Sermon Preached Before The Provincial Grand Lodge Of Cumberland And Westmoreland.

SERMON PREACHED BEFORE THE PROVINCIAL GRAND LODGE OF CUMBERLAND AND WESTMORELAND .

LONDON , SATURDAY , AUGUST 11 , 1866 .

The Prov . G . Chap , took his test from Revelations xxi ., 22 , 23 , And I saw no temple therein : for the Lord God Almighty and the Lamb are the temple of it . And the city had no need of the sun , neither of the . moon , to shine in it : for the

glory of God did lighten it , ancl the Lamb is the light thereof . " It was at the Masonic hour of high twelve , the sun being at its meridian height , causing the graceful palm to cast only a circular shadow around

its base , when Saul of Tarsus drew near with a little company to Damascus . The head of Syria , the most ancient city in the world is the most strikinglypicturesqueof any that I have ever visited . Rome in the midst of the Campagna , — lone

mother of dead empires , childless and crownless in in her voiceless woe—may have greater aspirations for the student of history ; Athens , with its rocky Acropolis , may be dearer to the lover of art ; or

Constantinople , with its minarets , from the Golden Horn , for the lover of sentiment ; or Jerusalem , from the Mount of Olives , for the Christian lover of his Lord , and the Freemason in musing in thoughtful silence over the Holy Temple , now

denied , which Hiram built with wisdom , strength , and beauty ; and having built it baptized it , so to speak , with the blood of his faithful martyrdom ; but for a picturesque situation give me Damascus , the pearl of the East . From an intensely barren

desert , the traveller suddenly comes in sight of a city nestled in the richest luxuriance of oriental vegetation and fragrance . The rills of irrigation from the Abana and the Pharpar cause a vast oasis in the midst of dreary barrenness . No wonder

that the false prophet , Mahomet , drew back from its Capuan delights , and refused to enter it with a p ious exclamation— "Man can have but one naradise , and mine is above . " No wonder that such a scene should once and ae'ain recur with all

its vividness to his mind when Paul the Apostle now , but once Paul the persecutor , related the account of his wonderful conversion . We need not now speak particularly further than to remind you that a'light greater even than the eastern sun at high twelve struck Paul to the ground , and in words of inexpressible tenderness stayed his mad

career , and brought him first to believe in , and secondly to works of love , to serve that greatest of all Masonic lights , " the bright morning star Avhose rising brings peace aud salvation to the faithful and obedient of the human race . " And

now as we have been spared to meet on another anniversary , and the more solemn part of our meeting being the assembling of ourselves in the house of God , imitating the pious example of our Grand Master Hiram Abiff , to pay our

adoration to the Most High , let us implore the blessing of the great luminary on this our present convention . May he so teach us to walk as children of the light , over the tesselated pavement of this world ; may he so enable us , rough ashlar as we

are from nature ' s quai'ry , to become polished stones of the spiritual temple that is founded upon the rock of ages , and exhibit in practice those Masonic ( which are also Christian ) virtues , that so at last we may receive at his hands our

exceeding great reward in the Grand Lodge above . These all other lights are absorbed in one , and have no glory by reason of the glory that excelleth . These , though not before Masonic lights , are put out—the Masonic Temple of the royal

Solomon , and the widow s son , and the King of Tyre ; the figure as it was of the true , and according to which , fallen speculative Masons build is no longer needed , for the Lord God Almighty and the Lamb are the temple of it . ' Still at this

our happy meeting we yet find some alloy , so chequered is this life , so winding is the stair . Some brethren whom we kneAV , respected , or loved , gone , and their place knoAving them no more . We say in the patriarch ' s plaintive words

of sadness , " Joseph is not , and Simeon is not , and at the festive board David ' s place is empty . " Age and time doing their work , we see the grey hairs appearing here and there , and feel that our own sun is not always at the meridian , and the

shades begin to slope and lengthen . Respecting the families of our brother Masons , as well Ave may , loving the child not only for his own , but also for his father's sake ; our brotherly love teaches us to feel for them in their sorrow , and

the common bond between us strikes a sympathetic cord which revibrates through the whole body , so that when one member suffers all the members suffer Avith it . May the Great Consoler of those that are cast down give a heavenly consolation to any of our troubled brethren , and when asked in the prophet's words , "Is it well with