Earnestness in the Performance
of Masonic Duties.
lu our observations last week on “The
Social Influences of Freemasonry” we
endeavoi ed to show' how the u-sefulness
of lodges might be crippled, and now we
venture to suggest that the efforts of in
dividual members would be rendered of
more service not only to the craft in gen
eral, their own lodge in particular, but to
themselves, if that w'hich constitutes one
of the main elements of success in the
ordinary affairs of life pervaded their
Masonic duties.
lie worships best who labors most, and
every one who thus proves his allegiance
to the S. A. O. T. U. knows unless zeal
and earnestness of purpose give iom and
character to l he work he is called on to
perform, success rarely attends his efforts.
Whatever we have to do must be done
“with all our might” We are enjoined
to be “not slothful in business, fervent in
spirit, serving the Lord.”
A blessing always attends steady, pern
severing, zealous industry. Labor, if
viewed aright, sweetens existence, alle
viates sorrow, refieshes the weary spirit.
It is not litVs bitter, but its salt, But
theie must be heart in it.
Labor is the means designed to carry
out the great law oiprogress. If listlesslv
performed, it may be likened to a mill
wheel, ever revolving, ever stationary ;
if desire to excel characterize it, to the
wheel of the charioteer, bearing him
to the goal of his ardent desires. Is
ihe regular attendance at lodge all that
is needful? Does this illustrate the
spirit of Freemasonry, which is to visit
the fatherless and the widows in their
affliction and to keep unspotted from the
world? Does this require no zeal, no
■earnestness of purpose, no buckling on of
armor, no constant readiness to see that
■all have their due ?
Mr. Goodeasyucan, in Bunyan’s naateh-
Icss allegory, would have been a very
unworthy member of a lodge of zealous
Freemasons !
hluch so called zeal is expended in
working for office. If office is sought as j
.1 means to greater, better opportunities j
'OT doing good, the ambition so to sci’ve
The Master is worthily directed : but |
■'hey also serve who only stand and wait, \
and if this was .more felt, we should see j
less of that oai’eless inaction and cool
observance 'of duty which exclusion from
office often leads to. All are not granted
the gift of directing assemblages, of gui-1
ling other’s, and yet, because imagined j
ability-BO to do is not recognized, those to ‘
whom the position of leaders i.s given are j
compelled to use that energy in carrying j
o.ut details, which should be used in di
recting others.
On the principles that as “to the vic
tors belong the spoils,” so the brethren
vho are in p>ositions of honor are expect
ed to be soldiers as well as leaders. Po
sitions of honor—the honors of I'reema
ionry 11 What are .they ?—the mere in
signia of office. The true ho?iors of the
craft remain with those who honor it.
The 6. A. 0. T. U, demands of every
brother that he must do his duty in what
ever position he may be placed and whoso
thus acts JTe will Honor. We believe
there is no higher position in life than
that 'jf a Master Mason, and he who as
such conscientiously, earnestly and zeal
ously does iis duty, commands the res"
pect of all the brethren, and above all,
the approbation of their and his Master.
It may seem amiss in us in the capacity
of journalists, to talk or rather write
thus “Ex Cathedra.” Our excuse must
be that it is our earnest desire to see our
lodg es living monuments, not coldly ob
servant of manual, but imbibed with a
longing, earnest, zealous devotion of the
work given them to do. Let each in his
place, exalt it and so enable himself and
the result 'vill be that Freemasonry will
be exalted and enabled, its opportunities
for good increased, and its influence en
larged:—So mote it ,be.—N. Y. Square.
Masonic Imposition.
We are not going to indulge to day in a
long tirade against that simulation of dis
tress and sufi’ering which very often im
poses on our kind hearted brethren. We
are not intending to dilate now on that
standing nuisance in some parts of the
country very abounding, the traveling
impostor, though much might well and
seasonably be said on both topics. The
real live Masonic impostor when we come
across him, we think the best thing to do
witli him is to hand him over to the near
est policeman, and relegate him to a
limited diet and temporary seclusion
from .jociety Our remarks to day, take
as it were a wider range, and perhaps
may have a more direct interest for us.
We live in an age of much pretension and
noisy utterance. Shallowness and self-
sufficiency mark a good deal of our pro
fessions. both of sympathfes and of open
teaching, and we are inundated just now,
as it seems to us, with a bev}'of noisy
talkers but not of thinkers. Ours is a
great epoch of secondhand information,
and most sure it is, that we like our
■“thoughts like clothes all readymade.”
Hence we have to listen to idle themes
and crude suggestions, to the reveries of
the unpractical, the theories of the hazy,
the hopeless chime? as of an overwrought
fancy, or the unhealthy lucubration of
some unreasoning sciolist. Isothingis
more painful, nay humiliating than to
have to wade through the turgid nonsense
of some aspiring rhausodist, or the indi
gested indigestible pathos of the so-called
profound thinker. In nine cases out of
ten such writers are impostors, amiable
impostors perhaps, who have no c'aim to
originality of any kind, and who have no
pretence to careful study of the subjects
they so glibly write about. Whether
they have evoked their own self con
science, as some are fond of saying just
now', or DO, matters nothing at all, they
are blind leaders of the blind, and as
they have studied nothing truly, they
have nothing to communicate really,
They are and will alw'ays remain “lite
rary duffers,” full of froth and noise, and
oittimes vulgar personality and preten
tious pomposity, but as teachers valueless,
as leaders helpless, as guides hopeless.
And those of us who are conversant with
the literature of the hour, must at times
feel deeply moved at the spectacle before
cur eyes, of this hurrying and confused
crowd of teachers and writers without
any definite aim or distinctness of utter
ance.
That there is a brighter side to the pic
ture we do not deny, but we have but too
faithfully, we fear, endeavored to describe
the “epidemic” which is affecting and
deteriorating our current literary efforts.
