Ames Ic A.

constitution , and after lingering along for days , his weary spirit took its flight ., Before he died , he had discovered himself to Morton as a Mason . However kindly he might have been treated before , it could not be otherwise than that the heart of the latter at once warmed towards his suffering Brother as it could not have done towards a stranger .

Who shall tell of the kind words and gentle acts to that dying Brother , of the cooling draughts , the tender care , the days and nights of sleepless watching at that bedside , the prayers to the Grand Master above for his recovery ? Morton hath his reward , as we hope for many such , in the Temple not made with hands , and the memory of his acts is in the book .

The . stranger died , and alone , beneath the old trees above the (< bayou / ' Morton hollowed out his grave and deposited the body in its last resting-place , breathing a Mason ' s prayer above the grave , and placing the Mason ' s offering within the coffin . It was a solemn scene . A Mason , alone in the wild forest , and with no eye but that of the All-seeing bent upon him , thus paying the last sad rites to

mortality . Nor was he satisfied with this . With his own hands he made his bricks and erected a monument above the grave , which remains there yet , a relic of the

earliest times of Texan history . In after years a town grew up upon the spot , which , however , Morton was not permitted to behold . He died , nor was a Brother by to receive his last words , or to give to his remains those rites which he so zealously had paid to the stranger . But he was not forgotten , and the principal street of the young city of Richmond

now bears his name . In 1849 , this town , hitherto of slow growth , hardly numbered a hundred people . At this time there were three or four Masons there , who , after much deliberation , determined to try to establish a Lodge . They got up their petition and "borrowed" enough from neighbouring jurisdictions to make up the required number , obtained a dispensation , and at the meeting of the Grand Lodge in 1850 , received a charter for Morton Lodge , JSTo . 72 , named in honour of William Morton . Morton Lodge , although feeble in numbers , was founded on ground

consecrated by the first Masonic burial ever known in Texas , and has always been characterized by freedom , fervency , and zeal . For the time in which it has been in operation , it is probably the most flourishing Lodge in Texas . Richmond is now a growing place . It is the western terminus of the first railroad in Texas . This has been completed to this point for about six months , and bids fair to become the great thoroughfare of travel from Galveston to Austin and San Antonio . On coming into Richmond , almost the first object that meets the stranger ' s attention , is a large three story brick building in Morton-street . This

is the Masonic . Hall , which was completed and dedicated last year . It is said to be the finest Masonic building in Texas . Its dimensions are forty by sixty feet , and the hall for meetings , in the third story , is forty feet square , and has three ample anterooms . This is the place of meeting of Morton Lodge , JSTo . 72 , presided over by Bro . A . E . Ford , and of Richmond Chapter , No . 4 i , whose high priest , Comp . W . D . Mitchell , is a comparatively recent emigrant from Kentucky . The Lodge now numbers something over sixty members . The mantle of the first active Mason in Texas has fallen to a worthy heritage , Let the members of Morton , No . 72 , keep his memory living in their hearts !

Freemasons Imprisoned von Ltvtc . —The Messaggere di Modena , the official journal of that duchy , in its number of the 18 th ult ., publishes another sentence pronounced by the military commission now sitting at Massa , in virtue of the state of siege existing at Carrara . By this sentence four persons , one of whom is GO years of age , aud another 19 , are convicted of having belonged to the Secret or Mazzinian Society , otherwise called , Society of Freemasons , and of having sworn to exterminate the true religion , to overthrow kings , &« . / ' in consequence of which two of the culprits are condemned to the ergastolo ( imprisonment in irons with hard labour ) for life ; another to the same punishment for twenty years , and the fourth to ten years' hard labour .