Notes On American Freemasonry.

returns , and are unrepresented in the Grand Lodge .

DISTRICT OF COLUMBIA . The Grand Master in his annual address returned thanks to the Great Architect of the Universe , for the many mercies bestowed upon them during the past year . The address was a

short one , as he said "the past year has not been marked with anything very special amongst us . Masonry has kept us Avith the general growth of our territory . Dispensations have been granted to form two new Lodges . " One of these

Avas in Alaska . It is located at Walla-Walla , and is named " Blue Mountain Lodge . " The Grand Master declined re-election . Bro . Benjamin E . Lombard was elected Grand Master for the ensuing year , and was duly installed . The Grand Lodge of Washington have

established a Library . The financial affairs are in good condition . The total receipts for the year 1868 Avere 958 . 00 dols . Balance on hand , 746 . 50 dols . A motion was made to rescind a portion of a

report of a Committee which had been received and adopted at the Communication of 1867 . The Committee decided that it could not be done ; they thought it " an attempt to expunge from a record which is complete in itself , and which the

Grand Communication was authorized to make . It is a style of reconsideration and undoing of work done by competent authority which , if sanctioned , becomes a precedent for destroying records , not sanctioned by Masonic authority and usage . "

Number of Lodges , 10 ; IT . D . 2 ; Master Masons enrolled , 348 ; Fellow-Crafts , 15 ; entered Apprentices enrolled , 23 ; initiations during the year , 38 ; passed , 28 ; raised , 25 ; rejected , 20 ; died , 4 .

Concerning The Bearing Of Burdens.

CONCERNING THE BEARING OF BURDENS .

" Bear one another ' s burdens , and so fulfil the law . " No passages in the First Great Li ght of Masonry are so full of illustrations of some of the phases of the beautiful ethics of Masonry , as the

incomparable sixth chapter of heroic Paul ' s epistle to the Galatians . " Come , let us contemplate them—They are Avorthy of a thought , "With the highest , and the lowest ; , And the rarest , they are fraught . "

Let those Masons—and , thank God , there are such—who look below the surface of our theories , lectures , and covenants , for the substance of Masonry , of which those things are but the shadoAVS , reflect but a moment on the suggestive

motto which prefaces our present writing , and they will see that in the light of the lessons inculcated by our obligations , we cannot " fulfil the law " except Ave do " bear one another's burdens . " Various as are the faces of men , are the

burdens of our brethren . Boundless is our capacity to lighten these cares , even Avhile Ave recoguize the fact that " each one shall bear his own load , " if we but yield ourselves unreservedly to the wooing —whose name is also inspiration—of the ethics of

the institution . We ¦ do well , and deserve to be called faithful Masons , if we remember the injunction to " weep with those that weep , " and in thus

mingling our tears with theirs ,. and giving them hearty sympathy , in some sense bear their burdens . We do well if , when a brother is boAved doAvn to the very dust by reverses , against which he struggled manfully and in vain , we lend him a

helpful hand , and kindly , and not patronisingly , we assist in lifting him up , and so help him to bear those burdens for which , else , his strength was insufficient . We do well , if we forget not to defend a brother who has been " wrongfully traduced ; " if we care for the widow and the orphan ; if , in season and out of season , we

courageously maintain the honour of the institution as against all factious maligners ; and if , as far as in us lies , we do our very best to promote order , harmony , and good fellowship among the craft , and thus assist in making the pathway

of life smoother , and its Masonic illumination brighter than it would have been had we not have lived . We do ill , and are in no sense faithful servants , if we do not all this and more ; for then , we do not bear one another ' s burdens , and

therefore do not fulfil the law . Business men , harrassed by care , men of affairs dominated by ambition , over worked mechanics , whose lives seem one long and