only know, of a certainty, that in the first account which history furnishes us of the institution, it was found to exist among all nations then known, and that they all worked alike;" which, we think, affords us pretty strong presumptive evidence that, if it did not originate at the building of the Temple, it must have existed at that time and place when and where were assembled people of every name and order, of every nation and tongue; who, being dispersed, carried with them into their respective countries, the principles of the Order; and hence the rapid dissemination of Freemasonry and the uniformity of labor among them throughout the world.

But to notice the necessity that then existed for an institution of this character: The arduous task, the length of time, and the number of hands it would require to complete an edifice of such stupendous magnitude, made it necessary to receive workmen from any and every quarter; this, together with the rude and uncultivated state of society, and the ignorance which it is known then prevailed with all classes in regard to the rights of individuals, or "private rights and public wrongs," must have suggested to the superior wisdom of King Solomon, the propriety of adopting some method of harmonizing the discordant materials over which it was made his duty to preside; and it is confidently believed that a better system could not have been devised by any human ingenuity under the canopy of Heaven. The society of mankind had not then learned any of the important lessons of self-government. They had not been taught to respect the persons or property of their neighbors. If a man constructed a rude hut to shelter him from the peltings of the pitiless storm, it was held that the moment he stepped out of it, the next passer-by had a perfect right to enter and convert it to his own use. And so with regard to his hat, his coat, and every species of property-the instant he ceased to use them, but for the moment, they became property in common, and the rankest stranger in the land had as good and sufficient a title to them as he ever had. Robbery, rapine, and murder, were scenes with which they were all familiar, and were only punished when they or their friends took vengeance into their own hands.*

At this particular juncture of time, Masonry interposed her kind offices, and taught men that they were all brothers, and that it was wrong to spill a brother's blood in anger, or to injure him in person or character, or to take his property or labor, without a fair equivalent. It astounded them with the golden Masonic maxim, "Do unto others as you would that others should do unto you." It taught them the glorious doctrine of “ Brotherly Love, Relief and Truth." It labored to impress upon their minds and hearts, that the whole human family was one vast brotherhood-the earth a Lodge over which the great Geometrician of the Universe presided as most excellent Grand Master; and so powerful were the happy effects of the principles thus inculcated, that it is said three Grand Masters, three thousand overseers, eighty thousand fellow-crafts, and seventy thousand entered apprentices, for the period of seven years, (the length of time occupied in building the temple,) lived together and labored together, on terms of the most perfect equality, peace and harmony; bearing each other's burdens and relieving each other's distresses-nothing occurring during the whole time, to mar their fraternal intercourse until about the time the building was completed, when the craft were thrown into the utmost confusion by the happening of an unexpected and melancholy event.

Passing rapidly over a long period-only remarking that, in consequence of the many persecutions which assailed the Institution, we are informed that it was at a very low ebb, when it was re-invigorated by the talents, energy and zeal of St. John the Baptist-we come down to a time when history speaks in a language clear and unequivocal.

In the third place, I propose to notice the practical purposes and the general spirit and tendency of Masonry.

*We think this is too low an estimate of the condition of society at the period referred to. -ED.

Masonry inculcates the principles of Faith, Hope, and Charity-Brotherly Love, Relief and Truth-Temperance and Knowledge. It also teaches us to restrain our appetites, to govern our passions. If Masonry was of practical utility in the rude and uncultivated state of society, just as long as masses of human beings are thrust into "this breathing world," each one bringing with him a sufficiency of human depravity, it will not be found to be altogether unimportant and void in beneficial effects. By it we are taught not only to subdue our passions, but to have faith in the Redeemer, while hope whispers of an immortal inheritance, "incorruptible beyond the grave."

Charity, the greatest of all, for "without charity, I am nothing," teaches us that the whole human race are our brothers, and that we are bound to do them all the good we can, with the least possible harm; and here shines our Institution with peculiar splendor. It tells us that where there is poverty and want-pain and distress-sickness and death--weeping and wailing--scenes of wretchedness and wo, over which angels poise upon their pinions to view, with pity, such an accumulation of human suffering-there should we be, also, to minister to their wants, to soothe their pain, to relieve their distresses, to stand by them in sickness, to be with them when they die, and to comfort and console their families when they are gone. How many a poor soul, surrounded by such friends, from the very heart of our Institution, have thus left this earth, and lingered upon the confines of the two worlds, to behold the power of a well-timed sympathy upon the hearts of their families, and sigh a blessing upon our time-honored Order!

