The Topeka state journal. [volume] (Topeka, Kansas) 1892-1980, 1900-02-21
Grand Lodge Is In Session Here
Today.
Grand Master Henry G.. LOOmis
Submits His Report.
GROWTH OF MASONRY.
What Has Been Accomplished
by the Order.
Glowing Picture of the Beauties
of the Work.

The forty-fourth annual communica-
ton of the Most Worshipful Grand
Lodge A +. and A. NJ. of Kansas con-
vened in Representative hall this morn
ing.
In submitting his report Grand Mas
ter Henry c. LOOMS said:
ITO the NJ w. Grand Lodge of Kan
sas.
Since last we assembled, our Great
Lesser Light has passed once more
through the Middle Chamber of the
Heavens, and the hands upon the Dial
Of Time mark the closing of another
year of masonic toll and endeavor The
1orty-third year of the NJ. w. Grand
Lodge of Kansas has passed into his
tory, and with expressions of gratitude
TO the great Giver of all good for all the
mercies and blessings of the past, 1 well
come you to this. our fOrty-fourth an
nual communication.
The past year has proved a pros
porous one for our great country. The
hum of machinery in factory and work
shop upon our eastern border has min
gled with the song of toll upon our
western plains. and an era of contented
labor seems upon US. In our own grand
state nature has smiled. and her horn
of plenty has shoWered abundance upon
us until our barns and granarieS grOan
with the wherewithal to pay the faith
full craftsman.
THE spirit of patriotism has been
abroad in the land. and the records of
the year have shown to the world that
the trials and sufferings Of over 40 years
ago have percOlated through the soil of
bleeding Kansas, growing a race of
hardy sons who would have been call
ed giants in the days of old. All honor
to Funston and the Twentieth Kansas;
they have demonstrated that the spirit
which animated the brave boys of 1861
whose numbers are now fast thinning
out among US, still lives in the rising
generations, a true token of the future
life and prosperity of our great cOun-
try, and a harbinger of the blessings
ever found beneath the waving folds of
our blOod-stained banner of freedom.
Grand Orator Rev. T. W. Jeffrey said
in delivering the annual Grafton:
There is nothing about which we
speak so much and know so little as
life. 1t is full of interest for us all.
EIarth's landscapes, with sun and dew
upon them are beautiful; the ocean
storm wrapped and tempest driven is
grand the sun, descending like a chariot
of fire through a pathway of blood and
gold is majestic; the mountain, lifting
its crystal corOnet of snow into the
dome of the opening day is inspiring.
but there is in life an interest deeper
and wider and grander. The power
which living things possess of taking
into themselves, and of making their
own the matter of which their own
structure is composed and the working
out through years and centuries Of the
ana
imperishably interesting.
AS we look upon life's culminati ton
and feel its heart throb we realize that
we are in the presence of countless
years of work and development-the
gift of all lands, seas, climates and
atmosphereS-and that it's genius has
been wrought by thousand summer
Visitants and Graded by a thousand
wintry nurses and that darkness and
light pain and pleasure, hate and love
have called forth it's music and above
all, that it has in it the possibilities of
Immortality.
Somewhere in the past-in the re-
mote past--men learned that the ad-
vantages and opportunities OF life were
not for the individual but for the race
and that If the individual stood among
the heights it was to elevate the race
Men learned that they were not created
dor isolation, but for society and that
every advance Of the individual must
bear the race up the rugged slopes
That feeble throb of a moral pulse had
in 1t the promise and potency of race
redeemed and exalted. Out of this has
come the splendid brotherhood of Free
masons. When our ancestors learned
this important lesson the foundation
of our glorious superstructure was laid
The generations and centuries have
only built upon it, It is eternal for it
Supreme Architect and Master Builder.
Mans perfect works, seen in his in
carnations Of mind like St. PauTs ca
thedral and 'Childe Harold and st
Peters and 'Fidelio' are but after
thoughts of the Almighty. Man is a
'laborer together with God He labors
in vain, who labOrs not with God. The
divine plan IS social and the eIeva-
ton OF the race the divine purpose. and