A CHARGE AT THE OPENING OF A LODGE. BRETHREN: I behold you again assembling together, with those complacent emotions of affection which animate the meeting of dearest friends that have been some time separated. After this interval you must have acquired an increased relish for the interesting exercises of this retreat; and you undoubtedly return with new alacrity to your labors of love. And now, brethren, with that closing door, the busy world is shut out: and with it, all its perplexities, and cares, and sorrows. None of them are suffered to intrude upon our happy privacy. Here nothing enters but "innocent pleasures, pure joys, and rational gaities." Come, then, ye who are emulous to excel in the true, the good, or the great! Enjoying the bright auspices and emanations of that glorious sun, which now sheds around you the clearest, the most cheering rays, your understandings will become more enlightened with wisdom, your hearts more warmed with beneficence. Come, you are welcome guests at the feast of charity and the refreshment of love! Ye, brethren, are not in darkness. Walk as children of the light. Observe the strictest decorum. Carefully attend to every instruction here offered, and readily comply with every requirement here enjoined. Be diligent in the duties of your respective stations; and may the joys of unity and peace prevail! A CHARGE AT THE CLOSING OF A LODGE. BRETHREN : You are now to quit this sacred retreat of friendship and virtue, to mix again with the world. Amidst its concerns and employments, forget not the duties you have heard so frequently inculcated, and forcibly recommended in this Lodge. Be, therefore, diligent, prudent, temperate, discreet. Remember also, that around this altar you have solemnly and repeatedly promised to befriend and relieve, with unhesitating cordiality, so far as shall be in your power, every brother who shall need your assistance: That you have promised to remind him, in the most tender manner, of his failings, and aid his reformation. Vindicate his character when wrongfully traduced. Suggest in his behalf the most candid, favorable, and palliating circumstances, when his conduct is justly reprehended. That the world may observe how Masons love one another. These generous principles are to extend farther. Every human being has a claim upon your kind offices. So that we enjoin it upon you "to do good unto all," while we recommend it more "especially to the household of the faithful." By diligence in the duties of your respective callings, by liberal benevolence, and diffusive charity, by constancy and fidelity in your friendships, by uniformly just, amiable, and virtuous deportment, discover the beneficial and happy effects of this ancient and honorable Institution. Let it not be supposed that you have here labored in vain, and spent your strength for nought; for your work is with the Lord, and your recompense with your God. Finally, brethren, farewell. Be ye all of one mind. Live in peace. And may the God of love and peace delight to dwell with and to bless you! AN ADDRESS, AT THE INTERMENT (WITH MASONIC HONORS) OF BROTHER SAMUEL PIERCE, JUN., WHO WAS UNFORTUNATELY DROWNED NEAR LONG ISLAND, OCTOBER 16, 1796. Æ. 30. DEAR is estimated the name of a friend. Lovely is the relation which cements congenial souls. But dearer still the amity, more intimate the connection, my brethren, which unites our hands and hearts. How painful, then, the catastrophe in which is dissolved an alliance so close and so affectionate. Alas! how forcibly do we feel this now! Death, regardless of those sweet engagements, those pleasing intercourses, and those improving joys which Masons know, has suddenly summoned away, in the midst of his days and usefulness, the valued brother whose remains we have just lodged in the silent tomb. We beheld his sun in its meridian, and rejoiced in its brightness. It is now set; and the evening shades of existence have closed around. Blessed be his rest, and soft and safe to him the mortal bed! Sweet be the opening flowers we plant around: fragrant the cassia sprig that here shall flourish! While we his memory cherish, his virtues imitate, his death improve! With bleeding hearts we sympathize with the disconsolate widow, the bereaved parents, the afflicted friends. Their griefs are ours, for ours the loss they feel. But let us look foward, enlightened by religion, to the brighter scene, when our brother, who is now levelled by the stroke of death, shall be raised from his prostrate state, at the Supreme Grand Master's word, and be admitted to the privileges of the Lodge Celestial. Let us comfort one another with these words. With these prospects let us console the widow and the mourners. And permit me, Alluding to the flowers and twigs the brethren had strewed around the entrance to the tomb. brethren, in their behalf to tender you a tribute of lively acknowledgment for the respect you show the deceased. Your kindness, attention, and sympathy are peculiarly grateful and soothing to their agonized hearts. Their tears, their looks thank you, though sorrow denies their lips an utterance. "These last offices we pay the dead ought to be improved as useful instructions to the living." Let us all remember that, "the generations of men are like the waves of the sea." In quick succession they follow each other to the coasts of death. Another and another still succeeds, and presses on the shore; then ebbs and dies, to give place to the following wave. Thus are we wafted forward. Now buoyed, perhaps by hope; now sinking in despair: rising on the tide of prosperity; or overwhelmed with the billows of misfortune. Sometimes, when least expected, the storms gather, the winds arise," and life's frail bubble bursts." Be cautioned, then, nor trust to cloudless skies, to placid seas, or sleeping winds. Forgot not there are hidden rocks. Guard, too, against the sudden blast. Be Faith your pilot; you will then be safely guided to the haven of eternal bliss. "There may you bathe your weary soul AN ADDRESS.' BRETHREN: THE ceremonies we are about to perform are not unmeaning rites, nor the amusing pageants of an idle hour; but have a solemn and instructive import. Suffer me to point it out to you, and to prepare your minds for those important sentiments they are so well adapted to convey. This Hall, designed and built by wisdom, supported by strength, and adorned in beauty, we are first to consecrate in the name of the great Jehovah.2 Which teaches us in all our works begun and finished to acknowledge, adore, and magnify him. It reminds us, also, in his fear to enter the door of the Lodge, to put our trust in him while passing its trials, and to hope in him for the reward of its labors. Let, then, its altar be devoted to his service, and its lofty arch resound with his praise! May the eye which seeth in secret witness here the sincere and unaffected piety, which withdraws from the engagements of the world to silence and privacy, that it may be exercised with less interruption and less ostentation. Our march round the Lodge reminds us of the travels of human life, in which Masonry is an enlightened, a safe, and a pleasant path. Its tesselated pavement of Mosaic work intimates to us the chequered diversity and uncertainty of human affairs. Our step is time; our progression, eternity. Following our ancient constitutions, with mystic rites, we dedicate this Hall to the honor of Masonry. Our best attachments are due to the Craft. In its prosperity we find our joy; and, in paying it honor, we 1 Delivered at the request of the Officers and Members of Columbian Lodge, on the Dedication of their new Hall, June 24, 1800. • See the ceremony of dedication, in the Book of Constitutions. |