Masonry's Antiquity And Significance.

Winged for the futtire j which the dying breath Of truth ' s great teachers shapes as it exhales , And to the most enduring forms of earth Commits—to linger in the craggy shade

Of the huge valley— 'ceath the eagle's home , Or in the sea-cave where the tempeBt sleeps , Till some heroic Iea : ler bids them wake To thrill the world with echoes !"

But why do we moke these claims , aid why exorcise these privileges ? If mere pretence , then is Masonry only a child ' s plaything , not a labour fitted for a man . If its claims aro unfounded , ^ hon is it a wicked thing . Should

there be such an Institution as Masonry , and what is the Institution that passes under that title ? Whence came it ; how did it originate ; at what year or era had it birth ? These are interesting questions , and not unworthy a brief examination .

Shall we start from the great river of Mason'c endeavour , as we see it flowing on almost in every land under the sun ; silent , strong , and majestic ; uttering no voice save that of benefaction ; inviting no one to embark upon its waters savo those who do so unbiassed by personal appeal ;

turning neither to the light nor to the left of its old channels ; making no new landmarks ; no human eye able to fathom its depths of knowledge , nor human tongue voluble enough to count the blessings it wafts upon its bosom ? Let us ascend the stream and see , if we can ,

where it heads . Along the habitations of the white men of the land , we can trace back every mile . We find it flowing by state and church , by village and community , even by tig very hill which General Wairen , a Grand Master of Masons under English authority , consecrated

by his blood to the cause of colonipl and state independence . Nor was Masonry only known among the white men of America , or transmitted alone from English teachings . Listen to an old tradition .

The Chickasaw Indians were once a powerful tribe . They belonged to a brave race . The land from which they came we know not ; but according to tradition , which with

them is authentic histoiy , they travelled from the West towards the East . They desired to stand upon tho first hill near to the rising sun , and watch it wplk ^ g majestically through the heavens .

It is said that the whole nation started n'om their home in the West , and walked in a c i rcuitous way towards the East . Light , they say , was their object . For awhile two dogs , young and sagacious , were their guides . Day after day passed . Suddenly and mysteriously tho dogs were lost , and left the men of tho nation in tbo bondage of

ignorance . A council was summoned . The great prophet of the tribe spoke in his peculiar language , and advise i by certain signs that they must continuo their journey until they reached the living land . According to their instructions , they deputed some expert braves to fe 1 ! a slim but

tall tree , and set it up in their midst ; aud they had the special injunction of their prophet , to travel the next morning and every other morning in the direction that the tree leaned , and to travel until the tree stood perpendicularly , there stop , for that plrce was the living land . That

place the Chickasaws found on the banks of the Mississippi , near the bluffs that bear their name . Before reaching this land , which they were told abounded : i fiah and gfme , a part of their nation was lost . Tho portion lost was called the elder brother , and that tribo now known in the West

the younger brother . In and about the bluffs they heard strange noises , as so many voices coming as from out of caves . The voices sounded like thunders , and gave them evidence of approaching danger ; and they Iu eded the warnings and prepared for battle . Their prophet looked

toward the sunrise , and saw a large white ball rolling towards the West . He saw many pale-faced men stepping to the West , with the power to possess and govern the land . The white ball they saw rolling nearer and nearer to them .

The pale men too were following it , and the red men had to retrace their steps and go from whence they cameeven to the West , but ever travelling to the East , where they will finally return to light and find their elder brother , shake hands and weep with joy .

Crossing the waters , we find the Masonic element extending back through all English time . Our American Masonry of the York Rite came confessedly from England .

Here pause a momen t while an exploring expedition starts forth into the dim obscurity of other ages , to find fountain heads for the streams which well up into deop and broad rivers iu the era in which we live . The

Masonry's Antiquity And Significance.

grand tunneling of the Alps is only accomplished by working from both sides . In tho very heart of Mount Cenis the French and Italian tunnels are to meet . Bear with me then , a few moments , while I revert to the history of the past .

The earliest authors we read speak of religious ceremonies and rites which commonly were called tho mysteries . Their secrets were carefully concealed from tho knowledge of the profane ; could only be received after days and months , and sometimes years of trial , and were

considered by those who attained them as of the highest moral , intellectual and religious value . Their traces aro to be found in every ancient nation . The temples of India ,

the caverns near Thebes , the enclosures of Eleusis , have all given up their mysteries , and show that the existence and attributes of the Deity , the immortality of the soul , and tho relations of man to his Maker and his

fellowcreatures , were all there known to the initiated . Each mystery had its particular legend , funereal in its character and representing the death aud resurrection of some fabled hero . Moses we are told , was learned in all the wisdom of tho

Egyptians and was mighty in words and deeds . Educated at Pharaoh ' s court , the adopted child of the king ' s daughter , married to a daughter of the High Priest of On , he was early and fully initiated in all the mysterious knowledge that made the Nile eloquent for centuries on

centuries before even the historic day . These legends early found their place in the Hebrew mind , and their esoteric meaning could not have been lost in the gifted lino of leaders , prophets and judges the Hebrew nation boasted .

We have no time now , were it in place , to allude to tho ancient books of India , and to the mysteries of Mithras , of Isis and Eleusis—all having legends of similar funereal character ; different in their mythical story and in their adaptation , but still all alike children of the same family , sprung from the same source aud directed to the same

purpose . Pass for a moment to the Solomonean period , and the erection of the first Temple . The holy writings tell us how Solomon , King of Israel , whose wisdom surpassed that of all the Orient of Egypt , had the aid of the wealthy

Hiram of Tyre , King of Sidon and Phoenicia , in the erection of an edifice to be dedicated to the One God . That there was a unity of sentiment between those kings which enabled the worshipper of Jehovah and the worshipper of Bel to join together—the seeming idolator to aid

the professor of a purer faith—there can be no doubt . Whence this strange association ? Simply from both having been initiated in Egyptian mysteries , and the Tyrian ruler being aa fully impressed with their esoteric doctrines a 3 the Hebrew monarch was with the simpler faith in the God of Israel .

Am I asked to trace down Masonic genealogy from ancient mysteries to Solomonean legends , and from the builders of the Temple to the Craftsmen of modern Masonry ? Or to show the priestly succession from those

ancient times to the present ? Let me remind the inquirer that tradition is rarely written ; no parchment holds its secrets ; when written , it becomes history . Traditions are confined to the few ; history is open to the many . Let mo answer still further bv an illustration .

Standing upon any bluff of the lower Mississippi , and looking towards the mighty father of waters as he rushed down to the Gulf , we sometimes see the stream red with muddy water ; at other times especially muddy , but of a different colour . Is there any hesitation in saying , in the

one case , that the Arkansas is pouring down its angry torrent , or that , in the other , the Missouri is emptying her less-coloured sands ? We meet a Btream , we note its colour , and character of its water , its general direction ; we travel on , and the next day cross another smaller one ,

marked by the same characteristics . Do we hesitate to assert that they are the same stream , and that we have but struck it nearer its source ? Surely wo need not travel each weary mile along its banks to convince ourselves that it is the same . A little fountain bubbles up

near the foot of some mountain slope , the produce of the ram gathered iu some hidden reservoir , and welling out through an invisible channel . Its waters , peculiarly

marked , glide like a silver thread over rock and pebble until suddenly lost in a waste of sand . A mile beyond , wo find water coming from the ground , marked precisely as the lost water was , but a little larger in extent , a little