support of affectionate attentions—into such cheerless lives comes the flash of the silver wings , and the thrill gives strength and courage to the despondent life .

The temple , the home of the angels , has strength . There is a moral support which is given by numbers . Once in a long time you may find a man strong enough to stand alone , but in the struggle against ignoble ideals , and

ignoble men ; in the effort to promote the welfare of communities ; in the conflict to establish the equality of rights ; in the grand endeavour to further humaneness of feelinc and thought and action , we need the force of numbers .

But the mission of the angels is not yet told . The grandest distinction of this institution is not in the vast and growing numbers , scattered throughout all lands , nor in its splendid list of the names of men who are honoured in

every walk of life ; not in the coffers of heaped-up wealth ; not in its beautiful and instructive rituals ; but in its practical fellowshi p and practical benevolence . The good

it does , the sorrow it relieves , the widow it befriends , the orphan it educates—this is its glory—the glory of sustained , systematic relief . That it has done a great work is true , and none the less true because silpnt . Great

Masonry's Work.

forces aro generally silent . The light which opens the sleeping rosebuds info bloom is the mightiest of all forces , it works the most marve' 1 HIS tnn-d ' orruations without n jar , without a . sound ; : \ ud when ns Kvorott says " the

everlasting gates of ihe morning are thrown wide open and the lord of day , arrayed in glories too serene for tho gaze of man , begins his course , " kissing the waves of grand old ocean and pressing its lips to tho clinging dew-drop ,

tinting the flowers v . 'itli dedicate and beautiful colours , and with its gladdening rays filling the world with a ( lood of light and life , its footsteps have no echo . Tho building of Solomon ' s temple represents iu beautiful symb \> li . sm the work of our Order . In silence the structure rose . No

sound of workman ' s hammer was heard therefrom . In the caverns underneath the city the workmen wrought out the skilful designs of the Master . And to day , in those same caverns , can be seen tho chippings ou the floor and the

smoke-stains the workmen ' s torches left upon the walls . The multitude that thronged the city in those golden days saw the structure rise in glorious beauty , but they knew

not tho marvellous cunning ot him whose designs were daily drawn upon the trestleboard , nor did they see the work of those whose skill Avrousrht out the Master ' s

designs and shaped each stone for its place . The multitudes saw only tho results . The processes were hidden from their eyes . All true work , however much it may be wrought far from the sight aud applause of men , will have

its revelation , and by so much its vindication . The life which stands forth conspicuous among men , commanding their attention , compelling thoir regard , as what men of common mould little think of , unsecu forces which shaped

its career . The various Masonic organisations are annuall y expending vast sums of money for charitable purposes , without noise , without the sound of trumpets or the waving of banners . Tho real beauty of Masonic charit y is its silence . To be fraternal is to be benevolent . True

relief is only to be found in brotherliness . Its works will not grieve , but sooth and calm , and the depth of divine , as well as human love , will best be found in silence . For , after all , God is the discovery of silence . No magnificent rhetoric has held Him to the soul's eraze . He is not so

near to the finest spirits in the shriek of tho wild tempest as in the sighing of the zephyr—He is farther away from the sensitive soul in the bursting aitillery of the storm than in the dying music of a falling leaf .

Tho third element in the mission of Masonry is found in the fact that it presents to our minds the character of perfect manhood—that it holds up before its disciples an ideal man—true to God , true to his country , true to his

neighbour , true to himself ; and endeavours so to portray the beauty and consistency of such a walk and life , that we nv \ y be led to imitate it , and fashion ours in accordance

therewith . Masons gather all this into one word—truth Veiled in allegory , sparkling iu symbol—as well as by plain precept—it attracts the attention and reaches the hearts of those who have crossed its threshold . It is

always saying , as Wolsey to Cromwell , " Be just and fear not ; let all the ends thou airn ' st at be thy country ' s , thy God ' s , and truth ' s / ' Wrong and error die ; true principles are eternal .

Truth crashed to earth will rise again , The eternal years of God aro her's ; Bat error wonnded writhos in pain , And dies amid her worshippers .

Like the diamond , Masonry has gathered truth , the light , down deep in its heart , and rays it out from every one of its hundred facets . The present Pope of Rome published a bull against us not long ago . He calls us the

" City of Satan . " He says : " The plan of secret societies is no longer a mystery . It is a struggle against the church , and the various Popes have properly excommunicated Freemasons . " He , the Pope , says , " The dangerous

doctrines are , that men have all the same rights , and are perfectly equal in couditiou that no oue has a rig ht to command others ; that it is tryanny to kee p men subject to any other authority than thus wnich emanates from

themselves ; that the ori gin of all rights is in the people or in tho state , which is ruled according to the new princip les of liberty ; that there is no reason wh y one religion ought to be preferred to another—that all are to be held in the

same esteem . ' To all of which the genial Bob Burdette says : "Well , now , that may be very dangerous over in Europe , but ifc sounds all ri ght over here . We believe that this United States" government is founded on these very Musonic principles . If that is all the Pope has to say