Expatiation On The Mysteries Of Masonry In Malling Abbey Lodge,

Twenty-one , the time at which men come of - age , according to the general law of England , is formed by multiplying seven by three ; so that , instead of three periods , of seven , five , and three years , we have now three of seven . This may

iiave had its origin in the Pythagorean doctrine , . that important changes took place in man at his seventh year , ancl at subsequent epochs indicated hy the numbers produced by multiplying three , . seven , and nine into each other . Divisions founded

• apon this theory of climacteric periods of human life have not superseded those of ancient Masonry iu our lodges . It is a curious fact that all the regulations , as to the time of coming of age , in our English laws are founded on multiples of

three . For ordinary purposes men come of age at twenfcy-oue , being seven threes . Iu the case of a king or queen , it is necessary , for political reasons , to anticipate this time ; and this is clone by suhtruclhuj ihrce , making the age eighteen .

. For t \\ e time of admission to the priesthood , three years are added , making the age twenty-four ; the full number of divisions on the Masonic gnage . . This number is also made up by the addition of £ b . e successive odd numbers , three , five , seven , and and nine .

The sublime degree of Master Mason must have ¦ ireeu the great object of ambition to all initiated into the mysteries of the Craft . And we may imagine the delighted expectation ancl eager hopes with which one who had passed successfully through

the lower degrees would anticipate his admission to it . lie had , in his previous course of training and instruction , learnt the principles of moral truth , benevolence , and charity ; his understanding had been exercised and enlightened by the

investigation of the secrets of nature and science ; his conscience had been exercised to discern good and evil ; he had acquired habits of temperance and purity ; and the chief obstacles to the reception , of true wisdom had been removed . Another

step in advance war . now to be taken ; another intellectual height was to he surmounted ; and light , brighter than any which lie had yet seen was to gladden his eyes . But Masonry neither hatters nor deceives . The doors are opened and , instead

of what he would naturally expect , he finds . . The light of a Master Mason is but darkness visible . ; there is a veil which the light of human reason cannot penetrate . In the exercise oi our understanding in the pursuit of science , there is con-. viEUial progress from one degree of light and

knowledge to another . But when men have , in successive ages , devoted all the powers of unaided reason to speculative philosophy , each in his turn , has looked upon the same troubled sea , hoping to detect a shore ; and each , in his turn , has found that all human philosophy

ie an arch where through Gleams that nntravelled world , whose margin fades For ever and ever as we move . As the author of the " Biographical History of Philosophy " has shown , centuries of thought did not advance the mind one step nearer to a solution

of the problems with which , childlike , it began . Not only did it doubt the solutions of the great problem which others had attempted ; it even doubted the possibility of any solution . The last cry of despair seemed to be wrung from the

baffled thinkers as they declared their predecessors to have been hopelessly wrong , and declared that their error was without a remedy . Then it was that reason felt her weakness , and in her perplexity saw that she could only find a refuge infaith . And so the wisest and the best looked anxiously for the l-isiusr of the star which was to be their

light in darkness ; to give them a knowledge of divine truth even in this life ; to conduct them safely through the valley of the shadow of death ; and to enable them to look upon the grave as the door of everlasting life and perfect illumination .

It is unnecessary to tell the Master Mason how forcibly all this is expressed in the ceremonies of the third degree . They are well calculated to remind us of the words in which St . Paul has described the feelings and aspirations of the

disappointed searcher after truth , wearied in the darkness of his way , and anxiously waiting and watching for the time when it should be dispelled — "The earnest expectation of the creature waiteth for the manifestation of the sons of God . For the

creature was made subject to vanity , not willingly , but by reason of him who hath subjected ( him ) in hope , because the creature itself also shall be delivered from the bondage of corruption into the glorious liberty of the children of God . " The

Master Mason , whatever advances he might have made , was still taught to look for some further light , whereby , to use again the language of Algazzali , " they mi ght see things that escaped tlie perceptions of reason , as the objects of reason

escape the understanding , aud as the objects of understanding escape the sensitive faculty . " The insufficiency of human reason aud the need