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VOL. 1.
GllEENSBORO, C., FRIDAY, APRIL 7, 1876
30.
Our Ancient Craft.
BY P. G. M. LEONIDAS E. PRATT, OF CAL.
Ocr Ancient Craft. At the front of all
thought which this theme suggests, arises
the pertinent inquiry, “What is Freema
sonry ?” Not the Freemasonry of to-day
or of a century since; not the Freema
sonry of America or of England, or of
Judea, or of any time or place ; but the
grand old science of all time and all
space old as tradition and antedating
all history—universal as the sun’s light
and as humanity’s aspirations—so vast
and illimitable that the heavens only can
be designated as its canopy !
We have heard it defined as amoral
science ; a system of ethics taught by
signs and symbols; the voice of nature as
reflected by the highest aspirations of
humanity.
In some respects it is indeed but the
reflex of nature herself. In the grandeur
and magnificence of its proportions—in
its beauty, its symmetry, its order, and
its strength- in tt-e justice, the immuta
bility, and the administration of its law
and government; it is as perfect and as
exact as the natural sciences upon which
it is founded—geometry, architecture,
and mechanics ! Yet its chief glory and
utility—the nameles.s charm which binds
it to our hearts, arises from the fact that
in some of its moral and social aspects it
presents the very artipodeof nature’s
law. The law of nature was simple sel
fishness. The law of nature was that
the strong should govern and use the
weak, as the falcon tears the dove and
the lion feeds on the lamb. Justice,
equality, forbearance, and self-sacrifice—
the doctrine of equal rights and equal
obligations—had no place in nature's
code. These were the fruits of the social
compact, the reforms which society im“
posed upon natuie ; and the chief pride
of Freemasonry to-day is, that it has been
at once the first and the most potential
of the agencies W'hich society has wielded
or rather, which has wielded society—for
the improvement and amelioration of
man s condition. Venerable with age,
yet sturdy with the vigor of youth, the
same to-day, yesterday, and three thous
and year.s ago, it has come down to us
ladiaiit with the glory of its conquests. I
.say conquests, for it has liad its struggles,
fierce, frequent, and prolonged. But
the human mind has been the arena of
these combats ; the weapons used have
been the moral forces only ; and the en
emies vanquished have been the vices,
the wrongs and the sufFerings of humani
ty ! The fields on which these victories
have been won are still blooming and
unravaged, and the serene heavens look
down with approbation on all that Free
masonry has done 1
Those of us who have reached the me
ridian of life have experiencsd so much
of falsehood and hypocrisy, that we have
become distrustful of all pretensions.
A\ here there is much of profession we are
apt to expect but little of real merit or
commendable practice. Freemasonry is
the grand exception to that hateful rule.
Arrayed in all the moral and social qual
ities which can adorn the human mind
and heart, by its works it has establi.shed
its title to all that,it professes, and its
practices have been as commendable as
its theories.
As a political economist. Freemasonry
knows how much better it is to prevent
the commission of wrong than to punish
the wrong-doer; and that the best pre
ventive of crimes is to undo the bonds
and remove the necessities which impel
men to commit them. Our necessities
are our masters, not’our advisers ! Free
masonry know this, and knows that it is
want and suffering which fill the brothel
and the prison house. Freemasonry
knows that man cannot live on faith, and
that it is a mockery and an insult to
stand carping to me about the beauties of
holiness, when bread is what I am dying
for.
It knows that visions of the spirit-land
however gorgeous and enchanting they
may be, will not keep off the piercing
blasts from homeless childhood, nor heal
the sick, nor feed the famished ; and it
cries out perpetually to the canting re
formers of the day—to church and to so
ciety—give, oh, give us some practice
with your theories, a little homely relief
to season your saintly exhortations ! It
does not tell the famished to be fed and
leave them without food ! It does not
bid the naked to be clad and leave them
witliout raiment! But it stretches out
its potent arm, and feeds, and clothes,
and heals, and saves.
Some years ago, no matter how many,
I was a resident in one of the little min
ing towns of California. One day there
appeared among us a young man whose
flushed cheek and nervous movements
told the experierced eye that be had
come too late in search of health. Deen-
ly cultured, skilled in arts and sciences,
and master of literature, he was yet with
out business education, and had no
longer the physical strength tor manual
labor. In that community there was
nothing to do whereby he could earn liis
bread. Wearily and more wearily he
walked the streets for a few days, and
then failed to re-appear, I divined the
cause and went myself in search of him.
In a narrow, dark and gloomy garret,
where his necessities had compelled him
to retire, I found him, too weak already
;o longer wait upon himself, but watch
ing with patient serenity for the outgoing
of the tide, which was ebbing tiow with
terrible and accelerating speed. At first
he was reticent and distrustful. But a
few moments satisfied him that something
better than curiosity merely had brought
me there, and then he told the story of
his life. It was the tale you have often
heard before, of a widowed mother and
an only son ; of days of toil and night.= of
study, of struggles with poverty and bro
ken health, and how at last, with little
loft of strength or endurance, but rich in
manly resolution, he had oome out here
in the double hope of regaining health
and rearing a happier home for the moth
er who had borne and tended him. And
then for the first time, and with evident
reluctance as if he feared I wonld regard
the disoloKure as setting up some claim
upon my purse, he told me that on the
eve of his departure from the East he
had been made a Mason. “I .suppose,”
he said, “that I am what you call an
emergent Mason. But I don’t know as I
ought to be blamed much for it. I al
ways wanted to be a Mason. But I was
never able until that night. I shouldn’t
have been able then, but a friend gave
me the money. I wonder,” he added in
quiringly, after a pause, “if I can be bur
ied by the Masons?”