Temperance in all things, is one of the cardinal virtues that adorn the christian, and is also one of the fundamental principles upon which is erected the grand superstructure of Masonry.

Intemperance, by consequence of its universality, is one of the greatest of the great number of evils that have cursed human society for a series of years. All other evils have been limited in their operation and effects. To war, pestilence and famine, it has been said, "thus far shalt thou go and no farther;" tyranny and oppression have been confined to those countries where their citizens have worn the yoke of their oppressors without a murmur; where their cries for pity and relief have been responded to only by an accumulated application of the scourge. Even the majestic Pacific, after rolling its mighty billows from pole to polelashing the sea-beaten coast that bounds three-fourths of the world, was then content to retire and conduct its sublime gambols, in the vast expanse that separates the two worlds, and leave a portion of the earth unflooded, for man's peaceful habitation; but Intemperance, unlike any of these, took her stand upon each pillar of the Universe, and sent forth her poisonous influence, her desolating curse, upon every spot of the land and sea. It is our duty, as good citizens, but more especially as Masons, to arrest the progress of its influence, by crushing the monster.

Again: Masonry inculcates a love of knowledge; it recommends, in the strongest terms, to its votaries, the study of the liberal arts and sciences, but their attention is more particularly directed to the Holy Bible, on the sacred pages of which, they find every duty laid down-every moral and social virtue pointed out, and as a Fraternity, we are taught to regard, with mingled emotions of pride and pleasure, the fact, that almost every vessel which leaves our ports, bound for foreign countries, carries with it Bibles and Missionaries, and to look forward to the no very distant period, when ignorance and superstition will have no abiding place upon the earth—when the wheels shall fall from the axles of the ponderous Juggernaut-when the young mother will behold the unnatural folly of trying to appease the wrath of an offended god, by "jerking the nipple from the boneless gum" of her tender babe and dashing it into the extended jaws of the devouring crocodile; but when, to the Author and Finisher of all good, shall arise as a cloud of incense from the whole earth, thanksgiving and the voice of melody.

Thus much for the general spirit and tendency of Freemasonry. I now propose to notice, very briefly, in conclusion, one or two of the most prominent objections that have been urged against us.

And first, ours is said to be a secret society, and consequently objectionable. Is this a valid objection? I can scarcely deem it worthy of a passing remark. The great end and aim of Masonry, as before mentioned, is to better the condition of mankind, but more especially to relieve the distresses of a worthy Brother, his widow and orphans. All Masons are regarded by the Fraternity as worthy, although it is true that all are sometimes not so; yet it is generally a safe letter of credit, and if those secrets by which we are distinguished, and by which we are enabled to distinguish others, were published to the world, would not the utility and design of the Institution be most signally defeated?

Again: it is objected that we have many unworthy men amongst us; that is also true, my friends-and so have you, sir: there are members of your own dear family, mayhap, that you blush to own; but to censure you for it would be to show you no more charity than you manifest toward us, and just as sensible as to say, that the child is guilty of a high crime because, forsooth, his father was hung for highway robbery; or that the Christian religion is a humbug, because the base hypocrite kneels at her altars; or that Christ ought to have been crucified because Judas was one of his disciples. The premise is unfortunately correct, but the deductions are happily frivolous.

The next objection which I propose to notice is, that it is said to be anti-republican in its tendencies; and as it is one which has been urged with seriousness, by those high in authority, I feel assured that I shall be excused for devoting a few moments to its examination. At various periods in the history of our country, this objection has been brought against this Institution. In 1832, the celebrated William Wirt, of Virginia, in his letter accepting the nomination of the convention that placed him before the American people, as a candidate for the Presidency of the United States, holds the following language: "Freemasonry is a tremendous political engine-anti-republican in its tendency, with power to set the laws at defiance-to silence all individual opposition by the extent of its combinations, and mark out and sacrifice its victims at pleasure."

