Freemasonry And Its Teachings.

regards his moral system when he has adopted Freemasonry . _ He has professed it for himself in his years of discretion , when he could judge of its claims ; he has investigated those claims , and by frequenting his lodge he has openly declared his assent to its " precepts ; has been urged to practise them ; restrained , it befrom

may , violating them , and even reproved for not living according to them . And since Freemasonry is based on the confession of God , and the candidate is obligated on the volume of the Sacred Law , that candidate , if a sincere man , will make the Holy Boolthis studand so will he be led to know his God

y , aright , aud to serve Him as He himself has appointed ; in other words , to discharge his religious duties as he ought . At the same time , he will discharge aright his social duties , for these are so intimately connected with the former that the two cannot be separated . He cannot love God without loving his brother also . His

connection with God as his Father , and with all human beings as fellow-offsprings of God with himself , renders this impossible ; and , consequently , if he he a genuine Mason , he is a living proof that Freemasonry is conducive to promote the religious and social welfare of our species . And , oh ! when I contemplate the fearfully gloomy and distorted picture of human life—brother with brother struggling in all

that intensity of bitterness which marks the deathgrip of implacable foes ; discarding all that is kind , and fair , and honourable , and sacred , and holy , while competing in the race for fame , for honour , and for wealth , and also in the battle of opinions , both political and ( I blush to say it ) theological , I cannot

' but wish that they were all so exalted from their degradation as to be under the influence of the lower motive , and that we could hail them with the brotherly cheer— " 0 worthy Masons ! " Such , too , is the wish of my heart when I look forth ( as Masons must look forth ) farfarfrom the confines of our own dear

, , native island-home , or other nations , and the more especially where our countrymen have left for good or for evil their footprints in the march of civilisation . There , too , alas ! we see much to humble us ; but happy we if , by being humbled , we become the more alive to our duty . Our ships have too frequently

heen plague-ships , which left a moral pestilence to batter on the coasts they touched . Among our earliest settlers , were many felons who "left their country for their country's good , " indeed , but not for the good of the lands where they were forced to pass their exile ; and almost everywhere have the aborigines melted like snow before the white man ' s fiery path , while those who have survived have had too much

reason to suspect , to fear , to hate , and to curse the Saxon race . Hence , one of the great difficulties which modern philanthropists experience in their endeavours to promote the religious and social welfare of the pagan world—a difficulty often increased by the conduct of grasping traders , and even by that of the missionaries themselves , deriding the belief of the heathen ,

and , without that respect which should ever be shown to the opinions of others , however erroneous we believe or ever know them to be , trying to force on them their own creed , putting new cloth on old garments , new wine into old bottles , spurning the lower motive . Far different would now be the aspect of many a distant land were these , or had been those , duly actuated by the genuine spirit of Masonic brotherhood had they , like the colonists of ancient

Greece , gone forth with sacred fire for the altars of their fathers—the fire of fraternal love warming their hearts towards all those creatures , irrespective of language , of clime , and of tint , who , by their mien erect and tall , proclaim themselves of far nobler origin than the beasts with which they are too often

identified— ay , of the same noble origin as ourselves , godlike in form , in soul immortal . Brethren , with whatsoever men we come into contact , in whatsoever land we roam , let us ever be influenced by the spirit of the Craft . We say of ourselves , indeed , that " we are not all operative , but free

and accepted , or speculative Masons ; " but let us take good heed lest we flatter ourselves that , because we are not literally operative , we have no work to do , or that , because we are speculative , " we are such stuff as dreams are made of . " Let us take as our models those glorious bands of operatives , the travelling Freemasons of the middle ages . We are their lineal

descendants , deriving our authority from the Grand Lodge which these constituted at York in the year 946 . Let us not disgrace our ancestors . Formed into various guilds , bub of one Order , they travelled throughout the length and breadth of Europe , and , amid the general gloom of ignorance , raised those

great and noble monuments of piety , the temples of God , which , howeve-r different the nations among whom , they are built , exhibit a unity of design which points to one great master , and a perfection of art which all succeeding ages have admired , if not envied —few have equalled , and none perhaps surpassed .

But grand as was their design , and grand as was their work , ours must be considered far grander . For , know ye not , brethren , that there is a temple being built which shall survive all things—a temple of God eternal in the heavens—and that we are that temple ; that the " lively stones" of which it is composed are none other than the individual members of our

sanctified humanity ; a temple constituting an indestructible monument of the religious and of the social—of the religious as it is being raised and dedicated to the sole and ineffable majesty of Jehovah ; of the social as it is being built up of the bodies of men , so united in one harmonious whole , like the glorious marble

blocks of King Solomon's temple , that , while each one's individuality is preserved , no joint is perceptible . Our work here , in the quarry of the world , is to prepare those "lively stones" by fraternal intercourse ; to rub off all excrescences of nature ; to smooth down all unevenuess of temper ; to develop every good trait ,

and to polish out into beauty and durability every moral and social virtue—in a word , so to act and react one upon another as to render us fit for the service of the great Master Builder . In what manner aud in what spirit this is to be done the working tools and various signs of the Craft , in the mute eloquence

of their emblematical language , fully instruct us all . But 1 trust I may be permitted , my Caledonian brethren , to direct your special attention to the lesson as it is read to us by this jewel , which , by the permission of the Most Worshipful the Grand Master , we this day assume . Generally , the badges which

bedeck a man ' s breast have been conferred on him by the fountain of honour for well-tried and distinguished services . This jewel cannot be so regarded . It is not for any merit of ours that we are permitted to wear it . The future , and not the past , must be our testimony . It is something to which we must