VOLUME I.
OXFORD, N. C., WEDNESDAY, OCTOBER G, 1875.
NUMBER 40.
ZION’S LANDMARKS ON
MASONRY.
Zion's Landmarks makes three
mi.stakes in one article.
1. The Editor mentions the
Orphans’ IhiiENO as “a paper
published in the interest of the
Masonic Order.” The Masonic
Journal of Greensboro is “pub
lished in the interest of the Ma
sonic Order.” The Orphans’
I’liiEND is published in the inter
est of the need}’ orphans of North
Carolina. So far as the Masons
are concerned, we intend to com
mend or condemn them, accord
ing to their good or bad behavior.
2. Zion's Landmarks says, “The
Bible does not endorse this insti
tution, or even hint at its e.vist-
ence.” Well, does the Bible en
dorse Zion's Landmarks, or even
hint at its existence I The Bible
is silent about cotton, tobacco,
])Otatoes, telegraphs, rail-roads,
&c. Will Zion's Landmarks ob
ject to them I But the Bible
does “hint at the existence” of
Masonry. It makes several state
ments concerning Cyrus the
Great, which can not be explain
ed except on the supposition that
Cyrus was a Mason. The same
is true of Boaz and of his grand
son's wise grandson. But then
so far as Masonry is concerned,
file Editor of Zion's Landmarks is
not competent to take a “liiut,”
and he ought not to bo so posi-
ti\ e.
3. But here is ’another mistake:
“W'e supi’o.se that none of them,
eiiliei' .lew or Gentile, us Masons,
e\ er use tiie uauie of Christ, or
tue New ’I'estiuueiit.” Botli Jews
and Ciiristiaus meet in the same
lodge anil feeling a sincere affec
tion for each other, they treat
each other with courtesy and kind
ness. The Jews believe in a
Messiah yet to come. Christians
believe that Christ has come.
Yet they work harmoniously as
^lasons. Gidy three things are
done (or at least ought to be
done) in Masonic Lodges. These
are the exercise of brotherly love,
the relief of the needy, and the
dissemination of important truths.
In these labors all men (however
widely they may differ in politics
or religion) may heartily unite.
A few evenings ago wo attended
service at the Moravian church
in Salem and heard an excellent
sermon b}’ the good Bishop. He
prayed for God’s' blessings on the
efforts of all denominations to do
good In the world. His prayer
included a petition for the divine
blessing on the Editor of Zion's
Landmarks. Yet these men differ
on many important points in the
ology. But we are glad to know
that each prays that the other
may be zealous, useful, and faith
ful. Yet it may be that some
Masons are unfaithful to their
God and do sometimes go into
idolatry. If so, we are sorry,
and beseech them to “sin no
more.” Some would probably be
unfaithful if they were not Ma
sons, and so their sins should not
be charged on Masonry. But we
are very sure that Jews who ai-e
Masons, would be sorry to see
Christian Masons unfaithful to
their Christian obligations. Ma
sonry never interferes with any
man’s religion, nor even encour
ages any man to disregard his re
ligious duties.
Now in order that we may bo
sure of doing no injustice to
Zion's Landmarks, here is the en
tire article in large type :
*Zeal Without Kitowledg'e.*
Under this heading, the Or
phan's Friend, a yjaper published
at Oxford, N. C., in the interest of
the Masonic Order, makes com
plaint of a communication recent
ly published in the Landmarks
which treated Free Masonry as
,an idol.
The Primitive Baptists are pe
culiar in not fellowshiping this
order, and are counted strange by
many in so doing. Almost, if
not all other denominations, in
both rank and file, fellowship
that organization. We have no
objection to others uniting with
this fraternity. They no doubt
dispense many kindnesses to the
needy &e. We make no opposi
tion to this. We contend that
men should do acts of kindness,
whether the}’ are Masons or not.
It Is only wiien Primitive Bap
tists become identified with them
that we object. Why ? One
reason is, because the Bible does
not endorse this institution or
even hint its existence, as we be
lieve.
Another reason is we esteem it
idolatrous in the sense that it ig
nores Jesus Christ.
How I There are a great ma
ny Jews that arc Masons. The
•Jews universally and invariably
deny and reject Jesus Christ. The
Masons use the Old Testament in
their .services—have a chaplain,
and thus assume a religious form :
yet they have many Jewish
members who openl}- deny Christ,
and we suppose that none of
them, either Jew or Gentile as
Masons, ever use the name of
Christ, or the New Tesfament.
If this is not idolatrous wor
ship, what is? Their Mediator
is not Christ. If it is anything
else it is an idol. Yet it must be
something, for they call on Ood in
some form.
