Sermon,

influence of sympathy , that nothing else will enlarge the impulse of benevolence ? Why is it that amongst all nations , " scattered over the whole face of earth and water , " where " brotherly love , relief , and truth , " in any measure , prevail ,

there alone this burning and increasing interest in behalf of the needy and the suffering is again ancl again renewed ? Why is it that this wider world of ours marches in a direction directly the opposite of that which the world of antiquity had taken ?

Why is it that the inquiry , " Am I my brother ' s keeper ? " is now-a-days most energetically repulsed in all social as well as political questions ? It is because the principle , which is strangling selfishness , is the salt of the earth .

But it may be said , that this state of things does not every where exist ; many live and act just as if they had remained pagan ; and that herein is no argument in favour either of the existence or of the prevalence of the principle which

pervades the definition of " brotherly love , relief , and truth ? If such be the case , it is not because of the existence of the principle in dispute , but in despite of it . That principle is wholly guiltless of such charges and recriminations as these . We

might be indignant indeed were it so ; but we are rather so because none really influenced by such a principle could this conduct themselves . That principle is innocent of the faults which are committed under its shadow . It bears witness rather

than it is still not merely the best , but the only refuge for the suffering . Whenever inconsistencies , misconduct , or opposition to this principle , are beheld , the sceptic may indeed revile and ask , " what such a principle is good for ? " but take

my word for it as Benjamin Pranklin , one of the greatest and best of men that ever lived , once said , " If men are evil , they will be just the same with religion , as without it ; what would they be , what "would they become without this principle at which

they carp ? What was the world before that principle was developed ? What would the world be without it ? You may desire to obliterate "light" from the hearts of those who have been * ' brought to it , " and if by an impossibility you

could reduce them to that terrible darkness which once covered the whole nations of the earth , you would but ascertain yet all too late , that it was the splendour of the bright and morning star , —whose rising has brought peace and salvation to the faithful and obedient of the human race , —that you had extinguished !

" Am I my brother's keeper ? " Not only do we not dare to ask this question , but not even so much would we presume to think it ! And it is upon this solemn obligation that I am now desirous of putting your acknowledgment

of this principle to the test . Had the selfishness which is not only enunciated but manifested in this question , actuated a class of the community , " whose secret arts , and hidden mysteries , " are an enigma to a large proportion of their fellow

men , I should not have been in this place today to strive to enforce the great principle of " brotherly love , relief and truth , " they have been present to give evidence and proof of the influence that principle has amongst them . No ,

indeed , not even the institution , whose claims I would prefer to their regard no less than to the consideration of those , who are not connected with the Ancient Rite of P . M . would so much as exist so as to make any appeal whatever

possible . " The secret arts and hidden mysteries- of Preemasonry , " ought , however , to be no enigma to the outer word , when its members can shew , by the most positive and irrefragable proofs , that selfishness has no part , or connection whatever

therewith . Selfishness would never have raised the large sum of £ 46 , 000 to build and secure the prosperity and perpetuity of an institution in which at the present moment there are no less than 110 boys , the sons of Freemasons , either deceased , or inreducedcircumstances . The Lewises of the Order

are clothed , boarded and educated , so as to fit them to become good and useful members of society in that future career which is before them . The question of inordinate selfishness " Am I my brother ' s keeper ? " is not written over " the

entrance , or porchway " of that noble institution ; or , if it were so , it would be in no other sense than to obtain the recognition , and the assurance , that those who helped to rear it , would have it known that—they , from their hearts and souls believe ,

hat they are their " brother's keeper , " and it is their duty , no less than their pride , and their privilege to do everything within their power to prove , that the one motive principle which actuates them , is the dispensation to the utmost of their

ability of the divine impulse of their Order set forth and exemplified in those truly comprehensive terms — "Brotherly love , relief and truth I " In the ages of antiquity , when the same principle which now actuates the Order , existed in