To refute all this, need I do more than tell you that Freemasonry landed with our pilgrim fathers upon the rock of Plymouth—and remind you what our country then was, and invite you to look around and admire the change that every where greets the vision. Though it was a lovely land when forests in primeval grandeur saluted the eye, and the dusky Indian darted through their wildswhen the slumbers of Nature hallowed our shores,-yet it is far more beautiful now, that the charms of civilization deck the scene, and the only forests are those created by the countless masts of the ten thousand ships which float upon the surface of our majestic rivers, the pleasant homes of the white man singly or in villages, studding their borders, and great and noble cities reposing in their laps.

The dense and interminable forests that our fathers saw in the South and West, have been levelled by the arm of successful industry, and in their stead, wide extended and magnificent farms, ladened with a harvest which amply repays the husbandman for his toil, break upon our vision and gladden our hearts. Where once the curling wreaths of smoke designated the spot of the Indian's wigwam, have been erected our colleges and institutions of learning, where our sons and daughters are educated and fitted for the elevated position which they must occupy in the progressive history of our country. Where, once, the lurid glare shot up, marking the spot where blazed their council fires, around which they danced their war-dance and exhibited the scalps of their victims, "the earliest light of the morning gilds" the lofty spires of our temples dedicated to Almighty God, and the "last beam of departing day, lingers and plays upon their summits."

We look around us and behold happy homes erected for twenty millions of people, where once stood the great American forests in solemn magnificence. All is life, energy and activity, where once reigned the stillness of uncultivated nature. All, all is peace-all enjoying the blessings flowing from our free and republican institutions-all speaking the same language-all governed by the same laws-all moving on in the same direction--all thrilled by the same alternate hopes and fears-all, secure from the storms of the Past, exult in the Pre

sent, and bathe in the flood-tide of Future glory. And amid this whole happy population

"Breathes there a heart so cold and dead

That never to itself hath said,

This is my own, my Native Land ?"

Nothing is here "bestowed on the chance of birth,"-nothing flows through the channel of hereditary family interests,—hence the greatest possible induceinents are held out to the talerts, energy and genius of the American youth. The unceasing evolutions of time are constantly vacating offices of trust and posts of honor. Their places must be filled from our own thronging population; and merit is the requisite qualification to the success of the aspirant; and thus, whilst aroused by a generous emulation-hard pressed by personal competition--they are cheered onward in their rugged path to honor and fame, by the benignant smiles and wooing voice of the goddess of Liberty.

View thus the prosperous condition of our happy country, and tell me; give me a reason, why humble and unpretending Masonry should desire a change? If Freemasonry is opposed to republicanism, why did she not avail herself of the abundant opportunities she had of crushing our institutions in embryo at the organization of the Federal government? Do you not know, that of the fiftysix signers of the Declaration of Independence, fifty two were Masons? The commander-in-chief and every brigadier general of the American army, during the war of the Revolution, were Masons. Every President of the United States, except the two Adams' and the present incumbent, were Freemasons.* It were unnecessary to mention the names of Warren and Montgomery, of Gates and Sullivan, of Lincoln and Knox, the brave baron DeKalb, and the generous and patriotic La Fayette, who heard our cries of distress as they rose above the deep roar of the ocean, penetrated the heart of France, tore him from the bosom of his young and affectionate wife, and urged him to our rescue; and a host of others, whose names and whose virtues we have learned from maternal lips, and whose praises have been sung, by a Nation's voice, in strains, deep, sweet and harmonious as the sound of the golden harps that charmed their enraptured spirits to the far distant climes of immortal bliss. And, although they have beat the roll-call in Heaven, until almost the last of that noble band of heroes have marched off to answer to their names and meet their old companions in arms, yet, their names and their fame “live in the hearts of their countrymen," and will be called up with grateful emotion as long as the memory of man shall dwell upon the past-upon those days of blood and disaster, when the enemies' cannon thundered upon our frontiers, and were answered by the piercing screams of the American Eagle as he clung to our standard and fanned back, with his plumed pinions, the smoke and flames of war.

There is one scene immediately connected with this branch of the subject, to which I will invite your attention, when, I think, you will be prepared to give an opinion in relation to the objection under consideration.