How can a Primitive Baptist
fellowship such an institution ?
If any come to us bringing not
the doctrine of Christ, we must
not receive him, he is Anti-Christ.
If any of our members go to an
institution not holding Christ the
head, of course he goes out from
us, and must be to us as an idol
ater.
It looks to me that the “Zeal
without knowledge” is manifested
in another quarter.—Zion's Land
marks.
CAPTIVE StTNBEAMS.
There is probably in the whole
volume of Holy Writ nothing
more tnily humbling to the pride
of the human heart than the
words, ‘The thing that hath been,
it is that which shall be ; and that
which is done is that which shall
be done, and there is no new
thing under the sun.” For even
the haughtiest savant and the
most enthusiastic inventer must
admit that all the vaunted discov
eries of our age are but more or
less successful to recover what
has once been possessed by man,
but lost by his ignorance or his
misfortunes. It was the boast of
an eloquent writer that the poor
est Eiiglishinau enjo}’ed in his
cottage a luxury which the great
Caesar had not in his gorgeous
palace—the precious|panes of glass
in his window. Now we find
in Pompii glass in abundance and
of a quality in no way inferior to
our own ! There is no comfort
we enjoy and no luxury in which
we indulge, which was not known
to Assyrian voluptuaries, as there
is no invention, the boast of our
ages, which had not been discov
ered, in its first genu at least by
the Chinese.
It becomes us, therefore, to be
careful when we lay claim to an
undoubted addition to our knowl
edge or our power. The tele
graph surely looks like an entire
ly new thing-, and we stand fairly
aghast at this moment at the news
that a company has actually been
formed to lay a cable in the Pa
cific Ocean ; and, by connecting
California with Japan and China,
to complete the magnetic current
which man’s hands will then send
around the globe to carry his be
hests wheresoever he chooses.
But did not Shakespeare’s Puck,
perhaps unconsciously, foretell
the marvellous achievment when
he merily boasted, “I will put a
girdle round the earth in forty
minutes ?” A like quaint fore
shadowing of a quite recent in
vention Ave find in the fabulous
archieves of the good people of
Abdera. They had built for
themselves a splendid council-
house and forgotten only a sm.all
matter—the widows. But they
made ample amends for this little
blunder by the ingenuity Avith
Avhich they remedied the evil;
they sent out men on the public
square to catch the rays of the
sun in bags, and then, opening the
latter inside their halls, illumined
their council-room as fully as they
desired !
lYe laugh at the apparent non
sense. But Avhat Avas it that the
great French savant, Saussure,
did ? He placed boxes of com
mon pine-Avood, Avith a top con
sisting of a single sheet of glass,
into the sunlight, and soon saAV,
to his great satisfaction, that he
could thus collect Avithin the box,
not exactly light, but, Av-hat Avas
more to the purpose, heat to a
considerable degree. He could
easily raise the temperature of his
miniature hot-houses to ninety-
five, to one hundred and ten, and,
by taking extraordinary precau
tions, even to one hundred and
sixty degrees. The phenomenon,
then beyond the reach of science,
is new easily explained. Every
body knoAvs that the solar spec
tra contain three different varie
ties of rays, of Avhich some bear
light, others heat, and still others
have contain chemical poAvers,
and that each kind of rays acts
differently when forced to pass
through transparent substances.
Some pass through one, two,
and even three thicknesses of
glass, Avhile others, having suc
cessfully passed through one, are
stopped by the second or third.
Thus it happened that certain
rays among those Avhich Saussure
had imprisoned in his boxes could
not pass back through the glass
cover and radiate outAvard ; they
Avere literally captured sun
beams.
Noav this Avas by no means the
first time that eftbrts had been
made to capture sunbeams. Salo
mon de Cans, a man of Avoiider-
ful knoAvledge and great inven
tive power, had long ago devised
a pump Avhich Avas to be driven
by the rays of the sun, but, Avhile
the draAvings Avere found in his
papers after his death, the de
scription of its detailed Avorking
Avas nexer discovered. Tn the
eighteenth century, also, the same
idea Avas eagerly pursued by men
of science, but on paths Avhich
put all practical use out of ques
tion. Their desire Avas almost
exclusively to concentrate the
rays of the sun by mirrors and
lenses in such a manner as to ob
tain the greatest possible heat. It
was, in fact, then also not a ncAV
aim they pursued, but only an
effort to rediscover the famous
mirrors of Archimedes, by Avhich
he hoped to burn a hostile fleet.
Enormous lenses were specially
manufactured for the purpose, and
Buffon finally succeeded in burn
ing a pitched plank at a distance
of one hundred and fifty feet.
