A Terrible Catalogue.

those radical changes of our control ancl arrangement of the food supplyof our people , — -which would give us wholesome and genuine articles of consumption , and do away with the cursefor it is a curse to all classes alike , and especially the humblest—of adulteration .

Freemasonry—Its Persistence And Work.

FREEMASONRY—ITS PERSISTENCE AND WORK .

BY BRO . JAMES LAIRD , GRAXD ORATOR OF NEBRASKA . From the "Keystone . " To the Grand army , halted before the

glittering minarets of famed Cairo , and speaking from the shadow of the gigantic pyramids of ancient Egypt , Napoleon , pointing to those lofty antiquities , exclaimed : " Soldiers , from those summits iorty centuries contemplate your actions . "

So we as Masons , may exclaim , standing within this temple dedicated to the living arts , not forty , but fifty and eight centuries look down upon us . Thus standing in this unseen audience of the ages , do we come to the discussion of the element of persistency of Masonry , which makes possible the grandiloquent assertion of its antiquity , and gives thereto the firmness

of truth . According to accepted chronology , Ave are in the five-thousand eight hundred and seventy-six year of Masonic light . To me as a Mason , this length of life is full of great meaning . Remember , Ave

are not speaking of the endurance of a name , of a style of architecture , of a school of art , of a system of mythologies , but of an idea , of a moral substance , so perpetual in its nature , aud so uplifted in its living breathing life , that it casts a shadow which

continents ancl ages can neither obstruct nor efface . It is " the shadow o £ a great rock in a weary land , " the influence of a great force , which , Avhile it may have given birth to heroes and martyrs , to reformations and civilizations , has never been too high to stoop to the unfortunate :

but year on year , and age on age , in the name of Brotherhood , has bowed itself to uplift those trodden under foot of men . The fact of years in stones and monuments , excites an idle curiosity—but what shall express the awe and reverence with which ive feel , not hear , but feel , the

presence in our minds and lives of a series of principles , whose embodiment amounts to the realization of the universal idea of moral grandeur , and which were originally formed in the rugged battles of fate where strength was born , ancl ivhich by virtue of their own soA'ereign poiver , called to their council men Avhose adherence to

the grand ancl simple faith of Brotherhood , has given to the awakened mind of all age 3 universal formulas of right , ancl founded in every Lodge at once a temple and an empire . It is not strange to the thinking man or Mason that the principles of Masonry should have arisen almost Avith the dawn of time and intellect . But

to those Avho have read its history , and the history of the world , it is a matter of wonderment that it , or any other institution dedicated exclusively to humanity , should have survived the buffetings of the dark ages , the preceding superstitions and idolatrous onesand the succeeding

per-, secutions of priests and kings , that pursued it for centuries ivith a brutal and deadly hate . Truly , no bantling order , cast upon the rooks of antiquity , and mothered like those fabled Roman kings , by the she-wolf's careand often fostered

, , if at all , by men Avild as the hawk and fox , could have power to have run the race of centuries , and hold as its OAVII eternal patrimony , principles so soft and gentle , so grand and true , that they may have served to lead by the handmailed

, and embruted man , out from the clamorous age of iron into the calm one of peace . Time , that destroys the vouchers of most systems , by the indomitable persistency of our ancient brethren , has been forced to spare those of ours . The belief

of to-day becomes the tradition of tomorrow , ancl in another day , that tradition once so sacred to man , has drifted clear of earth and hangs a mist of clouds in the far heavens of antiquity , where ci'OAvned mythology guards her million gods , whose once substantial realms of faith and belief have vanished into fable ,