Masonic.

New Zealand Mail, Issue 993, 13 March 1891, Page 7

Masonic.

ANSWERS TO CORRESPONDENTS. W.M. (Hawera). —The beat way ia to appoint a committee. Giblim. —We have seen the paragraph you refer to, but there is no truth in it. FAVOURS RECEIVED. London Freemason, Rivista della MassoDeria Italiana, El Siglo and the Canadian Craftsman. LEINSTER LODGE. The regular monthly meeting of the Leinster Lodge, N.Z C, took place at the Freemasons’ Hall, Wellington, on Monday 2nd inst. There was a good attendance of members, and Bros. H. J. Williams and G. Robertson were present in the capacity as Grand Director of Ceremonies and Past Grand Secretary, N. Z.C., respectively. Tho business of the evening consisted in instituting a Candidate into the mysteries and privileges of Antieut Freemasonry, and the ceretnouy was most efficiently performtA by the W.M., Bro. T. H. Coveney ; the Charge and Lecture being given by the J. W. and S. W. A oommittee was appointed to examine the Constitution submitted by the Grand Secretary, and other business was also transacted. WATERLOO R.A. CHAPTER. The quarterly Convocation of the Waterloo R.A. Chapter, No. 66, S.C. took place at the Freemasons’ Hall, Wellington, on Thursday sth iust. In the absence of the M.E. Comp., E. T. Gillon, P.Z., through illness, the Chair was occupied by M.E. Comp, D. Greig, P.Z., who Exalted two Candidates in aooordance with Antient Custom. Attention was drawn to the scant oourtesy shown by the Provincial Grand Scribe E., Comp., Henry Neill, of Dunedin, who had never in. formed the Chapter officially of the death of M.E. Comp., Louis Court, Grand Superintendant of Scottish R.A. Masonry in New Zealand. It was also mentioned that although M.E. Comp , C. P. Powles, had been appointed to the Office of Proviucial Grand Principal four years ago, hi 3 Commission had never reaohed him. The unbusiness-like procedure of the Provincial Grand Scribe E. was commented upon iu strong terms. AN ORATION. Tho following beautiful oration was delivered at the consecration of the Collin Lodge of Royal Ark Mariners, at Maryport, by Bro. the Rev. James Anderson, P.P.G. Chap., recently : ‘ Masonry is evidently a progressive science in the West of Cumberland. It is on the rise in Maryport. Amid its elevation of chapels and restoration of churches, its creation of institutes and erection of houses, the point within the circle from which every part of the circumference is equally distant attains to still greater prominence and multiplicity. It is not obsoured by the influx of architectural surroundings, nor burled out of sight by the commendable innovation of moral and religious improvements, but seems determined to increase with the increasing activity, and shiue like the morning star iu the visible and uudying existence of a Masonio perpetuity. About 2000 years ages in the early stages of the Christian era, there lived a man brought up at the feet of Gamaliel, learned and intellectual, and laying claim to inspiration, who told the people of Galatia that it was good to be zealously affected always in a good thing. The brethren of Maryport seemed to have endorsed that apostolic statement, and adapted it as their motto in regard to Masonry. They clearly consider it a good thing, and are affected towards it with a zsalons affection. They rest not contented with one Degree, or even two, but have advanced from one Degree to several in succession, until their Masonic catalogue now embraces the Craft, the Arch, the Mark, the Allied, and to these there is this day to be added tho Collin Lodge of Royal Ark Mariners. If this ia not a zealous affection for Masonry, and a most significant appreciation and admiration of -the mystic rite, I do not know very well what is. Such progress must arise out of a spirit of Masonic enthusiasm, which one would desire to become more and more infectious, until every nook and cranuie far and near, whore Masonry has obtained a footing, has oaught tho Masonic contagion, and learned to vie with each other in the extension, and multiplication of that ancient and honourable institution which boasts of having as its solid foundation the practice of every tnoial and social virtue. That may safely be denominated tho beautiful in Masonry of which it is impossible to have more than enough, and the systems which rests its pillars and it 3 pedestals on that infallible basement can never degenerate into disuetude nor crumble to decay. The saying has resolved into a proverb that it is possible to have too much of a good thing. That may spply to meats and drinks and other convival things and pastimes ; it is possible to be killed with kindness, a species of extinction in this naturally selfish world, which I should 6ay forms the exception and nob the rule, but is does not apply to Masonry. We would rather apply to it those appropriate lines of Keat’s, who, if he was not a Mason, from his correct and prophetic, although, in all likelihood, unintentional description of the art, deserved to be one, and which should be written on the vestibule of every lodge and imprinted upon our ritual and regalia. ‘A thing of beauty is a joy for ever ; Its loveliness increases, it will never

Pass into nothingness.’ That thing of beauty is one other of its phases we consecrate anew to-day.- We inaugurate in this place and at this sacred hour the Collin Lodge of Royal Ark Mariners. No better title could be found; a title founded upon the name of one, not after the fashion of a mere complimentary acknowledgement, but of one who merits this record of his greatness ; a brother of superior rank, and possessed of those component qualities which are indispensable to a Free and Acoepted Mason. Henceforth the names of

