The Antiquity And Teachings Of Masonry.*

The beauty of Masonry consists not merely in the fair proportions of her design or the antique grandeur of her drapery , but in the magnitude and glory of hev operations . Through the long ages , as now , she b . i 3 stood the friend of man and the benefactor of society . In all the earth she has distilled her genial deAV of blessingand her path is everywhere marked with

, verdure and fruitfuluess . Her works praise her in the gates , and the grateful tears of the poor and unfortunate sparkle like jeAvels in her diadem of glory . Her very genius is love , the spirit of which connects her members in an unbroken phalanx as a band of brothersbut overfloAVS those bounds and expands

, itself in a stream of charity embracing all mankind . The identification of Masonry aud charity forms the popular idea of our Order . By general consent it stands at the head of charitable institutions .

But alms-giviug is not the most important part of charity in the Masonic sense . This consists rather in the cultivation and exercise of kindly dispositions and active sympathies . It is a charity Avhieli leads men to judge of others with lenity , and to speak of them without reproach—the charity which makes the good

name of another as precious as our own . It is exercised in the endeavour to do away with suspicions , jealousies , rivalries , and evil speakings—it is to sustain the wounded spirit , to afford consolation to the afflicted , to extend succour to the oppressed , to redress wrong . Such is Masonic charity , identical with the charity of Christianity , and Avhich , like that " Never faileth . "

An institution adorned Avith beauty like this must hold its place iu human affection Avhile misfortune and sorrow are the common lot , while human hearts cry out for sympathy , Avhile man continues frail and imperfect . If this faint sketch of some of the more prominent

principles of Freemasonry is correct , the reasons are sufficient to account for her unchangeable aud vigorous continuance until the present time . That this Order commends itself to the intelligence of the nineteenth century is evinced by its larger constituency than ever beforeand bits firmer hold on the

, y fovour of Avise and good men . We submit , therefore , that it is not presumptious to expect that , iu the long line of centuries to come , it -will still repose in undisturbed endurance upon the imperishable pillars of its support . Bslo perpetua !

Curiosities Of Architecture.

CURIOSITIES OF ARCHITECTURE .

lit this season of the year , many of our readers who are free to choose will visit celebrities in the Avay of architecture , such as our cathedrals and castles ; and , deterred by their magnificence from all attemjDts to make drawings of them , will return to their ordinary duties unenriched by a single

sketch . To these Ave would say , there are scattered in every county minor objects of which Ave have but scanty account , aud of which collections of sketches Avould be at once valuable and curious . We might instance as curiosities of architecture , whispering galleries , secret chambers , garrets , fortified church towers , chantries , market-crosses , wayside chapels , crypts , lych-gates , holy-wells

or lady-Avells , toAvn gateways , hermitages , the various ancient British remains , and tombstones Avith their crosses , sheals , keys , horse-shoes , chalices , hands , lambs , boAvs and arroAvs , horns , fishes , and other mystical devices ; and , as curiosities of detail , leper-AvindoAVS , hagioscopes , fonts ,

half-timbered churches , wooden churches , shingle spires , & c . It is remarkable IIOAV little is known of such objects , and IIOAV feAV residents in one county knoAV of similar curiosities in any other . The term garret , for instance , conveys to most minds only the idea of a room immediately under

the roof of a house ; but dwellers on the border country can still point to small toAvers , called garrets , built upon castle walls , and to places called garrets because in old times they possessed similar toAvers for the defence of a garrison . We have only to run through the list we have named to see hoAv much information remains to be

accumulated . A student preferring to cover a great deal of ground in a tour could take one class of object and pursue it , exclusively , through the country . Whispering galleries are curious , as being links in the chain of endeavour to lessen distance by

artificial contrivances ; and which , after germinating in men's minds for at least tAvo thousand years , have sprung forth in the advanced form of the telegraph . The Romans did a little pioneering work in this direction by the transmission of sound through pipeslaid in the long length of Vallum

, , knoAvn as the old Roman Avail , AAdiich , by the Avay , is a most wondrous curiosity of architecture itself . Mediaeval whispering galleries appear to have partaken more of the nature of echoes . In Stuart , times , the whispering place in Gloucester Cathedral Avas considered one of the Avonders of the land . It

is thus mentioned by Edward Phillips , the nepheAV of Milton " : — " A remarkable curiosity in the cathedral of Gloucester , being a Avail built so in an arch of the church , that if a man Avhisper never so low at one end , another that lays his ear at the other end shall hear each distinct sjdlable . " The

Avhispering gallery of Sir Christopher Wren in St . Paul ' s Cathedral may be said to be the only Avell-known example of this type of curiosity . The semicupola recesses on old Westminster Bridge have

gone . Secret chambers abound in old mansions of a certain age ; but Avhen Ave learn where they are to be found , or Avhat varieties of form they present , Ave are met Avith the obstacle of insufficient

information . We have recently given some account ot secret chambers in the old houses in Edinburgh , and " The Book of Days" affords a description of some others ; but a general account , Avith measurements and sketches , is not in existence . Here is an unexplored field for the curious .

The fortified church towers in Cumberland have met with a little more attention ; but not so those of Northumberland . Lysons mentions the towers of NeAV ton- Arlosh , Burgh-on-the-Sands , and