Es-Sakhrah.

wherewith God had ever viewed us ; he commanded the destroying Angel to stay his hand . Upon that isolated rock , which was the threshingfloor of Oman the Jebusite , stood the Angel of the Lord when the command came to him to stay his hand . For this reason King David bought the land of Oman and built there an altar unto

the Lord , and offered burnt-offerings and peaceofferings . " A rock thus consecrated by two of the most important events in our national history , must not be hewn away , but rather honoured as the

central spot of our constructions . Build you , then , your surrounding walls , and lay down your hewn stone in such a manner that this gz'eat rock shall form part of our foundations . So when the dark days shall come in the latter ages of the

world , that our Temple shall be destroyed , this great creation of Jehovah himself , this Divine Ashlar upon which Abraham stood , and where the destroying Angel turned the curse into the blessing , will point out the future ages , our care for

the preservation of divine landmarks . " Bowing submissively to to these commands , the expert Tyrian hastened to record them and so alter his directions and shape his plans , that when the work was completed no misfittings

would appear to pain the eye . It cannot positively be known how this was accomplished , but the best theory is that the surrounding walls were built sufficiently high so that when the platform was filled up and levelled off ,

this rock Es-Sakhrah was out of sight . At the destruction of the Temple by Titus , this pavement and the upper parts of the great wall for several tiers were displaced and thrown into the valley , thus bringing again to light the Great Ashlar as had been piedicted .

The present disposition of the buildings over and around it exposes the rock , sixty feet in length and fifty-five feet in breadth , to the height of five feet above the marble floor of the mosk , or ten feet above the original crown of the hill . On the

South the ground falls rapidly away from the great rock , and the same on the North , as has been discovered within two years by the accidental caving in of some vaults immediately North of it . There is no doubt but what

Hadrian ' s splendid Temple of Jupiter Capitolimes stood here . In the south-eastern part of the rock , Es-Sakhrah , is a room irregularly square and roughly finished , about eight feet high and

Es-Sakhrah.

fifteen feet square . This is called the Noble Grotto . It was unquestionably pierced to be a receptacle and conduit of the blood of the sacrifices in the great Feast Days of the Hebrew Nation . The ceiling of the rock above it is from four to six feet thick , pierced with an oval-shaped hole about three feet in diameter . —Evergreen .

Freemasonry.

FREEMASONRY .

( From the German by DE . SCHRAH , Translated ly Bro . E . A . FEENZEL . ) Freemasonry in the true sense of the word , is that qualification of the heart , which , in its visions of a better world , and true religious motives ,,

gained an ascendancy over earthly envy , hatred , and malice , and by curbing passions , becomes the natural cause of an idealistic effect . This shows that every being can be a Mason without belonging to a visible lodge , being only excluded from

such , by his own will , not of his religious views , for those are only reflexes of tbe Great Light whom nobody doubts , and are ail related like the root to the tree , or religion to the Church . The first is the eternal , unchangeable , the latter is dependent

on time , place , and individuality . Masonry in its purity finds its origin first in the human heart , and its antiquity is certainly as great as humanity itself , but the present system with its social usages , customs , and teachings , is un = > questionably the offspring of the middle-age " Bau-Hutfce , ( Builders' Iiufc . )

Charles the Great called Italian workmen to erect churches and palaces , and this brought architecture up . The clergy , monks , & c , were then chief builders ; but as the work increased brethren of convents were too few , and laymen

were required to assist , thereby enabling them to learn many unknown things , and so soon as bishops retired to their palaces , monks and inferiors followed , and the " art to build" finally remained in the hands of laymen altogether ,

making architecture a free art . A new impulse was given , and as from the 12 th to the 15 fch century the gothic system was established , hundreds of workmen assembled wherever a structure

was to be erected , and chose a general leader of the work , near every large building they erected a building but where Arithmetical and Mathematical Instructions were given . Plans and specifications of such grand buildings were received frequently , but who could execute