Masons Under A Four-Fold Discipline.

MASONS UNDER A FOUR-FOLD DISCIPLINE .

FIRST a discipline of faith . We must always feel assured that there are desirable experiences beyond everything that we have acquired . Souls there have been on this earth , and are now , who have known in direct

vision and rapture , those truths of God and providence and redemption and immortal blessedness , of which others but feebly surmise or palely trust in and haltingly grope after . The first condition for advancement is that we

shall not in idea limit the attainments of others by our own , but freely admit that what we most want they may already have . When I see an inferior person angered at

a superiority he cannot assimulate , turning up his nose at it in fierce contempt , I feel grieved to the very roots of my soul at the profanation . It seems almost as if God himself , on his throne , might weep at it .

Second , therefore , a discipline of docility . Believing that secrets are possessed by many which they are unable to communicate to others by any mechanical transference , we are thereby exhorted to place ourselves in training to acquire the spiritual wealth which so enriches our

superiors by the same processes of culture in intellect , sensibility , obedience , and teachableness , which they employed . The surest proof one can give of a vulgar soul and a low grade is to maintain that he knows the substance of all that anybody else knows . Divine is that

docile genius which thrills and yearns before its teachers , before its exemplars , and before the unknown . Channing , on his death-bed , said , " I have received many messages from the spirit . " And Thomas Aquinas , in his last days , when expostulated with for leaving his nen idle , replied

that he now had , in single moments , visions of truth and glory which made all his life-long labours seem in the comparison utterly contemptible ! The deepest signal of a course or depraved nature is spontaneously to deny assent , refuse allegiance , hang back in suspicious hesitation . But a frank trust in the declarations of men and

nature , an instinctive tendency to accept and follow the hints of truth and good , signalises an open and generous character , which confides in the veracity and worth of others on the immediate evidence of its own . Bessemer , the great steel manufacturer , told the attendants of a

prince who was visiting his furnace , that a man could pass his hand with perfect safety through a stream of molten iron . Not one of the servants dared to venture on the experiment ; but the prince himself immediately thrust his own hand into the glowing current without the least misgiving .

Third , the truth and good whose existence we apprehend through its indications in others , although we know it not as yet in ourselves , brings us under a discipline of desire . To feel that there are no secrets , profoundly hid and costly , wooing us to their search , no prizes of dignity and joy , pure and lasting , —is to weary of existence and

wish to fling up the game in disgust . Life is not worth living , desire fails , and the grasshopper is a burden , to one who holds that he has fathomed every mystery and found that there is nothing in it . And what a superficial prater , endowed with what a leathern soul , he must be who can

aeclare that the secrecy of the creation is a pretence imposing only on the superstitious who dare not use their senses , he whose eyes are couched by courage to face the tacts seeing that all lies clearly exposed in its utter shallowness and insignificance ! He reverses the case , — - the unmeaning shallowness of his spirit causing him to frh universe meaningless and empty . The sentiment ot the pessimists growing so fashionable in our day , that is

«« ere no solid good or truth in anything , but that everything ia full of delusion and misery , is the cry of disa ppointment , pain and despair , as arrogant and blasphemous ^ it is thin and wretched . When any one holds that an ^ f *? - ^ * > man a mockery , and life a curse , it is he lth ° sviri P either of deteriorated physical in r - - " ° ^ men * al perversity , or of moral discord in the o * * ' Bv a blind > sel ^ sophistry ho reflects his a state on all , and maintains with a flatulant and

imwhi i ? tvT tnafc there is nothing anywhere except that a do ° ' 1 p * - *" perience . His cure lies in acquiring ma C 1 , * ^ h that however nauseated and vacant his life nob ] ' ^ ere are lives inestimably sweet , precious and e - -None but the morbid will question this . The soul ° i victorious fidelit y , so far from feeling that there is

Masons Under A Four-Fold Discipline.

nothing in anything , asserts that everything is m everything , since any point in the creation by its universal connections is bound up with infinite truth and beauty . If any one can remember Plato , who attained to tbe vision of the First Fair , First Perfect , and by his thought has

inspired and lifted the scholars of sixty generations of mankind ; of Fichte , whose soul travelled without stint for his country and his race , and whose indomitable intelligence solved the last riddles of the sphynx and grasped the secret of indestructible light ; of Howard , who took

the weight and guage of human woe , and sacrificed hia life to lessen it;—if any one can think of these , and not burn with desire to emulate their examples , so far as his ability will permit , he cannot belong to their family , but must be of some meaner strain .

Then , last of all , when this threefold agency of faith and docility and desire bears its proper fruit it gives rise to a fourth discipline , namely , the discipline of delight . It is a joy to believe that , in spite of our individual error and sin and sadness and satiety , there are in the universe

indestructible harmonies , and imperishable satisfactions , waiting for all who will observe the conditions for realising them . It is a joy of the most inspiring kind to feel that , scattered over the world , there are men and women in whose lives the laws of nature , the glories of wisdom ,

the charms of affection , the uses of power , the secrets of God and his empire , have come into consciousness with a prophetic fulness of bliss and peace which leave no aching void but make life an incomparable and inexpressible boon . And whoever admits this fact , feeling within him

the capacity for experiences beyond his present aotual , will at once find himself under a discipline of delight in the double direction of seeking to gain treasures from those above him , and to impart them to those below . — Liberal Freemason .

Singapore.

SINGAPORE .

AT a Yearly Communication of the District Grand Lodge of the Eastern " Archipelago , held on the 2 nd May ; inter alia , the R . W . the District Grand Master , the Hon . W . H . Read , appointed and invested the following as Officers for the ensuing year : —

Bro . T . Cargill 1152 Disfc . Deputy Grand Master J . P . Joaqoim 508 , 1152 ... Disfc . G . Senior Warden G . Lavinol 555 Dist . G . Jnnior Warden J . P . B . Beal 1555 Dist . G . Registrar R . 0 . Norris Dist . G . Treasurer

A . Knight 1152 Dist . G . Secretary J . H . Windrnm 508 Dist . G . Senior Deacon D . Comrie 1555 Dist . G . Junior Deacon S . M . Mosea 508 Dist . G . Snpt . of Worts A . J . Bridges 508 Dist . G . Dir . of Ceremonies G . S . H . Gottlieb 1555 Dist . G . Assist . D . of Cers .

w . El . Hooper lloa JUist . u . Sword uoarer f ! K . ! e ° n rgs - Z Z } ™» S « B ^* C . K . B . Woods 1152 Dist . G . Organist D . G . Pressrave 1152 Dist . G . Pursuivant E .SliIffi¦;::::z}™*^™^ W . Wood worth Dist . G . Tyler

Ad01103

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