Helena weekly herald., 1889-11-07

plains; whose brazen pillars held the de-
posits of the craft before the wolf-suckled
twins laid the foundations OF the Roman
empire, or meditated the Sabine rape to
greatly the lusts of their thick -necked
followers. Whose glittering minarets
pointed to the pleiades, centuries before the
egotistical Xerxes welded the ocean waves
in his pride or scourged them in his disap
pointment and fury; whose "Holy OF Holes
las filled with the glory OF Divine pres
ence, while the material for the Sphinx still
slumbered in the mountains " hich guarded
the valley of the historic Nile, and before
Thebes opened her hundred gates to the
armed hosts of Rameses Great indeed is
the antiquity Of the mystery of Free
masonry.
1t seems to crafty the inmost nature of
the pessismist to note the failings of hu-
manity. He scornfully points the skeleton
finger of his criticism at the professed
Christian who in a moment of weakness
succumbs to the wiles of the ungOdly, and
inwardly thanks the gods that he is not as
other men. He remarks with evil
dent satisfaction that "Masons are not
always patterns of morality and virtue"
as they should be, and condemns the mys-
terry of religion and Masonry as unworthy
of esteem; he fails to see sermons in
stones" and good in everything, but sets
himself up as judge OF the fIailities OF
his brother man, forgetting the charitable
instincts of the human hesrt, which ad
mits that man never yet attained perfec-
ton, and fails to remember with reveren-
tial awe that Divinity has said Judge
nOt.n
l acknowledge with sorrow that Masons
and Christians alike, being human, are
liable to err-neither the one nor the other
will deny the fact. Lucifer vas an angel
of light but he fell.
Men have led good and pure lives, walk.
ing uprightly before God and man, till age
bleached their locks and bent their forms,
and then ended their days in felon's cell.
Women have attained motherhood, led
prattling children to the feet of the
Saviour, guided their tender feet through
the intricate paths of the world till their
years and experience fitted them for the
cares and duties of life, and then weak hu-
manitv gave way to the tempter, and the
erstwhile Christian wife ana mother de-
parted from the paths of virtue. But why
should the frailties of the few be noted
when the world is full of noble men, who
exemplify in their daily lives the moral
teachings of Christianity and FreemasOnry?
Why should we observe the fall of one un
fortunate woman unless to pity and re-
claim, when the influence of Christian
wives and mothers, daughters and sisters,
have made so many lives sublime; have
been the pillar of strength, the column of
beauty and the capstone of virtue to every
great moral reform since the days of civili
zation?
deny the right of any person to stand
outside the mystery of religion or Free
masonry and criticise their power for good.
Such a criticism is manifestly mistaken
and unfair. As light spraug from the
tomb of impenetrable darkness, clarifying
the heavens, warming and vivifying the
earth, and filling with lite and beauty that
which was without form and void, so the
science of the mystery OF Freemasonry,
springing from the dark avenues of the re-
mote past throws it's refulgent beams over
the pathway of man breaks through the
dark clouds of superstition, draws aside
the veil of ignorance and falls like a
heavenly benediction upon his wayward
heart.
As the tent of the Indian recedes before
the tread of the pioneer as night gives
away to approaching dawn, SO bigotry and
intolerance give away before the moral
teachings of Freemasonry.
These facts are indisputable and unde-
niable, and while Masonry has the Bible
for her compass and sails not point away
from the north star of her teachings, it can
sail over all of the foaming seas of bigotry
ever invented by man or inspired by the
devil, as safely as the albatross sleeps upon
the tossing wave, and as truly as the dove
wings her way to her cot.
When Ulysses, the NEUROLOGICAL hero,
was married to the beautiful Penelope and
the happy pair were about to sail for the
groom's home in Ithaca the brides father
attempted to dissuade her from leav-
ing the ancestral home. lie pictured
his lonely life and childle-s old age In
such pathetic language that even the stern
heart of his warrior son-in-law was moved
to pity and he gave his consent for her to
90 with him or remain with her father.
Penelope dropped her veil and turned
away; her father urged her no longer, but
on the spot where they parted, was erected
a statue to modesty. Penelope owed a
daughters duty to her father, but the
duties of the wife were paramount to those
of the daughter. Masons owe certsin
duties to the world which are in nO-wise
to be neglected, but they owe paramount
duties to themselves.
By living moral and upright lives before
the world and by dropping the veil of
mystery before their temple; and by allow
ing none to pass through the door of the
room, who by nature or habit
are untitled to become "living stones in
that spiritual building eternal in the
heavens" before whose awful portals all
mankind must pass in judgment, they
may reasonably hope to set an example
before the profane, worthy of imitation and
leave 9 monument to virtue more endur
inu than hrass mora snlandid than gems