The Progress Of Time.

wc learn how much of happiness friendship can impart to us all here below , how amiable are its gifts and its graces lo isolated yet gregarious man . But ere long life ' s shadows seem to fall on the scene , and Masonry , like the world , bears with it its own abiding witness of weakness and

decay . We lose the friends with whom we have consorted , we separate from the cherished com - panions of many a festive hour . The good old lodge knows us no more , and for us , alas the songs are hushed , the lights are extinguished ) the flowers are withered , the hearts are

cold , which once cheered the pathway of our feet , and crowned our lot on earth with the choicest of all earthly goud things , the friendship of the friendly , and the sympathy of the sympathizing . Oh ! wonderful mysteiy of our probation and our existence , that nothing here will endure , nothing

can outlive the " encroaching hand of time , " nothing can withstand the weakness , the decay , the disappearance of life . Faith and love , truth and tenderness , the joy of the joyous , and the sorrow of the sorrowing , alike yield to the resistless flight of time , and as Life speeds on its

goal , we only realize more and more , how that when all its best gifts are enjoyed , its truest treasures treasured , and its fairest sympathies claimed , all this passes away often in a moment , and we sum it all up as a tale that is told . We think then , that at this goodly season of the

year , we should seek to remember such teaching as we may find it both opportune and improving . If the Masonic press is to hold its own , it must alike improve and inform , warn and edify . It is not meant merely for the idle display of the

hour or the passing record of frivolity . No , it has a higher misson . and a truer teaching . As good men and bright Masons let us listen to that pleasant voice which seems to whisper to us from out of our own' cherished ceremonial , " Gnothi Seauton . " To-day we

are—tomorrow we may not he . For us our lodge will be closed , our work finished , our course run ! And what then ? The progress of life warns us , like as in Masonic analogy , how all things here must have a close , how the voice of friendship must be hushed , and the pleasantness of companionship ended , and that there comes a

time to us all , when we can no longer find pleasure in all those goodly gifts , and all those refreshing associations which crowned the long struggle of existence , and have accompanied us even to the presence of old age . But now , they one and all bid us farewell as the curtain falls , and the shadows ilee away .

Christmas.

CHRISTMAS .

Christmas is here once again before us , and greets us smiling on the way . Much as we like this festive season , much as we admire its carols and reverence its memories , Christmas comes

to us with mingled feelings of rejoicing and melancholy , of pleasure and pain , of gaiety and depression . It is impossible amid the cheerful wishes and gladdening associations of Christmastide not to leel how we are ourselves all carried

back , whether we will or no , to many a past Christmas , to scenes and epochs in our own little life , which are still full to us all of deep pathos and of abiding souvenirs . For do what we will , say what we may , the present does recall the past , and if the reflection of all p . isttini ;! as some

ouc has said , is melancholy , it will yet supervene alike amid the chants of rejoicing , and the gatherings of the world . Yes , there seems always to be a ghost of the past , reminding us of other days and other scenes , and telling us how time is fleeting and hopes are vain , how all that is of

earth is ephemeral , and how all the flowers and the decorations of fancy , the pleasures and pains of existence , the glittering gewgaws and the fantastic tinsel of life , the very living beings of our little home circle , all fade by degrees and end in dust—yes in dust ! And do not let any of us think that ours is too lugubrious a deliverance ,

too much of a sermon , too little of a Masonic Irader , especially at this genial season . We Hold , and hold strongly , that of all the nuisances which bore us , and bedevil us at the present hour , is that array of foolish persons , of whom "Motley is the only wear , " who are on the look out always for insipid jokes , and bad puns ,

Christmas.

whose cacchinations are unceasing , and whose faces are always extended in a broad grin . We want to be serious every now and then , depend upon it , and never more than at this Christmas season , when mirth may degenerate into licence , relaxation into extravagance , and amusement into

excess . We always need the sobering voice and the restraining hand . Such is the composition of mortality , feeble and fallen , that what was intended for its enjoyment becomes an abuse , what was given to it for a blessing ends in its bane . So too , amid all the licensed liberty and

reasonable gaieties of Christmas , there comes as a ever needful warning , lest we misuse instead of profiting by the goodly blessings of T . G . A . O . T . U ., and lest we also forget the solemn lesson that each returning Christmas brings in its silvery and pleasant voice

to us all alike old and young , high and low , rich and poor , educated and uneducated First of all let us be on our guard against turning our needful and beneficial holiday into a scene of unwise and unsanctified revelry . Too many make Christmas still only an excuse for

unrestrained indulgence and idle extravagance ! The world has so taken possession of Christmas , that its hymns of rejoicing and its echoes of peace , are sometimes drowned in the din of tumultuous uproar , in the chants of human Bacchanalia . The memories of Christmas are forgotten

altogether , put on one side , laid by entirely , and we give a pure earthly gloss to all of higher teaching or more severe contemplation . And then also we forget the past in the present- That present is all in all for us . It colours our waking dreams , controls our hourly striving , it is the

beall and the do-all of our whole moral being , until at last , absorbed in gaiety , and gi % n up to dissipation , we become wholly material , \; ntirel y sensuous , and forget all that is spiritual , ignore all that is of heavenly teaching and developement . The past has no longer a memory or a message

for us ; it is often in fact as if it had never been . Now it is against this two-fold mistake , thatChristmas seems always to protest , as the world runs on its way , as generation follows generation to the grave , 3 S we ourselves grow old and weary in the race , and as the river of time passes

