Freemasonry.

FREEMASONRY .

LONDON , SATURDAY , FEBRUARY 16 , 1867 .

An oration delivered by Bro . Dr . J . HAYSES , at tho St . John ' s Festival , Lodge IsFo . 70 , Plymouth , of January 3 rd , 1867 . Old institutions , like grey hairs , are venerable and honourable if they be found in the way of righteousness . The golden locks of childhood

that glisten in the splendour of youth's life-morn , have not that solid and substantial charm that appertains to old age whose hoary locks are silvered by the hands of time , before whom the summer winds pause in their airy flight , the sunny

locks to fondle , kiss , and toy . Institutions , like ourselves , have a period called childhood ; another , called maturity ; and another , called old age . When the rosy buds of childhood's spring-time burst into bloom in the midsummer sunshine of

our maturity ; then , as becoming men , we put away childhood ' s follies with childhood's feebleness , and act as men . The growth of childhood and the maturity of manhood , were periods in which we ploughed and sowed , —the periods of

follies and failings , labours and anxieties ; it is the spring-time and seed-time of life , and not the harvest-time of old age , when Autumn flings in our laps the ripened and accumulated fruit of three score years ! Freemasonry , like all other

Institutions , has had its childhood and maturity ; but unlike all other institutions it has its old age . It was , doubtless , as puny as other societies in its childhood , but it had a good constitution ; and is as likely to live four thousand years in the great

infinite future , as it has survived four thousand in the profound and stupendous past . If the stability and utility of anything is to be known by its age , then have we reason to congratulate ourselves that we are free and honourable Masons .

As Masons , we make no ostentatious display of our good works ; we have not , as yet , turned our mouths into trumpets to sound our own praise , much less have we boasted and advertised our peculiar excellence to the outside world . There

is an unspeakable merit in that unpretending charity that shrinks from the vulgar and impertinent gaze of a selfish world . It ' s that quiet charity that cryeth not , " Lo ! I am there ; lo ! I am here , " that challenges our admiration . We

have said that Freemasonry has had its childhood and maturity , and that we live in the age when the luxuriant fruits of a great and wonderful past

are filling our too limited laps with a profusion of goodness that is unequalled and unlimited . Our forefathers have done wonders ; they have laboured , and we have entered into their labours , aud to-day we stand on the centre of Truth , with relief and

brotherly love surrounding us . We are now sitting in the lap of a kind and indulgent -parent , who , although in the yellow and sear leaf of old age , has more vigour and vitality in his constitution than the most active and energetic of all his

contemporaries . And what is it that has given to this society its wonderful vitality and endurance , if it be not that truth which is both immortal and

immutable ? " Truth , though crushed to earth , will rise again , " and live the eternal years of God ! Eeason is strong , so is prejudice , so is love , so is malice , but truth is stronger than all . If truth be the foundation on which we build the great temple of

virtue , the gates of Hell cannot prevail against it . We are in a school of experience—we have Jacob ' s ladder in our midst , consequently , the truth we seek is not at the bottom of a well , but at the top of a ladder . The truth we seek is not earthward ,

but heavenward . It is not enough for us , however , to lie down at the foot of this ladder and dream of heaven ; not enough to be led from darkness to light by taking one , two , or ten steps on this ladder ; he , and he only , will be crowned Master

of Ceremonies whose motto is " Excelsior ; " who continues to . rise higher and higher through the atmosphere of tangible signs and symbols , until he reaches that climax where Moses stood , and basks in the full blaze of that splendour that

surrounds the great Architect of the Universe . Truth , like its Author , has no beginning nor ending , it is eternal ; it can never be exhausted , nor will it ever die .

In the school of Freemasonry we learn truth hy degrees ; it is line upon line , and precept upon precept , here a little and there a little . The hidden mysteries of nature and science are so plainly taught that " a wayfaring man , though a

fool , need not err . " By the compass and square , and the great moral truths of the Bible we accomplish two objects : —we teach the honour of labour and the bcauttj of truth . ' We are not of that class who think hard work to be a crime . We do not

think honest labour to be a disgrace . Far from it . We honour labour as God has honoured it . It is not to labour , but to laziness , that a- curse is attached . Freemasonry is a school in which the hand and the heart are taught their respective