Iowa's Masonic Library.

Langridge at tho last session . Thi- > , while somewhat poetical , is substantially true . "Iu January 1814 , this Grand Lodge was organised . In a now territory , whose inhabitants occupied only a narrow strip along its easternbonndarv , with four weak Lodges , and less than one hundred Masons , its prospects of showing great literary activity were not

flattering . Your Grand Secretary , however , was a reading Mason ; nay , more , he was a Mason whn learned , for did he not , early in his Masonic life , when ho accidentally found a stray copy of what he supposed to bo the first edition of Anderson ' s Constitutions , despairing of owning it otherwise , commit it to memory , and so make it his own beyond tho danger of a resouo ? A few years later , when

visiting a lady friend ( now as theu of Muscatine ) , ho found Cole ' s Ahiman Kezon on tho tablo ; the lady , the time , and the ocoasion of the visit wero immediately forgotten , until piqned at his absorption in the book and his forgetfnlness of herself she curtly dismissed him with the advice that if tho book was so much moro entertaining than she , to take it with him . This book was the beginning of your Grand

Lodge Librarv , and is yet upon your shelves . " In , 1815 , on the recommendation of the Committee on Masonio Library , acting npon the suggestion of the Grand Seoretary , who reported , 'We believe that a commencement should be made , and additions made from time to time , as the Grand Lodge may be able , so that in time we mav have a collection of Masonic information that

may be an honour to us . ' Tho Grand Lodge appropriated Jive dollars 'to be expended nnder tho direction of the Grand Seoretary for securing such information as he may see proper ; ' and thus , in the absonce of evidence to the contrary , wo believe was laid the commencement of the first Grand Lodge Library in existence . A few individuals in this conntry , and in Europe , had doubtless made

collections of this kind , large for the means available , but to this Grand Lodge , under the foresight of your present Grand Secretary and Librarian , is , we repeat , due the honour of leading in the establishment of the first distinctively Grand Lodge Library . Since then it has , as liberally as its means have justified , continued the same wise course , until now the wave caused by the stone is thus cast into the

Masonic mill-pond , has travelled widely aud more widely , until the collection of Masonio books has become , to a considerable extent , a ' craze , ' and to supply the demand a business , or at least it ^ was so untillately , aa the ' search for hidden treasures' of the kind has been so thorough and microscopic as to almost exhaust the supply , and the demand for old Masonic literature bids fair to cease from

sheer inability to find material for its supply . "Nor has this Grand Lodge confined itself to the collection of purely Masonic books , in the sense only of Masonic magazines , proceedings , laws and addresses , or polemics between warring factions of the Brotherhood . As the roots of a thrifty tree stretch out into the earth as widely as do tho branches into the air , and so come in

relation with their soundings , so does Masonry interlace with aud take its form and pressure , its growth and bent from contemporaneous matters . Political systems , scholastic and religious culture , all its various environments , have affected it as it has them , until , as in tracing to their fountain head tbe national peculiarities of victorious people , one has to familiarise himself also with the history of those

they have subjugated ; so in studying Masonry must he make long excursions into those cognate bnt outlying fields . With this in view yonr librarian has enriched your collection with books of travel , of history , of poetry , and even of fiction , while in those ' quaint and curious volumes of forgotten lore' treating of the powers of nature , of the occnlt sciences , and of thousands of ' uncanny subjects on

which few well regulated minds desire to dwell , ' your shelves contain many rare and valuable selections . And thus , commencing with a single book in 1844 , the Library of the Grand Lodge of Iowa , as shown by the catalogue prepared and snbmitted at their session in 1883 , by your librarian , and including the Bower library , now contains many thousands of pieces of valuable works and pamphlets ,

Masonic , religious , artistic and miscellaneous , besides a handsome collection of medals , prints and articles of vertu and bric-a-brac , many very rare , a few nniqnes , and if estimated at cost to you and to Brother Bower , worth between twenty and thirty thousand dollars . Thus , in far less than the time expected by your Committee in 1845 , have we reached that ' collection of Masonic information , ' which

tbe promised should be * an hononr to us . ' " Yes , from 1845 to 1882 , from an appropriation of five dollars for the purchase of a book and periodical , and for binding , to the mag . nificent grant of 4000 dollars for the purchase of the " Bower Collection , " the largest and most valuable private collection at that day iu this country if not in the world , was but the period of the active life

of the manhood of your Librarian who addresses you to-day . And the increase of Masonic libraries during these latter years throughout the several states indicate a healthful growth and a greater desire for Masonic literature of the past and tho present . Here in the Library ( soon to be stored in this building ) are gathered the dearest thoughts and expressions of the most eminent

patrons of Masonry . It is of incalculable value to the present , and to the generations that are to follow will be doubly so . " I have alluded to two brothers aud quoted from one—Brothers William Baker Langridge and Robert Farmer Bower , both intelligent , earnest and successful collectors of Masonic books , and both during their entire Masonic lives tbe true , warm and helpful friends of the Library and its Librarian .