Of course we are well aware that much
may be advanced in favor and support
of a free course for literature, liberty of
discussion, expansion of thought, devel-
opement of the conscious intellect, &c..
&c., but still to our mind the “outcome”
so far is not pleasant or promising but
on the contrary, suggests very many se
rious considerations. And this state of
things exists in Freemasonrv. It has
been our wont often to talk of the charla
tans ot the past, like Cagliostro and Finch
and many more; but we must not shut
our eyes to the fact that just now we have
before us very many evidences that much
that has been put forward in respect of
Freemasonry is based on no accurate
knowledge of the subject, has been form
ed with no proper “measuring rod” of
the dimensions of the Masonic building,
that in short our “Naometrii” is neither
very accurate nor very scientific Many
of us form systems, and then invent the
ories; many of us propound certain no
tions of our own, and then give them the
name of the wisdom of the past. And
hence practically our public teachings
becomes an imposition, and we imposters
Masonioally. That is to say, we venti
late opinions whose bearings w’e have not
ourselves realized. We assert conclu
sions of our own, ivhich we submit as
“dogmata,” and with regard to abstract
truth per se; we make the subjective sen
timent of the moment, a bone of conten
tion or a test of orthodoxy,—London.
F .eernason.
Mark Masonry under the English con
stitution and that under the Scotch are
two very different things. In the former
the ritual is complete with music lectures
&c., making a solemn impression on the
candidate. Whereas the Scotch Mark is
only a side degree of the E, A., and the
utmost that a candidate ca?i learn is the
bare secrets of the degree. While En
glish Mark Lodges admit Scotch M. M’s
as visitors, the latter do not admit the
former. Consequently the Scotch Mark
Masters are quitting their ow’n and join
ing the English Lodges.—[Masonic Rec
ord of Western India,
.... Niagara is de.serted.
.... JSoware of unseasonable fruit.
.... Caterpillars are doing damage in Ala-
banifi.
.... A snow' storm in the Sierra Nevada
mountains July 7.
An Indiana farmer brags about clover
66 indies high.
Plato was a wise man, but be didn’t
know how to pronounce S-i-o-u-x.
.... A summery process -Interviewing the
tbermometor.
.... Half of New A'crk’s population sleep
on roofs.
.... A New Hampshire iiorse committed
suicide.
.... The grape crop in Vigo county, Ind ,
this year rvill be immense,
.... An ass that carries you is better than
a iiorse that throws you off.
.... All the apple orchards near Lowell
Ind., are dying. Some new insects stings
them to death.
A resident of J/anchester, Iowa, killed
seven skunks the other diiy. He lias smelled
something ever since.
.... A Connecticut man has buried four
wives within three years. The reason of this
was that they died.
.... The prisonci’S in the pittsburg peniten
tiary are allowed to subscribe for new'spapera
and periodicals.
A woman was the fii-st peraon to vote
at a school election in iliuueapolis, Minn., on
the 4th inst.
... Australian dogs have no bark, and half
the fill! of tying tin cans to tlicir tails is thus
lost
Mrs. Swisshelm writes tliat in Genna-
ny it is ttie rule for gentlemen to bow first in
the matter of recognition.
.... Ale.xandi'ia, Va., has a man who has
obtained twenty-seven patents on his own in
ventions.
.... The flies are so numerous at San An
tonia Texas, as to constitute a pcrlect plague.
.... The young man who wants a light paj:-
iag position, should rent iiiniself for a lamp
po.-t.
Clinrles Kean said a bad hoise was
like a poor play ; it can’t lam and won’t
draw.
.... The sweetest mouth in the world is the
one that .-ays civil things pleasantly and talks
no scandnl.
The act of the Legislature making the
stealing ofa hog grand larceny, has added at
least :15 per cent, to the .■Vlabama hog crop
.... It cost only $147 the last year to keep
the eight miles of water pipe in Bay City,
Aich., in repair. Tlie}' use wooden pipe
there-
....Tire renrains of several ancient elk
were found in Barry comity, Ilich. Some i f
the antlei'.s were six feet long and heavily
pronged.
.... There are 47.000,000 pins made in this
country daily, and nobody sliould complain
because a Counectieut boy .-wallo.ved 156.
,.. Mile JIai'gnerito Selvei. who arrived
in New T’ork a few days ago. has a pure tenor
voice whicii has been highly cultivated by
'VVai'tel, of l”aris.
.... A narrow ridge of gold quartz, '30 miles
long lias been discovered in New South iCales
It contains an enormous percentage, of gold.
.... In Elbert county, Ga., Mr. Enoch Bell,
while shoeing a horse, under a tree, in front of
his sho|i, one (lay last wee'K, u'as struck )i^-
lightning and inslaiitly Jcilled The horse
was also killed.
.... It is the young niair who Inveighs the
the loudest against the feminine love for dress
who can stand before a glass for the loiigesi,
time patiently struggling to make the central
part of his hair a work of art.
.... A hoj's’ newspapier in Indianapoli:- is
ten cents a year,and ‘’anybody sending ihrcc
names and thirty cents will receive a set of
jackstones.”
.... It is gi\ en on the authority ot a Ni'W
Orleans paper that thei’e is in that city a hog
with his his ears so far back lie cannot hear him
seif svueal.
.... In the case of Ah Che, sentenced to llie
New York Bridewell for investigating the in
terior of Char Lee with aknit'e, the Judge’s l o-
niarks wer translated, with singular propriety
by Sing H’o.
it is no wonder that Masonic institntion.s
are thought so mm li of in Knglanil where at
one festival over $4-5,000 can be rais(’d in aid
oft get! Freemasons and widows ofFreenili-
1 ons.
m
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iTs. .1,-