Address

the Avondermgspectator , bar from it . Ihe p hilosophy of Masonry lies at the very foundation of the institution . On this has it been built ; this is the great fundamental principal of its existence . For the cultivation of this it AA'as designed : for its preservation has it been continued . Our

charity , our Brotherhood , are common to us Avith many other associations . They are the offshoots from the prolific root , but hoAvever admirable they may be , they are not the tree itself . They might be dismissed for ever from our systemand

, , though Avith evident loss and diminution of usefulness and beauty to the institution , it AA'Oiild survive . But take from it its p hilosophic teaching , the sublime arcana of God and man , of life and death , of time and eternityAvhich it AA'as brought forth to

, develop in itsoAvn peculianvay , andMasonry would lie a lifeless and Avorthless corse . And then , again , AA'hen Ave look at Masonry in another aspect , we find that it is engaged in the cultivation of the moral

and religious sentiments . I desire not to be misunderstood . I do not assume or assert that Freemasonry is a religious institution . Far from it ; I IUIOAV that it has neither the sanctions nor does it afford the consolations Avhich only are to be found in an ethical system of divine authority .

In the popular sense of tho term , vieAVing religion in its theological purport , as a system of faith and practice coming to us Avith the authoritative command of the Supreme Being , Masonry certainly is not reli gion . So far from it , it disdains the

very idea of interfering with the religious vieAvs , that is , Avith the theological predilections of any man . But in another and more philosophical sense , a sense Avhich Ave derive from the et ymology of the Avord religionAA'hich

signi-, fies a bond , a chain , uniting man Avith God , hi that indissoluble bond AA'hich is dependent for its existence and its strength on the relations of a creatine to its Creator ; that a sense of the Avord Avdiich makes

religion treat of the nature of God , and the nature of humanity ; AA'hich looks to the absolute infinitude and eternal existence of the one , and to the finite being , and the temporal life of the other . Masonry has auch to do in this sense Avith reli gion , and « is , in so far as these elements of thought ran conspire to make it , a religious institution . ¦ o

The great doctrine of the immortality of the soul , and its necessary adjunct , the resurrection of the dead , has in all ages been taught by the philosophers , even Avhen unknoAvn , or at least not inculcated by the priesthood . When the blind heathen ,

enveloped in that funereal pall of intellectual and spiritual darkness Avhich pervaded the age in Avhich he lived , bounded his feeble thought to the life before him , AA'hose termination AA'as as he supposed annihilation ; AA'hen of his OAAUI nature he kneAV only the

present , and looked to the abyss of the future that AA'as in front , as he did to the abyss of the past , Avhich AA'as behind ; seeing in each only an unfathomable gulf , a sea of Avaters AA'ith no depth that his reason could soundno shore to AA'hich his faith could

, point , there Avere yet Avise men in all nations AA'ho , out of the deep darkness of their times , could see some scintilla of light , and , not so much by the illumination of their OAVU reason as by the untraceable traditions of a long anterior period , Avere led to IaiOAV

and to inculcate the great lesson of the resurrection . This lesson they taught by symbols and allegories . They encompassed it AA'ith significant ceremonies , and , to give

it more A'alue , they established their schools for imparting this religious truth in secret places , and guarded the introduction to the lesson by formulas of initiation . These AA'ere the mysteries of the ancient Avorld , the prototype of our modern Masonic

Lodges . By the ancients these Associations for teaching religious truth by symbolic forms Avere not only esteemed , they AA'ere revered . Philosophers AA'ent into these initiations to learn something that might purify their

philosophy . Poets sought initiation that then- verses might be elevated . Warriors and statesmen came to the mystic meetings that their courage might be sustained or their vieAvs enlarged by the contemplation of the true nature of humanity , and Avicked

princes like Nero , boAA'ing to the sublimity of their organization , came kneeling as suppliants for admission , only to be rejected as unworthy of the true light . These mysteries , A'arying in non-essential forms hi every country , yet remained everyAvhere

substantially the same . They inculcated the true doctrine of the relationship betAveen God and man , the essential unity of the one and the essential immortality of the other . Poets and philosophers kneAv and H