Try Yourself By This.

TRY YOURSELF BY THIS .

A Sermon Preached before the Grand Commander }/ of Knights Templars in Mississ ' qipi , at its Annual Conclave in Okolona , 10 th February 1891 , by Ilev . Sir William Cross , Grand Prelate .

" Ho hath shewed thep , 0 mau , what ia good , and what doth th Lord require of than but to do justly , and to love ineroy , and t walk humbly with thy God ? " Micah vi . 8 .

( Confjnued from pago 309 . ) AND if—may God avert the omen—but if the Church in America should grow gradually false to its essential principle , which is that it is a Reformod Church , one thing then I seo with the absolute certainty of prophecy ,

that there will be from her a vast secession : " Every knee that hath not bowed at Banl , and every month that hath not kissed him . " If—and I say again , may God avert the omen !—but if the Church should indeed bo dwindled

and degenerated into a feeble lrmtiation of the Church of Rome , with a pale reflection of her doctrines and a poor copy of her practices , then—sooner or later—if truth he truth , she will collapse into irremediable ruin , and upon those ruins shall be built once more a truer and pur . r fold .

But meanwhile the lesson for us is clear , and it is this our religious opinions may be false ; our party shibboleths miy be but the blurred echoes of our i gnorance and incompetence ; our private interpretations of Scripture may

be no better than grotesquo nonsense in their presumptuous falsity , and all this may not greatly matter , if by some Divine deliverance from our opinionated follies we still do justly and love mercy and walk humbl y with our God .

But if , on the other hand , any one of you present , while he prides himself on his orthodoxy or his churchmanshi p , is mean in his conduct , false in his judgment , dishonest in trade , a slanderer in society , impure in life , if he be a liar —and many a man who calls himself religious , and tries to

stand on good terms with the world , is a liar down to the very core—if in his heart , in spite of his profession , he be a false witness , or a covetous man who is an idolator , he may present himself at the wedding feast , but he has not on a wedding garment . But if , on the other hand , you be

indeed pure and kind and true ; if you admire that which is admirable , and follow that which is noble ; if in humility and love you are a follower of Christ ' s example , you may die hated by all the world and the nominal church , yet your Saviour , in whose footsteps you have humbly tried to

walk , shall decide your destinies for ever when he shall whisper to your weary spirit , "Well done , good and faithful servant . " And if , in one word , you would have the moral of this sermon , it is this : " Oh ye that love the Lord , see that ye hate the thing which is evil . "

Do not talk about your views , or your party , or your observances , do not deceive yourselves with your religion , which may be but vain , but search yourselves as to your real character . What you think , how you worship , to

which sect or party you belong—all of you in a moment can tell me that ; but God is not the leader of a sect , or the champion of a party . God trieth the reins , He searcheth the heart , He will not ask you what you were called , but what you were . .

Try yourself—judge yourself . Ton may be zealous for parties or views , but are your hearts set upon righteousness , 0 ye congregations ? If that , through Christ ' s mercy , shall avail you , it will avail you by the merits of His infinite sacrifice—that , and nothing else .

And now , Sir Knights , I trust I may be pardoned if I spend a few moments in the consideration of the relationship between Masonry and Christianity . The three dispensations of time—the Patriarchal , the Jewish , and the Christian—slowly , gradually , exposed to

man the knowledge he has ever craved , the knowledgo of that sublime secret , viz ., the mode in which the grave is to be conquered . The Bible , as it came down from heaven , one book after another—first , Genesis , then the Law and

the Prophets , then the new Testament—gradually and at last fully revealed it to him ; Jesus revealed it to him ; the Church reveals it to him . And Masonry , in the magnificent march of its symbolism , falls into harmony with the world , history , time and Church , in revealing the

Try Yourself By This.

