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Article THE CHARITIES. ← Page 4 of 12 →
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The Charities.
engaged could not fail of procuring them unalloyed pleasure , aud would in after years be remembered by them with feelings of sincere delight and satisfaction . After the address , a resolution was carried to the effect that the Provincial Grand Secretary should furnish the Provincial Grand Master with a record of the day ' s proceedings , with a request that he would place it before the Most Worshipful the Grand Master , in order that it
might be communicated to the Grand Lodge of England , at its meeting in September next . The business of the Provincial Grand Lodge being concluded , the Brethren adjourned to St . James ' s Church , Croydon Common , to hear the
SERMON of the Very Worshipful Brother the Rev . J . E . Cox , Grand Chaplain of the Order . On entering the sacred edifice we were most gratified—although from the wide-spread and well-merited popularity of our reverend -Brother not surprised—to find it literally thronged with a most respectable and attentive congregation . In front of the organ-gallery were seated the children of the Freemasons' Schooland in immediate contiguity were placed
, the boys of the Masonic School . The afternoon service having been read by the Rev . George Coles , —perpetual curate , who kindly granted the free use of his church for the occasion , —and two appropriate hymns sung by the children of the Female School , the Very Worshipful the Grand Chaplain proceeded to deliver his sermon , and took his text from 1 Chron ., xxix . 5 : " And who then is willing to consecrate his service this day unto the Lord . "
The Reverend Brother having first alluded to the circumstances whicli had called for this enquiry upon the part of David , then proceeded to show the duty of those who were now similarly situated to the assembled multitudes of Israel , to rear this habitation to the honour of the Most High , and to consecrate themselves to His service in this good work . He argued , that as poverty was a dispensation of Providence , it would
be an impeachment of His goodness to doubt His will and pleasure to make provision for those who suffered thereby ; that the obligations of caring for them were laid on all whom He had blessed with means ; and that by none were those obligations better understood than by the members of that Order , who had come to take part in the consecration of the Asylum for the preservation of those of their Brethren who were " poor and penniless ; " he further intimated that the very building itself , which they were about to consecratewas an evidence of their sincerityno less
, , than of the fruits of the system , which knit them together . He then went on to show how that system is in conformity with the precepts of the Volume of the Sacred Law ; that the members of the Order , with which he had the honour and privilege to be connected , never forget the duties of benevolence , as was largely manifested in their attention to the education of the orphan children of their departed Brethren , and the offspring of the destitute—to the aged and infirmbsecuring annuities
, y to them in their declining years—to their recent consideration of the widow of the aged and decayed Freemason—and lastly , in the establishment of a home wherein the old man , as he descended to the grave , would discover and prove , in spite of the assertions of the cowan ami slanderous reviler , that " there is something more in Freemasonry than the pleasures of a mere social institution , and that its motives and
Note: This text has been automatically extracted via Optical Character Recognition (OCR) software.
The Charities.
engaged could not fail of procuring them unalloyed pleasure , aud would in after years be remembered by them with feelings of sincere delight and satisfaction . After the address , a resolution was carried to the effect that the Provincial Grand Secretary should furnish the Provincial Grand Master with a record of the day ' s proceedings , with a request that he would place it before the Most Worshipful the Grand Master , in order that it
might be communicated to the Grand Lodge of England , at its meeting in September next . The business of the Provincial Grand Lodge being concluded , the Brethren adjourned to St . James ' s Church , Croydon Common , to hear the
SERMON of the Very Worshipful Brother the Rev . J . E . Cox , Grand Chaplain of the Order . On entering the sacred edifice we were most gratified—although from the wide-spread and well-merited popularity of our reverend -Brother not surprised—to find it literally thronged with a most respectable and attentive congregation . In front of the organ-gallery were seated the children of the Freemasons' Schooland in immediate contiguity were placed
, the boys of the Masonic School . The afternoon service having been read by the Rev . George Coles , —perpetual curate , who kindly granted the free use of his church for the occasion , —and two appropriate hymns sung by the children of the Female School , the Very Worshipful the Grand Chaplain proceeded to deliver his sermon , and took his text from 1 Chron ., xxix . 5 : " And who then is willing to consecrate his service this day unto the Lord . "
The Reverend Brother having first alluded to the circumstances whicli had called for this enquiry upon the part of David , then proceeded to show the duty of those who were now similarly situated to the assembled multitudes of Israel , to rear this habitation to the honour of the Most High , and to consecrate themselves to His service in this good work . He argued , that as poverty was a dispensation of Providence , it would
be an impeachment of His goodness to doubt His will and pleasure to make provision for those who suffered thereby ; that the obligations of caring for them were laid on all whom He had blessed with means ; and that by none were those obligations better understood than by the members of that Order , who had come to take part in the consecration of the Asylum for the preservation of those of their Brethren who were " poor and penniless ; " he further intimated that the very building itself , which they were about to consecratewas an evidence of their sincerityno less
, , than of the fruits of the system , which knit them together . He then went on to show how that system is in conformity with the precepts of the Volume of the Sacred Law ; that the members of the Order , with which he had the honour and privilege to be connected , never forget the duties of benevolence , as was largely manifested in their attention to the education of the orphan children of their departed Brethren , and the offspring of the destitute—to the aged and infirmbsecuring annuities
, y to them in their declining years—to their recent consideration of the widow of the aged and decayed Freemason—and lastly , in the establishment of a home wherein the old man , as he descended to the grave , would discover and prove , in spite of the assertions of the cowan ami slanderous reviler , that " there is something more in Freemasonry than the pleasures of a mere social institution , and that its motives and