America.

vested the purer religion of the chosen people of ; God . The mysteries , which were the asylums in which 'the true religious doctrine of the ancient peoples was secreted and preserved , have left their form ¦ and features to the more modern institution of

Freemasonry ¦ and that mystical association at this day teaches in the same allegorical and sym-. "bolica-1 method the same divine lessons of a supreme God , and immortal soul , aud a resurrection to life eternal .

" We are here this evening to inaugurate the truth in this community , and to secure by appropriate legal ceremonies , the permanent existence of one of those bodies to whom will be entrusted the ¦ sacred deposit of those truths , which I have said it

is the peculiar province of Freemasonry to inculcate in this ancient method of instruction . " ¦ It is therefore , I think , appropriate that before proceeding to those mystical ceremonies which we are here to perform , aud to which we have invited

your attendance , we should devote a few moments to such an explanation as we are permitted to give of the character of that association whose organization in this city we are about to celebrate . " There are , perhaps , few persons so ignorant of

. Freemasonry—none , indeed , who have been within its sanctuary—as not to know that it is divided into two classes , the one consisting of Master . Masons , who cultivate what is called the doctrines of Ancient Craft Masonry , and another less

numerous but more elevated class who devote themselves to an investigation into tha arcana of Eoyal Arch Masonry . But separated as these classes are from each other by lines of demarcation which it would be neither proper nor

possible to elucidate in a public address of which the uninitiated were auditors , they do not afc all differ either in the design of their distinct associations nor in the method in which that design is executed . Each is engaged in the

-search after divine truth , and each pursues that ¦ search by means of the science of symbolism . " To attempt even a bare catalogue of all the symbols which go to make up the Masonic science would far transcend tho limits of a brief

introductory address . Nor is it necessary , on the present occasion , to advert to more than one . "Of all the subjects which constitute the Masonic science of symbolism the most important , the most cherished by Masons , and by far the mosA significant , is the Temple of Jerusalem .

The spiritualising of the Temple is the first , the most prominent , and the pervading of all the symbols of Freemasonry . It is that which most emphatically gives it its religious character . Take from Freemasonry its dependence on the Temple ; leave out of its ritual all reference to that sacred

edifice and to the legends aud traditions connected with it , and the system itself would at once decay and die , or at best remain only as some fossillized bone , serving merely to show the nature of the once living body to which it had belonged .

" Temple worship is iu itself an ancient type of the religions sentiment in its progress toward spiritual elevation . As soon as a nation emerged out of Feticism or the worship of visible objects , which is the most degraded form of idolatry , its

people began to establish a priesthood and to erect temples . The Goths , the Celts , the Egyptians , and the Greeks , however much they have differed in the ritual and in the objects of their polytheistic worship , were all in the possession of priests and

of temples . The Jews , complying with this law of our religious nature , first constructed their tabernacle , or portable temple , and then , when the time and opportunity permitted , transferred their monotheistic worship to that more permanent edifice

which towered in all its magnificence above the pinnacle of Mount Moriah . The mosque of the Mahommedan and the church or the chapel of the Christian is but an embodiment of the same idea of

temple worship in a similar form . "The adaptation , therefore , of the temple of Jerusalem to a science of symbolism would be an easy task to the mind of those Jews and Tyrians who were engaged in its construction , and from whom the Mason Order claims to derive its

origin . Doubtless at its original conception the idea of this temple symbolism was rude and unimbellished . It was to be perfected and polished only by future aggregations of succeeding intellects . And yet no Biblical nor Masonic

scholar will venture to deny that there was , in the mode of building and in all the circumstances connected with the construction of Kino- ' s

Solomon's temple , an apparent design to establish a foundation for symbolism . The Freemasons have , at all events , seized with avidity the idea of representing in their symbolic language the interior and spiritual man by a

material temple . They have embraced the doctrine of the great apostle of the Gentiles , wdio has said , " Know * , ye are the temple of God , and that the