Note: This text has been automatically extracted via Optical Character Recognition (OCR) software.
Masonic Didactics; Or, Short Moral Essays Of Universal Adaptation.
shall obtain mercy , " says the Divine Teacher . In other words , be not harshly censorious in your judgment of another man ' s defects ; be not rigorous in the execution of arbitrary laws ; but acquaint yourself truly with your own errors and infirmities , look into your own heart before you hastily condemn , and you will speedily detect your inefficiency to amend the foibles or correct the mistakes of those whom accident or birth may alone authorise you arrogantland superciliously to arraign
y and anathematise . The proud and selfish tyrant may issue his oppressive mandates , and he may find satraps to execute them ; but he has not the power to check the stream of public sympathy , nor crush the indignant murmur of public opinion .
O , Mercy ! thou daughter of Heaven ' s blest sphere—Thou warm ' st the heart , and dropp ' . st the pitying tear , When grief pours her tale into thy Iisfning ear . No . XLVIII . —EVERY THING HAS ITS SEASON . Sit nox cum somno , sit sine lite dies . TRANQUILLY would the world perform its prescribed course did men
only adhere to the simple injunction of the Latinist above quoted . The Omniscient has assigned to every thing its proper use ; and to change night into day , or day into night , is to pervert their respective purposes , and remove them out of the order established by a Divine Providence . Thus , for instance , night brings in her shroudy train universal cessation from manual and mental toils , enveloping nature in darkness , and the earth , with its inhabitants , in peaceful slumber . To turn that kind
provision of Divine goodness from the wholesome intention of rest into a means of engaging in criminal pursuits , and indulging habits of dissipation , is surely to be guilty of a moral theft , and an abuse of one of the most beneficent gifts of nature : —
When twilight grey has in her sober livery all things clad , how pleasant the reflection , that with the falling dews of evening our daily labours cease , —conscious that we have discharged the duties of the day with care and exactness ; and as the Latin author says , sine lite , without injury to any . The temporary oblivion of sleep brings renewed vigour and happiness to the mind of that man whose days are so spent . The day too brings with it appropriate employment . Rising from
the couch refreshed by the " balmy slumbers" of a good man ' s rest , his various occupations are zealously resumed , first commending himself and his labours to " Him who never slumbers nor sleeps , " and thence gaining that strength to the mind which yields activity and power to the body . Sol ' s bright beams are not then witnesses against him of a day wasted in malignant strife—in scandalous defamation—in turbulence and dissension ; but of efforts to promote the design of his
creation" Glory to God , peace on earth , and goodwill to man . " Nature herself teaches the propriety of every season having its own division of action and repose . After a certain interval the earth exhausts her powers of generation , and rest is necessary to resuscitate it . So man is operated upon by the law of that Great First Cause who set bounds to the sea , and hung the earth upon its axis . Without some intermission , and some appointment of everything in its season , neither the clods of
Note: This text has been automatically extracted via Optical Character Recognition (OCR) software.
Masonic Didactics; Or, Short Moral Essays Of Universal Adaptation.
shall obtain mercy , " says the Divine Teacher . In other words , be not harshly censorious in your judgment of another man ' s defects ; be not rigorous in the execution of arbitrary laws ; but acquaint yourself truly with your own errors and infirmities , look into your own heart before you hastily condemn , and you will speedily detect your inefficiency to amend the foibles or correct the mistakes of those whom accident or birth may alone authorise you arrogantland superciliously to arraign
y and anathematise . The proud and selfish tyrant may issue his oppressive mandates , and he may find satraps to execute them ; but he has not the power to check the stream of public sympathy , nor crush the indignant murmur of public opinion .
O , Mercy ! thou daughter of Heaven ' s blest sphere—Thou warm ' st the heart , and dropp ' . st the pitying tear , When grief pours her tale into thy Iisfning ear . No . XLVIII . —EVERY THING HAS ITS SEASON . Sit nox cum somno , sit sine lite dies . TRANQUILLY would the world perform its prescribed course did men
only adhere to the simple injunction of the Latinist above quoted . The Omniscient has assigned to every thing its proper use ; and to change night into day , or day into night , is to pervert their respective purposes , and remove them out of the order established by a Divine Providence . Thus , for instance , night brings in her shroudy train universal cessation from manual and mental toils , enveloping nature in darkness , and the earth , with its inhabitants , in peaceful slumber . To turn that kind
provision of Divine goodness from the wholesome intention of rest into a means of engaging in criminal pursuits , and indulging habits of dissipation , is surely to be guilty of a moral theft , and an abuse of one of the most beneficent gifts of nature : —
When twilight grey has in her sober livery all things clad , how pleasant the reflection , that with the falling dews of evening our daily labours cease , —conscious that we have discharged the duties of the day with care and exactness ; and as the Latin author says , sine lite , without injury to any . The temporary oblivion of sleep brings renewed vigour and happiness to the mind of that man whose days are so spent . The day too brings with it appropriate employment . Rising from
the couch refreshed by the " balmy slumbers" of a good man ' s rest , his various occupations are zealously resumed , first commending himself and his labours to " Him who never slumbers nor sleeps , " and thence gaining that strength to the mind which yields activity and power to the body . Sol ' s bright beams are not then witnesses against him of a day wasted in malignant strife—in scandalous defamation—in turbulence and dissension ; but of efforts to promote the design of his
creation" Glory to God , peace on earth , and goodwill to man . " Nature herself teaches the propriety of every season having its own division of action and repose . After a certain interval the earth exhausts her powers of generation , and rest is necessary to resuscitate it . So man is operated upon by the law of that Great First Cause who set bounds to the sea , and hung the earth upon its axis . Without some intermission , and some appointment of everything in its season , neither the clods of