About the first of September, 1781, the British had possession of Yorktown. The Americans were concentrating their forces in the neighborhood-extensive preparations were going on in each encampment for a decisive battle. General Clinton had promised to re-enforce the British under the command of Cornwallis by the fifth of October. The American army was under the command of Washington, in person. A few unimportant skirinishes had taken place. Time at length ushered in the glorious morning of the 19th of October. The position of the two armies was known, and a general engagement daily expected;-the booming of the cannon was heard in the distance the country felt that the crisis had arrived, when Liberty must triumph over Tyranny or be forever crushed beneath its steel-bound wheels." Consternation and alarm were depicted in every countenance; as the earth trembled beneath the roar of the distant cannon, the

*President Polk we understand to be a Mason. Mr. Van Buren is not.-ED.

mother pressed her children to her bosom and breathed a prayer to Heaven for the safety of her country and its gallant defenders-anxiety was at its highest pitch-each side of the great national road was lined-every door and window was filled with eager, anxious faces-every eye was strained to catch the first glimpse of the express. At length the clattering of horses hoofs are heard-the noble animal, with distended nostrils and bleeding flanks, burst from the cloud of dust, his rider shouting at every bound, "Cornwallis has surrendered! Cornwallis has surrendered!!" Old matrons and beauteous maids, with tears of joy streaming down their cheeks, rush into each other's embraces. The name of Washington is on every tongue-a thousand hands are stretched forth to place a crown on his head-a thousand voices are ready to proclaim himn King! He beheld himself a conqueror. He had snatched the Nation's banner, trampled in the dust, and placed it high in the estimation of the world and deep in the affections of his countrymen. He had rolled back to the foot of the throne the tide of blood and desolation. He had taught the haughtiest power on earth that our's was not the land of slaves, but the abode of freemen. Surrounded by those brave and fearless soldiers, who had followed him through an hundred battle fields to victory, and yet ready and willing to obey his slightest nod, he might have entered the halls of the American Congress, as Oliver Cromwell entered the British House of Commons, with a drawn sword in his hand and a trained band at his heels, and drove the obnoxious Senators from their seats and filled their places with men of his own selection. Did he do it? No Sir, No! And yet, he was a Mason. As soon as the voice of peace broke upon the nation's ear and hushed into silence the groans of war, telling the toil-worn soldier to return to his home and till the soil in peace-that he would never again hear the roar of a hostile cannon-never again "meet the impetuous charge, nor look with swimming eyes and freezing blood upon the mighty heaps of slain"-no more hear the warwhoop of the savage foe, as he dashes the tomahawk into the brains of the mother and her helpless babe, telling the mother to press her infant closer to her bosom and slumber on, that the tomahawk and the scalping-knife reeking with blood, had been buried, and the great tree of Liberty had grown over them,-we behold him in the midst of a thronged multitude, returning to the continental Congress the commission with which they had honored him, and meekly begging their permission to retire from the service of his country. We next find him in his native State, sounding the Gavel and calling the Craft from refreshment to labor.

Do not these facts show, most conclusively, that if the principles of Freemasonry are antagonistical to republicanism, that the time has been, when the power and influence of One Mason could have crushed all hopes of democratic institutions?—And if it, wielding that mighty influence, proved so harmless, so patriotic, and so skilful then, that it approached and placed the swaddling bands around the infant limbs of Liberty, and nourished it during the period of its helplessness, why should it be dreaded now, that our institutions have merged into the maturity of manhood, and our form of government and our laws have been established, and we are assured on our first entrance into the Lodge that our Masonic obligations will not interfere with our political, civil, or religious rights, and when, also, we are constantly charged to be good and peaceable citizens, always submissive to the existing laws of the country in which we live?

Thus much for this objection. There is, yet, one other, which I must, at the risk of wearying your patience, beg permission to notice in conclusion. It is objected that ladies are not admitted into our Order.

Now it seems to me, that if we can give a good reason why it is not necessary that they should be admitted, it ought to silence all objections; and I think it will amply satisfy the ladies themselves, when we assure them most solemnly, that it is made one of our highest Masonic duties to love them amazingly-to cherish and forever defend them.

View Freemasonry as an institution, formed for charitable purposes, having