Note: This text has been automatically extracted via Optical Character Recognition (OCR) software.
Tidings From The Craft In The United Sta...
those who disinterestedly , ; and from proper motives , give their labours to promote its cause . This assurance my own experience gives . I have been rewarded and over rewarded , in sharing year by year your brotherly esteem , for whatever labours I in my poor ability , but with honest heart , have been able to give you . ¦ " In the year 1849 , the Grand Lodge of TOsconsin , being th
in existence , ; I was elected your Grand Master . How feeble our numbers , how poor our encouragements were at that period , there are . many of you yet left to testify . But it was good to bear a part in the work of Masonry , though our part of the work was comparatively insignificant ; and I was proud that the gavel of the Grand Lodge was entrusted to me in that < c day of small things , " if only to enable me to prove my devotion to so good ; a cause .
< \ Three years before that time , viz . / from 1846 to 1849 , I had occupied the position . which I am now , with so many happy rerniniscences , to vacate ; and to this position , after my two years' service as Grand Master , you re-elected me . In this position I have remained , wearing its jewel with whatever poor ability I could command , up to this time . . _^ " . 'It has been a marked ancl most important era in Masonry . Our own Lodges have increased from a handful to a mountain . Grand Lodges have nearly doubled
m their own number , while the aggregate of their subordinates has adyanced fourfold . Many and great changes have come over the Craft—some of a healthful and constitutional character , some , I fear , of a cast that will yet prove disastrous to the institution . In all the developments of the Order , id ; least in Wisconsin , I have endeavoured , in my sphere , to raise the voice of warning , to distribute good counsel , and to bear my testimony to the purity of Masonic principles , and the soundness of Masonic landmarks as they were taught and practised by our 'fathers .
.-Of the older Grand Secretaries of the Mississippi Valley , I am the last to retire from office . Bros . Mellen , Dashiell , and Swigert have withdrawn > after long and devoted services respectively ; while Bros . Austin , W . Morris , and . Amand P . Pfister have gone clown to that sleep which knows no waking . It is time that I laid clown the pen , which has so often written up the records of other men , and await' that hour , not far distant , when the pen will be used to write up mine . Threescore years and twelve claim their exemption from further labour in tones which cannot be disputech
' I bid you , in an official capacitj ^ , farewell . Never will I forget the body of men whose companionship has rendered verdant so many of the days of the winter of my life , nor while I have breath will I ever cease to implore the Common Father to have you in his tenderest keeping . ' One last request permit me here—When yearly ye assemble a 'One round—I ask it with a
tear—To him , your friend , that's far awa " . William E . Smith . " Sp great lias become the discrepancy in the rituals in use in our different Grand Lodge jurisdictions—each jurisdiction adopting and changing its own at the whim ofthe moment—that I anticipate a general and combined movement ere long , to put one into use that has some antiquity to recommend it . The manuscript notes of Thomas Smith Webb , the father of our present
rituals , are still extant , and the work he taim'ht is stilL with no ( Treat rituals , are still extant , and the work he taught is still , with no great alterations , in use in certain quarters ; these will , of course , be made the basis of any movement that may be projected . It is extremely unfortunate that such extensive changes have been authorized in this country . While on this subject , I may add , that it is considered , equally unfortunate that
the ( United ) Grand Lodge of England , in 181 * 5 , should have adopted Dr . llenning ' s views , and thus placed an insuperable barrier to an uniformity of rituals in England and America . Certainly , whatever changes incautious Grand Lodges and aspiring lecturers have produced in America , they are as nothing to the ritualistic revolution in England in 18 U > .
Note: This text has been automatically extracted via Optical Character Recognition (OCR) software.
Tidings From The Craft In The United Sta...
those who disinterestedly , ; and from proper motives , give their labours to promote its cause . This assurance my own experience gives . I have been rewarded and over rewarded , in sharing year by year your brotherly esteem , for whatever labours I in my poor ability , but with honest heart , have been able to give you . ¦ " In the year 1849 , the Grand Lodge of TOsconsin , being th
in existence , ; I was elected your Grand Master . How feeble our numbers , how poor our encouragements were at that period , there are . many of you yet left to testify . But it was good to bear a part in the work of Masonry , though our part of the work was comparatively insignificant ; and I was proud that the gavel of the Grand Lodge was entrusted to me in that < c day of small things , " if only to enable me to prove my devotion to so good ; a cause .
< \ Three years before that time , viz . / from 1846 to 1849 , I had occupied the position . which I am now , with so many happy rerniniscences , to vacate ; and to this position , after my two years' service as Grand Master , you re-elected me . In this position I have remained , wearing its jewel with whatever poor ability I could command , up to this time . . _^ " . 'It has been a marked ancl most important era in Masonry . Our own Lodges have increased from a handful to a mountain . Grand Lodges have nearly doubled
m their own number , while the aggregate of their subordinates has adyanced fourfold . Many and great changes have come over the Craft—some of a healthful and constitutional character , some , I fear , of a cast that will yet prove disastrous to the institution . In all the developments of the Order , id ; least in Wisconsin , I have endeavoured , in my sphere , to raise the voice of warning , to distribute good counsel , and to bear my testimony to the purity of Masonic principles , and the soundness of Masonic landmarks as they were taught and practised by our 'fathers .
.-Of the older Grand Secretaries of the Mississippi Valley , I am the last to retire from office . Bros . Mellen , Dashiell , and Swigert have withdrawn > after long and devoted services respectively ; while Bros . Austin , W . Morris , and . Amand P . Pfister have gone clown to that sleep which knows no waking . It is time that I laid clown the pen , which has so often written up the records of other men , and await' that hour , not far distant , when the pen will be used to write up mine . Threescore years and twelve claim their exemption from further labour in tones which cannot be disputech
' I bid you , in an official capacitj ^ , farewell . Never will I forget the body of men whose companionship has rendered verdant so many of the days of the winter of my life , nor while I have breath will I ever cease to implore the Common Father to have you in his tenderest keeping . ' One last request permit me here—When yearly ye assemble a 'One round—I ask it with a
tear—To him , your friend , that's far awa " . William E . Smith . " Sp great lias become the discrepancy in the rituals in use in our different Grand Lodge jurisdictions—each jurisdiction adopting and changing its own at the whim ofthe moment—that I anticipate a general and combined movement ere long , to put one into use that has some antiquity to recommend it . The manuscript notes of Thomas Smith Webb , the father of our present
rituals , are still extant , and the work he taim'ht is stilL with no ( Treat rituals , are still extant , and the work he taught is still , with no great alterations , in use in certain quarters ; these will , of course , be made the basis of any movement that may be projected . It is extremely unfortunate that such extensive changes have been authorized in this country . While on this subject , I may add , that it is considered , equally unfortunate that
the ( United ) Grand Lodge of England , in 181 * 5 , should have adopted Dr . llenning ' s views , and thus placed an insuperable barrier to an uniformity of rituals in England and America . Certainly , whatever changes incautious Grand Lodges and aspiring lecturers have produced in America , they are as nothing to the ritualistic revolution in England in 18 U > .