The result Avas extremely curious,
and excited the deepest interest in
courtiers and men of science, but
it led to no jiractical usefulness.
In our days, hoAvever, noAv ef
forts have been made to utilize
the rays of the sun for various
purposes. Our OAvn great Erics
son spent many years of his ac
tive, useful life in examining this
important question by the light
of his extemsive knoAvledge and
long experience. It is not likely
that the man AV'ho has rendered
his name illustrious by all he has
done for applied mechanics, in
dustry, and the art of Avar, should
have become a visionary and in
dulged in groundless hopes. Yet,
he announced in a letter to a
friend in SAveden his discovery of
a certain method by AA'hich the
rays of the sun could be directly
and profitably employed as a mo
tive power. There can be no
doubt, even Avith our as yet im-
peifect knowledge of this prob
lem, that engines set in motion
by hot air, or by chemical com
pounds like ammonia or ether,
may be readily constructed so as
to receive tueir heat directly from
the sun.
A Frenchman, A. Mouchot, has
made this subject the aim of his
studies for many years, and an
nounced to the world not long
ago his perfect success in “setting
captive sunbeams to Avork,” as he
quaintly called it. His apparatus
is of the simplest, and in certain
details copied from that so suc
cessfully employed by Sir John
Herschel at the Cape of Good
Hope. It consists mainly of an
air-tight vessel covered Avith glass,
and a cylindrical mirror of metal,
which serves as a powerful re
flector. Employing no other heat
but that which he receives from
the sun, costing nothing, and in
volving no possible danger, he
manages Avith the greatest ease to
boil soup, to distil wine, and even
to roast meat. Like all practical
inventions, however, this use of
captive sunbeams also has at the
very beginning met Avith practi
cal difficulties. One of smaller
importance is the bad taste which
this remarkable heat seems to
give to eatables ; it appears that
certain chemical rays of the solar
spectra have this disagreeable
habit, and hence the simple addi
tion of a layer of red glass, Avhich
intercepts them and prevents
them from reaching the provis
ions to bo cooked, jirevents the
incoiiA-enience. The other obsta
cle lies in the scarcity of the sup
ply in northern regions, Avhere
the sunbeams are not so abun
dant ; hence the invention must
needs be confined in its usefulness
to southern lands, Avhere, fortu
nately, the sun is liable Avith its
heat in precise proportion as th#
earth is niggardly in supplying
fuel. It must be added that the
sanguine inventor expresses his
confident hope that ere long he
will be able literally to copy the
good Abde rites, and to lay in a
supply of captive sunbeams to be
used on cloudy days, and to be
carried to less favored regions.
The main usefulness of such
an invention must, hoAvever, be
looked for in the various branches
of industry Avhich require large
motiA’e poAver. Wherever large
quantities of liquids are to be
evajiorated, as in salines, distil
leries, and sugar-refineries, the
application of solar heat in large
proportions Avould in itself be of
the very highest importance. The
most difficult problem, hoAvever,
remains yet unsoh’ed: how to
obtain from the heat of the solar
rays an actual motive poAvor to
perform the work now rendered
by ordinary steam-engines. M.
Mouchot kas not yet succeeded
in constructing an apparatus which
can store aAvay the immense cal
oric AA’ealth sent us by the sun,
so as to transform it" in actual
poAver. He has, lioAveA’er, estab
lished beyond doubt, that this is
theoretically possible, and all
that remains to be done is to
make _ it practicable. Even in
this direction something has al
ready been accomplished, for the
inv’enton has actually built a
pump AA'hich is set in motion by
the heat of the sun. He proposes
to adapt it to the Avants of East
ern lands, and if he succeeds, as
there seems to be every reason to
hope, it will be a beautiful and
striking illustration of poetical
justice to see the same sun which
burns and scorches those arid re:
gions, compelled by the ingenuity
of man to water them anew and
change them into fertile fields
and smiling gardens.
Mr. Spurgeon, addressing his
theological students recently,
said: “If any student in this
room could be content to be a
newspaper editor, or a grocer, or
a fanner, or a doctor, or a lawyer,
or a senator, or a king, in the
name of heaven and earth, let
him go his Avay.”
A lady missionary in India has
converted a whole neighborhood
by simply inducing the people to
wash themselves. Cleanliness once
established, a marked improve
ment in morals at once followed.
Tameness.—Quintilian, speak
ing of a certain author, says:
His greatest excellence was, that
he had no fault, and gi*eatest fault,
that he had no excellence.
Dr. Emmons says: “Stylo
should be like glass—perfectl}’
transparent and very little sash.”