" Oh for the touch of a vanished hand , And the sound of a voice that is still ! " For could our dear brothers but know to-day . that their most che . rished desires are about to be realised they would bj happy beyond measure . The last Masonic paper our Brother Langridge wrote was

the " Report on the Library , ' from which we have quoted , as we will again , in reference to this building . Some ten or more years ago tbe brethren and the Grand Lodge of Iowa were crazed on the subject of the erectiou of a costly " Temple , " and would have swamped the Grand Lodge and Masonry in Iowa

Iowa's Masonic Library.

too , had not the Grand Secretary opposed the foolish scheme with all his might and influence . It well nigh swamped him iu the freuzy of the hour , but when they had returned to their " sober , second thought , " all were glad at the failure of the scheme . A few years later , iu June 1876 , the Grand Seoretary , in his report as Librarian used this language under the head of " Fire

Proof Building for Library . '' " No intelligent or thoughtful man or Mason of the state , or from abroad , has visited oar library during the past yeai- who has not oxpressed himself upon the risk of continuing so valuable a collection of books and papers in a building not fireproof . No money could replace many of the books and records if destroyed .

1 he subject is of such importance that the Grand Lodge cannot long ignore it . " And strange to say , many of those same brethren now changed sides , and upon this , charged that officer with the very design they had previously advocated , and he opposed . So diffloult is it to

educate a large body of men or brethren to a correct aud just view of a measure of great importance . With this , the earliest referenoe , we give the last of 1883 and b y the committee , and upon this subject of a " Fire Proof Building , " the committee add : " Having seoured so large and valuable a library .

the question naturally arises , not less how best to care for and preserve it from loss , than how to inorease it and add to its value . Your committee would , therefore , as our predecessors have done , urge upon you the necessity of preparing a safe place of deposit for them . Plans and estimates have heretofore been submitted , and are

in your archives . The money is provided , and only your order is lacking to supply a place of safety . We should he dereliot if we tailed to urge upon you most earnestly to care for these treasures whioh oircurostances so fortunately have placed in jour hands , and for the preservation of whioh you are responsible to the world and to

the Craft , aud in which , therefore , you are so largely interested in both a pecuniary and fiduciary sense . " Year after year the Grand Secretary harped upon this harp of many strings , calling to his aid " committees on the library" and the

" Grand Master " at least . Here and now we take pleasure in stating that onr Grand Master Yan Saun from the hour of his election iu 1881 has been the earnest and best friend of this library building enterprise—a full history will be found in our committee ' s report of the Grand Lodge in June next .

" We are here for this day , To stamp on the clay , A part of ourselves That may never die . '' We must confess in this good hour that " We looked beyond

Through waiting years of sun and rain . " " And never thought , nor word went wild ; Content if only we could see This blessed day . "

Brother James W . Staton , of Kentucky , President of the " American Masonio Collectors' Association , " in his congratulations upon the occasion says : " Of course Brother Parvin is as happy as a father is with his first baby , in the possession and management of this vast library , and in seeing a grand building arise to receive it . " The good brother was not aware of the fact that to-day is the

fortieth anniversary birthday of " his own first baby , " May Parvin Lee ( wife of a Mason ) as well as of the library , both first seeing light in the beautiful month of May—so it is a happy May-day to all . But we will no longer think , much less speak of the trials and tribulations throngh which we have passed in our progress to this dav aud this event—no !

" We would not Call back the vanished years , The plans , and hopes , and fears j Duties , and smiles , and tears Are our 3 to-day . "

But they are tears of joy and not of sadness , and to the dntiea of the hour we betake ourselves and go on with our work to its completion ; —and when our labours are ended .

"And when I hem the green kirk-yard With the mould upon my breast Say not he did well or ill , ' Only , ' he did his best . '

" He that does his best Does all he oan—An angel conld do no more . " Masonry does not consist in costly temples of beauty and strength , nor in libraries of the collected wisdom of the past and the present .

Nor does it yet consist of ceremonies , however sublime and beautiful their ritual , whether secret or public as those of to-day . The fathers builded wiser than they knew when they laid the foundation stone upon which tbe moral and social fabric of Masonry has been built through the ages past . It is an institution of growth rather than of

creation . Otherwise it had not come down upon the stream of time to ns improved as it has been , and to-day exist as a potent faotor in . the civilisation and progress of mankind . Masonry exists in its living principles , and consists of lives and actions , the outgrowth of those principles . It is not all of life to live

and will not be all of death to die . My brothers , our Masonry , as well as our religion , teaches us , and from this teaching " we know that if our earthly house of this taber » nacle were dissolved , we have a building of God , a house not made with hands , eternal in the heavens . " It is for admission to that house when the turmoils of life have ceased that we seek and ear-