Where The Laugh Comes In.

the world can " neither give nor take away " — and here , too , the reader may perchance agree with us , " the laugh come in . "

Freemasoney During The Late War In America.

FREEMASONEY DURING THE LATE WAR IN AMERICA .

Throughout the whole length and breadth of our Southern land , treason , like an oriental plague , was infesting the atmosphere with its moral and political corruption , and carrying ita blighting influence into almost every homestead . Treason was the topic of all social converse—treason was the subject of every

editorial article—treason was the theme of every sermon . The friendly visit was expended in details of Yankee atrocity—editors and politicians wrote of naught else save Yankee infamy , and the clergy preached only of Yankee crime . A bitterness of feeling of which you can scarcely entertain an

approximate idea , everywhere prevailed , and the Union men were isolated from all social gatherings , from all perusal of the public journals , from all attendance on the churches , lest their hearts should be made to burn with indignation at the abuse of their country and their cause .

But there was one place where the bond of our common humanity was not altogether forgotten , where the duties of man to man still continued to be recognized . In the Masonic Lodges secession lost its bitterness , and Union men who were " sons of light " could visit these sacred retreats without fear of insult

or reproach . As a Mason holding a not altogether obscure position in the Order , I have , in the course of my life , written and said much about its excellence and beauty . I know that it teaches fraternal love . I

know that it inculcates kindness to the destitute and sympathy for the sorrowing . I know its pretensions to be a science of morality , and a development in one direction of the religious sentiment . Bufc until this

wor came upon us in all its hideousness of want and suffering , of demoniac hate and inhuman passion , I did not knoAV how successfully theory and practice could be mingled iu the teachings of the Order and the actions » of its disciples . I did not know how surely and steadfastly its rays of light could dispel the gloom of

this dark night of our national history . "When the first struggles of our infant rebellion began to threaten the gigantic future of ruin and desolation , which it subsequently too successfully achieved , all the other socialmoraland religious societies

, , of the country preserved a death-like silence . No voice of warning , no accent of entreaty , no prayer or suggestion for forbearance came from any section of the land , already upheaving with the throes of a parricidal conflict . The church , where peace on

earth and good-will tOAvard men should have been at all times , but then more especially , the constant theme , Avas dumb as the very grave . The dark , funereal pall of war was closing around the land , and there were none to raise its gathering folds and let in one solitary ray of peaceor hope , or love .

, Masonry alone , mindful of its divine mission on earth , then spoke out Avith persuasive tongue of exhortation that men and brethren should abstain from this cruel conflict . That it thus spoke is a noble incident of its history . And although its voice was

then unheeded , none shall henceforth , for ever , rob it of the glory of the attempt . Scarcely six days had elapsed after the first shot had been fired at Fort Sumter when , from the

national capital , the true-hearted Grand Master of the Templars of the United States issued a memorable address to the knights of his command , who were scatered over both sections of our discordant country , in which he "implored each one , after humbly seeking strength and aid from on High , to exert all means afc

his command to avert the dreadful calamity and prevent the shedding of fraternal blood . " Not a month had passed ere the officers of the Grand Lodge of Tennessee made a similar invocation for peace ' and in tones of entreaty that ought to

, have been heard , " as Masons—as members of a common brotherhood—as brethren bound together by fraternal ties nofc to be broken , save by the hand of death , " they appealed for a cessation of the unnatural strife .

And when a few weeks later , the Grand Masters of Kentucky , of Ohio , and of Indiana , united in a similar work of attempted reconciliation , and crying out from the very depth of their hearts , — " Is there no balm for the bleeding wounds of our nation ? Is there no hand to hold out the olive branch ? No

Saviour to still the troubled waters ?"—they concluded their earnest appeal by inviting a Masonic convention , which should recommend some plan to heal the woes of the country . Had the acerbity of political strife and the cunning of political corruption , which were

then overbearing the deluded people with their pressure , permitted the holding of such a convention , who can tell what blessed results might not have been brought forth from the communion of men who had seen the need of mutual kindness and of mutual forbearance at the same sacred altar and in the same

mystical language . And then came , with like counsels , the gentle voice of Cyril Pearl , from his far off home on the very borders of our land . He lived to see the culmination of the war which he deprecated . Before its decline he was called from his earthly ; labours of love . Masonry can ill spare such noble-hearted men . And when at last the clouds of war had not only