Conversation.

when you must advance with your heaviest battalions . If you do not , you will find all y ° resources drawn upon for the defence at a disadvantage of some point in itself insignificant . In other words , state

only your leading thought , the one that represents your reigning mood . ' This is the course to pursue , unless you are Avickedly given to feints and alarms , and

all sorts of tantalizing manoeuvres . BeAvare , also , of another kind of conversationalist—the man of negation , the cynic , the anti-enthusiast . Ten chances to one he is not the terrible felloAV he

seems . Nmety-nme chances in an hundred he is hiding his own conscious incapacities and ignorance under this shouldershrugging acquiescence , this Avell-bred doubt—Avell-bred it is , only superficially ,

for at heart it hides the very essence of ill-breeding , the desire to hold always the position of advantage at Avhatever cost to others—in a word , selfishness . Moreover ,

you are likely to find this very man deprecatingly given to certain select enthusiasms of his own . It is here that you can bring him to the test , and find him human .

There is still another sort of converser against whom warning is of no aA * ail . There is no conversation possible Avith a person AVIIO talks in paragraphs , the separate sentences nicely balanced , and

ending with monosyllables onl y when they are most effective ; the thought embodied in these paragraphs- —opinions of men and systems , no matter hoAv complex—as finished as the stereotyped

paragraphs themselves ; and no modifications allowed except in foot-notes , also stereot pyed I We are inclined to believe it would be better to teach people how not to converse . Conversation , or Avhat goes by that name

noAv-a-days , is a hot-house growth . Good conversationalists seem to have lost their perfume in the over-development of certain showy parts . When a man begins to be a good conversationalist , he begins to lose ground as a man .

It is not at all silly , hoAvever , this Professor ' s advertisement . The fact that conversation can be taught , shows what an artificial thing it is . You can teach almost any one to make wax flowers . We know of but one man in America who can give

Conversation.

you the soul of a Avater-lily on canvas , and nobody taught him the trick . Scribners American Monthly .

Live Masonry As Well As Teach It.

LIVE MASONRY AS WELL AS TEACH IT .

BY J . R . BOYCE , M AV ., MONTANA . IN my address to them I have tried to urge upon the lodges the necessity of practical Masonry , especially calling

thenattention to the standing resolution of the Grand Lodge , passed in 1870 , denouncing as hig h treason against the most vital tenets of Masonry , the crimes of

gambling , drunkenness , licentiousness , and profanity , realizing that the time has now come in our history when we must assume our true position and p lace ourselves right

before society , relative to these sinners . They are too flagrant a violation of our teachings , and too commonly practised to be lightly passed over ; the mantle of

charity will no longer cover them , and the hour for action has come ; Ave may no longer shun the responsibility of respecting the opinions of society ; the Grand

Lodge has placed her seal of condemnation on these practices , and our sister Grand Lodges have approved , yet these Avholesome regulations have remained on

our statutes a dead letter , unpractised and unenforced . Brethren , otherAvise good and true , have Avell nig h ruined themselves : our lodges have been mute ; a maAvkish charity has held them back from enforcing

our laAvs , and our beloved Order has lost , in a great measure , her prestige as the harbinger of morality . Good Masons stand appalled at the fearful violation of the Masonic laAv , and society condemns the flagrant violation of Avhat all knoAv to be Masonic

duty . These departures from duty must cease , or Ave lose our heritage . Brethren , Ave have good material ; men as true as steel ; men Avho would ornament any society

on earth , if we Avill only break off the rough corners , and fit them for the builder ' s use . But Ave have rested in the glory of our beautiful ritual , admired its grandeur ,

and the drapery in Avhich it is clothed , and forgotten that Avithout exemplification in every-day life it is only a relic of the mvstic past . Masonry is either something