The Story Of A Life.

Some feeble breasting of trouble , to glide again with the stream—In principal void as a bubble—in purpose vague as a dream . A future hope half-hearted , for dim is the future now That the triple cord has parted , that death

is damp on the brow . And a debt is to pay by the debtor—a a doctor , a lawyer , a nurse : A feeling he should have been better , a doubt if he could have been worse ; While the ghostly finger traces its ghostly

message of doom , And a troop of ghostly faces pass on in a darkened room ; With ghostly shapes to beckon , and ghostly voices to call , And the grim recorder to reckon , and add

the total of all . The sum of a life expended—a pearl in a pig-trough cast—A comedy played and ended—and what has it come to at last 1 A dead man propped on a pillow—the journey taken alone—The tomb with an urn and a willow , and a lie carved deep in the stone 1

Freemasonry In France.

FREEMASONRY IN FRANCE .

BY BRO . J . 11 . GABALL . THE action of the Congress at Lausanne has evoked a report from the Council of Rites to the Grand Orient of France , which was adopted by the latter body at

its meeting of the 28 th August , 1876 , and it was ordered that the Report , aud the Summary of the History of Freemasonry in France , of which a translation is given below , should be published in the "Bulletin Official . "

It will perhaps be necessary to explain that at the Congress at Lausanne eleven Supreme Councils were represented , viz . those of England , Belgium , Colon ( Cuba ) , Italy , Peru , Scotland , FranceGreeceHungary , Portugal and

, , Switzerland . By the proceedings of the Congress it appeared that the right was denied to the Grand Orient of France of conferring the high degrees of

the Scottish rite , and to the Masons under the jurisdiction of the Grand Orient of France the legitimate possession of such degrees . The Grand College of Rites naturally objects , in its report to the Grand Council of the Grand Orient , to

such an agression on their hitherto acknowledged privileges , and . to what it terms the audacious assertions of the Congress of Lausanne . It states that their mission would be incompletely fulfilled if they simply published this document ; and

they thought that it would be well to show what was the state of things in France , from a Masonic point of view , before the publication of the manifesto of the Congress of Lausanne , aud to this end gives a resume of the organisation of the Grand Orient of France .

Article 2 of the General Statutes provides , that Masonry comprises " ateliers " of different degrees under the denomination of Lodges , Chapters and Councils . There exists besides a central power , which , under the appelation of " Grand College of RitesSupreme Conseil pour la

, France et les possessions Francaises , " has the sole right of initiation into the last degrees of Freemasonry . In the terms of this article of the Constitution the Lodges of the Grand Orient confer the three first

degreesApprenticeFellow-, , Craft and Master Mason ; the Chapters confer the grades of Capitular Masonry from the 4 th to the 18 th degree ; the Councils confer the Philosophic Grades from the 19 th to the 30 th degree ; and lastlyto the College of Rites is reserved

, the power of conferring the 31 st , the 32 ud and the 33 rd and last degree of the Scottish Rite . The Supreme Council of France practises the same rite , possesses Lodges of the same grades , and the members of both bodies have hitherto been in cordial and

fraternal relation with each other , in conformity with the principles of Freemasonry , which arrangement Article IS of the treaty of Lausanne would tend to destroy , by attacking at once the right of the Grand Orient of France ( which is thereby

declared a usurper of the Scottish Rite ); the regularity of its Capitular and Philosop hic bodies ; and also the regularity of Masons under its jurisdiction . " It is hardly possible for English Masons to understand the rather complicated re *