Sewell and Collin are enshrined in the temple of Cumberland Masonry. We have a Sewell Lodge of Ark Mariners at Whitehaven, and now we have a Collin Lodge of Ark Mariners at Maryport, and before very long we shall have a Sowell Lodge of Mark Master Masons at Egremont. Thus the names of Sewell and Collin are destined to predominate in the united Provinces of Cumberland and Westmorland, and by the distinguished and distinguishing laurels of lodge titles they are to be immortalised and handed down from generation to generation. Can any good thing como out of Maryport ? The answer to that question is the same as the one returned a long time ago to a similar question in the case of Nazareth, come and see. May Masonry in our midst long be adorned with the active presence of two such worthy brethren, and overshadowed with the virtue of thoir illustrious names. And may this littlo ark which is launched to-day ride safely on the billows and rest calmly on the Ararat of tranquility and peace ; may it be a joy for ever, may its loveliness increase, and may it never pass into nothingnoss. It has begun well; may it run well, and none to hinder. Ten Mark Masons all pass within its door, and that door is not yet shut unless it be to the strains of discord and impropriety. It is open for more to follow. This beautiful Degree which gives scope for memory and for elocutionary effect, is strictly of Bible origin and history. It i 9 founded upon the seas and established on the floods. You trace it to tho Volume of the Sacred Law. Masonry did not first see the light in the seventeenth century. A thread of the Roaicrucian may run through it, but it dates not its being to Christian Rosy Cross. We simply go further back to the first and second temples, and to a period even more remote, when Noah reared his alters and sacrificed thereon to the Most High. The Ark is an appendage of the Mark, because, porhaps, of its similarly operative character. In every other respect it stands alone, haviug its own regulations, constitutions, and ceremonies. Its ritual is expressive and withal religious. Its prayer of elevation is sublime and scriptural, full of confidence in the Divine promises, mellowed with the graces of benevolence and Charity, and breathing hopes of everlasting rest and blessedness. Who would presume to say that Masonry is infidelity, or that a Mason is not a religious man ? This, at least, must be his creed, ‘I believe in God the Father Almighty, maker of heaven and earth ;’ and this, at least, must be his confession, as in the initial sentence of the Church’s Litany, ‘ We praise thee, O God ; we acknowledge thee to be the Lord.’ It is not a fiction but a fact that among those notorious sins and crimes which stain and disgrace our country a Mason is not to be found ; and if every man in the kingdom - were a Mason, and walked up to the laws and doctrines of Freemasonry, there would not be a dishonourable and obnoxious criminal in the land. The three points of beauty, strength, and wisdom; the chosen language of its solemn obligation ; the splendid definition of its signs and working tools; the grandeur of its five cardinal virtues, interwoven as they all are with the sanctity of Holy Writ, and closely welded together by the Volume of the Sacred Law, form an Eiffel Tower of colossal proportions, a moral and religious structure of magnificence and magnitude, which admit of no rival, and with which there are none to compare. For which prime reason we laud Masonry, and we extol Ark Masonry, and we wish it to extend and prosper the wide, wide world around. It is already on the upward tendency, although its march thus far has been somewhat slow. Its assiduity has not been commensurate with the progress of the Mark, to which it is appended. At the end of March, 1889, there appears to have been 403 Mark.lodges, with warrants issued for additional ones, and a registered total of 25,339, thus giving an average of over 60 to each lodge ; while of the Ark there was a registered total of 2733 certificates, with warrants issued for additional lodges. The disparity speaks for itself, and points out the necessity for more sailing power, that the speed may be increased until every Mark shall have its Ark. That is nothing more than what ought to be. Every Mark Mason should be an Ark Mason, seeing that the one is the complement of the other, j ust as much, so as the Arch is the complement of the Craft. In that union of equality there is strength. We must look at these Degrees in their connection, in the relation which the one maintains to the oilier, in order to trace their adoption, and not in their separate and isolated character and capacity. By that process wo settle tho intelligent choice of a Degree, and claim to answer the description - of un intelligent Mason. And yet, after all, what are our lodges and our Degrees without that Masouic furor which should fill the breast of every sou of the widow ? What are subscriptions without the subscribers ? What are names without the named ? A valley of vision; a body without a soul ; a Masonic chamber of death, where there is not visible oven a glimmering ray. Half-hearted, indifferent Masons are equivalent to no Masons at all. Like the barren fig tree, they are only cumberers of the ground. To be enrolled in membership, and then turn languid; to pass the chair, and then retire into apathy and inglorious ease ; to reach the envied purple, and then fail to display its colour, is not the way to proclaim the value of Freemasonry; to sing‘Join all in harmony, and prosper the Art,’ to advance the interests, and mark our appreciation of that institution, which is the glory of the accepted and the free. By selfdenial and self-sacrifice, by attention and attendance, by punctuality and perseverance, by merit and ability, by very love of the Ait and devotion to its cause, which is the motive power impelling to true and faithful Masonic action, which finds every officer at his post and every brother in his place, we carry out into practice the spirit of the Junior Warden’s song—

‘Unite, unite, your voices rouse, Loud, loudly sing Ark Masons’ praise, Spread far and wide their spotless fame, And glory in the sacred name.’