By this time I was too full of something
besides censnre, to think that the boy
could be blamed for anything; and I
presume I told him so.
But be that as it may, there was a
hasly change in that apartment. We did
not leave him long with his cheerless and
uneorniortable surroundings. Gently and
tenderly as ever young mother lifted and
pressed her first-born to her heart, we
lifted him up and bore him away from
the gloom and desolation of his garret.
The hand of death was indeed all ready
upon him, and we could not unloose its
inexorable grip. But w'e .'ould at least
cheer and solace his descent to the tomb
We could open the shutters and let God's
genial sunshine in to gild with mellow
radience his few remaining days. We
could stand by his bedside and anticipate
and minister to every want. We could
receive his benedictions and his thanks,
and that last lOok of ineffable gratitude,
which transformed his face to heavenly
beauty, when his lips could no longer
utter what was in his heait.
And when the stiuggle was over, with
reverent steps and slow we bore the
stranger Brother away to his resting-
place, and dropped upon his coffin with
frale.-nal regard the grateful evergreen—
emblem of eternal life and love.
And then it seemed to me that I too
was translated. I seemed to stand for a
moment far away across the continent.
Adown the sloping mead I saw the hum
ble home he had described to me, and by
its porch at eventide the aged mother
gazing toward the setting sun, where faint
and fainter fell his last receding steps, as
if she deemed the very longing of her
heart might call her boy back again !
And I said, Strengthen thy heart now,
oh, bereaved and desolate one ! Thv bov
indeed is dead. But though a stranger
in that distant land, he found kind
friends, whose hearts were faithful to him
as a mother’s 1”
How many times the sun has risen and
set since then ! The days have gathered
into months, and months have ripened
into nearly a score of years ! But morn
and evening still on bended knee, one
grateful heart sends up the fervent pray
er—“Bless, oh Godl bless that noble
Brotherhood!”
George Washington.
In these days of polititical and almost
National degradation it is pleasant to
turn our eyes towards the great and good
men of th past—to those days when hon
or and manhood and great moral natures
were tested, and not found wanting.
There have been long discussions about
the likenesses, and the appearances of
the great men of the past, most notablv
that of Shakespeare and Washington—
and, strange as it may seem to many, the
artist, w’no has, in all probability, got
nearest to the likeness of the great bard,
is an American artist—Bro. William
Page. After a long consultation over
the numerous likenesses of Shakespeare,
both in this country and Europe, Bro. P.
began with the German Mask, as it is
called, and from it—the Ohandos Por
trait and the Besliout Print, he has
produced a form and face that all lover.s
of Shakespeare must ever be thankful for.
Since the discovery of the original
mask of Washington, which is now con-,
ceded by good judges to be the only real
correct likene.s.s of Washington known,
Bro, Wilson McDonald, the eminent
sculptor of this city, who has the mask,
and has done so much foi the adornment
of native art in the Unite.t States, has
begun a heroic bust of Washington, from
this new material, assisted by a photo
graph from Stuart’s picture ; by combin
ing the two, he hopes to produce such a
Washington as has not. been attained up
to this time It is well known that there
were but three other busts of Washing
ton said to be modeled from life, two of
these_hivv^_iong sineg.been discarded, and
the Iloudon bust is admitted to be the
standard—that is the statue at Richmond
has been taken as the standard ; and now
it ooour.s that the statue was not modeled
from the original head. The original
head is much smaller than the head of
th© statue this important fact has onlv
been discovered by late measurements-^
from the original head, and the Stuart
portraits, the artist is now at work. ]t
may be well to state, tliat this material
combined, has never yet been used. The
head of the Houdon statue ha.s often been
used by eminent American sculptors, but
all efforts heretofore have been more or
less objectionable, on account of the treat
ment of the hair The original head wa.s
made in the moulds oast from Washino^
ton’s head. This process had the effect
of smoothing the hair.
Yfe think that by making a perfect
copy of the original mask, and then put
ting on the Stuart hair, we will have a
better Washington than we have yet ob
tained. We hope to be able to chronicle
the success of Bro. McDonald's effort.
He has a patriotic design in this con
nection,. intending to offer copies of hi.s
bust to the public schools of the Nation
to the end that the rising generations
will have the constant lesson of the life
and services of Washington always bo
fore them. lYe know of nothing so' good
at this particular time, when our youth
see nothing but corruption around them,
to call them back to the early days of the
Republic—to Washington and "his com
patriots, and the Craft thl-oughout the
world will be enabled to point to a cor
rect representation of him, who was al
ways proud of his connection with tlie
Fraternity.—xY. Y. Dispatch.