sumo sublime truth . Hero' are no counterfeits , no parodies , no c ; iritatui'is , bat sublimity itself . Aud . " .: < Masonry thu * teaches the great truth of Shiloh , tin ! our redemption from sin , and resurrection by and with him ; as it teaches us that He , tho Representative of

nit . nkiud ( into whom WJ may enter , one with whom we (<> . !> y each b < come ) in being raised l y the Father , raises also choso who are thus epitomized in Him , and whom , by the strong grip of Judah ' s Lion , viz .. the incarnation , Ho has grasped to Himself ; a < t , in fine , it teaches ua tliat the Father

can raise us ia and with Him , only by that s ' rong grip of Judah ' s Lion , so , consistently with this heart-truth of tho third degree—a truth in which its solomn rites culminate as last , and around which all else of its ritual revolves subordinate—as , I say , its work is to teach this secret of

time , how mankind cau overcome sin aud death , and rise , so Masonry provides , with great consistency , that none shall be buried by its rites who have not advanced to that solemn degree , wherein the mode may be learned .

Well , indeed , might a friend and Master of a Lodge have come to mo and said : " Sir , I cannot bo a truo Mason , and know and believe what it teaches , without going on and

becoming a Christian also . I come to be baptized . I must have not a temporary , but an eternal union and identity with Jesus . Masonry shows me but a temporary union : Masonry but points mo tho way . " "

Nor are these the only mysteries taught by Masonry . These are the mysteries of earth and time . But in tho three mystic peers—Him of Jernsaleum , him of Tyro , and tho mighty faithful One that evory Mason loves , that suffered , died , and was raised again ; in the mystic peers ,

holding in their iriuno breast secret divine knowledge which their fellow craft of the human race cannot know , there is taught us in Masonry , also , the great mystery of heaven and eternity—the everlasting Trinity of the Jehovah .

Turn where we will in Masonry , the Trinity is about us . It beams down on us from tho lights ; it gazes up at us from the altar ; it guides us from the thrones ; it is tho

pearl in the memory of the Master Mason ; we rise at its sound ; we bend beneath its living arch ; we join in it for agreement ; we go to it , mutually , to speak aud hear of God .

CARICATURES . Masonry is truth taught by symbols ; and were ever truths more grandly symbolized ? The highor you go in Masonry the more of Shiloh and Trinnity do yon behold , until , as you Btep from Lodge to Chapter you step , as it

were , from time to eternity . You behold there the finished work—the destined completion of the spiritual architecture of each good man—the finished work of humanity standing as a temple in heaven . Ton behold the mystery that , n t in the Lodge of Time , but in the Chapter of Eternity , sh a ]|

the human structure " come unto a perfect man , unto fcho stature of tho fullnesB of Christ . " Tou behold the les n that after Sin ' s untimely sundering of the Divine Architect

from this not yet completed work , and after tho rums infc 0 which the human temple ha 3 fallen , if a perfect strucfcQro is to exist at all , there must be a rebuilding—a recreati nor can this be without Christ for a key-stone .

Masonry is full of Shiloh and of God . As the Lodge has its three degrees , so has Masonry , as a whole , its three graduated compartments , viz ., Lodge , Chapter and

Commandery , in which , as you pass through them Shiloh the Redeemer , Shiloh the Resurrection , Shiloh the Truth and the light is drawn out fuller and fuller , until in the Commandery Jesus Christ is visibly seen .

I am directed by my Lodge to take for my guide the Holy Scriptures , and I find scarce anything but the great mysteries , of which he is the centre , running through both the Old and the New Testaments . I am pointed to the symbolic parallel lines , of Saiut John

the Baptist and Saint John tho Evangelist , and the poiut between . Who wore they ? The one the forernnnor , the other the follower and dearest friend of the Redeemer , the exemplifier of His teaching . The lesson of the life of the ouo being that of bono for , and of tho other that of

love for the same great Being . The one looked forward to , the other back upon , Christ . If yon tako tho perfect point , that representative man , that Shiloh , whom we are to

emulate , out from betweeeu the forerunner and the follower , which gives them their 3 ole relevancy each to the other in the symbolic figure , what do they become but utterly meaningless ?