America.

spirit of God dwelleth in yon . " The great body of the Masonic Craft , looking only to this first temple erected by the wisdom of King Solomon , make it the symbol of life ; and as the great object of Masonry is the search after truth , they are

directed to build up this temple as a fitting receptacle for truth when found , a place where it may dwell , just as the ancient Jews built up their great temple as a dwelling place for him who is the author of all truth .

" To the Master Mason this temple of Solomon is truly the symbol of human life ; for , like life , it was to have its end . For four centuries it glittered on the hills of Jerusalem in all its gorgeous magnificence ; now under some pious descendant

of the wise king of Israel , the spot from whose altars arose the burnt offerings to a living God , O O J and now polluted by some recreant monarch of Judah to the service of Baal , until at length it received the vindictive pumshment of fthe mighty

king of Babylon , and having been despoiled of all its treasures , was burnt to the ground , so that nothing was left of all its splendour but a smouldering heap of ashes . Yariable in its purposes , evanescent in its existence , now a gorgeous pile

of architectural beauty , and anon a ruin over which the resistless power of fire has passed , ifc becomes a fit symbol of human life , occupied in the search after divine truth which is nowhere to be found

now sinning and now repentant ; now vigorous with health and strength , and anon a senseless and decaying corpse . ' Such is the joromiuent symbol of that first class of Masons to whom I have alluded , and who ,

by their numbers , constitute the great mass of the Fraternity . " But the second class , the Eoyal Arcli Masons , looking beyond this temple of Solomon , find in Scriptural history another temple , which , years

after the destruction of the first one , was erected upon its ruins and they have selected the second temple , the temple of Zerubbabel , as their prominent symbol . And as the first class of Masons find in their temple the symbol of mortal life ,

limited and perishable , they , on the contrary , see in this second temple , built upon the foundations of the first , a symbol of life eternal , where the lost truth shall be found , where new incense shall arise from a new altar , and whose perpetuity their

great Master has promised , when in the very spirit of symbolism he exclaimed , " Destroy this temple , and in three days I will raise it up . "

" And now this higher body of Masons , who had ) long cultivated , under a foreign jurisdiction , those elements of their abstruser and more elevated , symbolism , having at length succeeded in theorganisation , within themselves , of a controlling

and governing association , to whom they may entrust the administration of their local affairs , have met together to-night to inaugurate their establishment as a Grand Chapter , and to instal intotheir appropriate offices , those whom they had

previously elected as their guides and leaders . " The ceremonies by which this inauguration is to be consecrated are , like everything connected with Freemasonry , of a symbolic character . Beneath the outward appearance of an induction

intooffice , lie those lessons of wisdom which none brtt those who have been within the sacred veil can properly appreciate . Everything seemingly of a

mysterious character is to the cultivated Masonic mind redolent of profound lessons of truth and wisdom . The very names of the officers bear reference , not to what offices of similar rank anil title are supposed to represent in the profane world ,,

but to those events and principles which have consecrated , that second temple of Jerusalem inthe Eoyal Arch science as the symbol of eternallife . Here are the Priest , the King , the Scribe . The Priest above the King , because in that second

temple of future life things spiritual shall be above and beyond things temporal , and all referring to these venerable men who came , after years of captivity , to their old and dilapidated home , thereto rebuild the house of the Lord , there again to

erect the holy altar , and there to rekindle the ; sacred fire , and to burn anew the long-neglected sacrifice .

" And on this solemn occasion we find the tolerance of our Institution beautifully developing- itself in the attendance of those various branches of the Order which , cultivating other fields of Masonic science and subscribing to other dogmas of Masonic ^

faith , are yet united in the desire to do honour to their brethren . Here come the Master Masons , bringing with , them all their veneration for the first temple of Solomon as their own peculiar symbol , and yet .

joining in the welcome given to those who haveabandoned that symbol as no longer worthy of their cultivation , and who have replaced it by another temple of which the Master Mason iswholly ignorant . And here , too , come the Templars , the ens-