slowly on . emptying itself year by year into the great ocean of eternity . If it be the best of philosophies , not to be too melancholy or too morbid , not to take too downcast a view of life and the world , not to " cry over spilt milk , " not to deplore the irresistible and the inevitable ,

surely also it is the highest wisdom , not to allow the present to make us forget the past or the future , so as to render us denizens of time alone , when we are heirs of eternity , to constitute us simply children of the " plain , " when we really belong to that " better country , " which

lies amid the " everlasting hills . " If Christmas has any message for the serious and the thoughtful it is this : be not " too much conformed to this world , " but remember that through all these outer things , and amid all proper use of all God ' s good gifts there lies a higher life , an eternal

resting place for all the " true in heart , " when the fashion of this world has passed for ever away , and when this old earth of ours , with all its pains and penalties has yielded to that glad new earth in which all the former evil things

have utterly ceased to be . Christmas , which once again confronts us in the Calendar , seems as it bids "be merry and joyful , " also to point to that happier home and that everlasting happiness which T . G . A . O . T . U ,, reserves in his mercy , for our weary and dying race .

Masonic Thoughts For Christmas, 1877.

MASONIC THOUGHTS FOR CHRISTMAS , 1877 .

Though in all that concerns English Masonry ours may be a contented Pas an which we raise amid the closing hours of 187 ; , and though we may all rejoice to note the onward and prosperous career of English Masonry , yet we confess that wc look on the closing scene of 1877 with some

feelings of anxiety and depression . We cannot shut out from our eyes the stern and unpalatable fact that in France , for instance , a very great mistake has been committed through the perverse restlessness of a busy section of the Order , which has resulted in our humble opinion , in

Masonic Thoughts For Christmas, 1877.

one of the greatest blows which French Freemasonry has ever sustained . We should not be honest English Masons if we did not express our opinions freely and fully , and in this particular crisis , we think reticence unadvisable , and silence the worst of kindness to our French

brethren . English Masons have often been pained by the accounts of the sayings and doings of individual Masons in France and Belgium , by the " agenda paper" and resolutions of private lodges . The foolish and ridiculous acts of those French Freemasons , for instance , who joined the

Commune , and made Freemasonry a bye-word and a scandal were truly deplored by our entire Craft . Anything more senseless , more puerile , more un-Masonic , and more infatuated , never yet disgraced the annals of Masonry . But we consoled ourselves with the belief and the hope ,

that such acts were individual acts alone , and that the Grand Orient of France did not in any way approve of them . In fact the French Grand Orient was powerless , and owing to its vicious and incomplete organisation , had , apparently , no real authority to repress Masonic

recreancy . But still we hoped for the best , as the Grand Orient of France was not actually mixed up in such untoward and unseemly proceedings , which might be put down to an " acces" of individual Mr . sonic insanity . And therefore we fondly trusted that " Philip drunk " would give

way ere long to " Philip sober , " and that the Grand Orient mi ght gracefully and gradually , by a true Masonic course , restore , at any rate , that sympathy , confidence , and " entente cordiale " which such unwise proceedings had rudely shattered , and which such un-Masonic words and

ways threatened to destroy altogether . For in this one thing , all English Masons were agreed , that they never would , happen what ma }' , have " part or lot , " with any professing Masons who degraded the good old Craft , always loyal and ever orderly , to the level of " une partie

ldealogue , " to whom murder and arson , and pillage and destruction , the overthrow of all social civilization were both welcome , and a matter of exulting reality . But alas ! our fair expectations have been cruelly disappointed , our not unreasonable hopes extinguished

though let us trust and believe only for a time . The Grand Orient of France is now committed to 3 course alike senseless and suicidal , dishonouring to God , and hurtful to man . Yielding to sinister influences , and political factions , it has , in imitation of the worst and darkest days that

France has ever seen , struck out the belief in God from the Constitution , and for the express purpose , and with the avowed intent , of enabling those who do not believe in God to enter French lodges . Henceforth , the Materalistic Infidel , the Positiviste , the Negativiste ( hopeless paradox ) ,

and the avowed Atheist , may be admitted into French Freemasonry . So far does this absurdity of hyper-toleration proceed , ( which however amounts to intolerance ) , that Atheism is termed even a " culte , " a religion , and is positively placed on the same level as that of

Christianity or Theism , which the " Morale Independante " would treat as some among many forms of belief , all equally false , in the world ! Pleasant prospect for the French Freemasons ! The truth is , that this consummation of events is not the least astonishing to those who have

watched the course of the dominant party in French Freemasonry , and who know that Massol some years back broughc forward precisely the same motion which has now been carried . As it is , as before the world French Freemasonry occupies this unsavourvand unsatisfactory position

that it rests its public professions of Masonic belief on a nihilistic erasure , and a political cry , and remembering the past and realizing the present , we cannot but forbear feeling the greatest depression and uneasiness , alike in respect of its actual status and its eventual safety . Had the

French reformers wished only to keep their profession of faith as with us , in a separate form , such as " tradenda and observanda , " we should not have thought that its removal from a coda of laws mattered much , for we do not think that

expressions of belief are suitabl y placed amid legislative enactments . But , unfortunately , such a compromise did not suit the movement party in French Freemasonry . They objected to the exclusion of Atheists , and they have