ance are small, and his powers of relief limited, he will at least discover those foft and gentle attentions, and that tender and heart felt compaffion, which footh the diftrefs he cannot remove, and bathe with tears the wound he cannot heal. He remains true and faithful to his brother when he can procure him no more profit and afford him no more help, and has no tribute to make him but fighs of fympathy and tears of pity. He forfakes not his bed of languishment. He stays to fupport his drooping head, to catch his expiring breath, and to clofe his eyes with the laft offices of fraternal affection. Nor does his love cease to act in his brother's behalf because his fpirit is departed, and his perfon is no more an object of neceffity. It is stronger than death. It is the inheritance of his family. It fympathizes in the forrows of his bereaved relations, inquires out their neceffities, and strives to be all that to them which he was in kindness and in care.

SUCH are the offices of Free Masonry in adverfity. Such its affection and its fympáthy. What fweet cordials may thus be infused even into the bittereft forrows of life! What cheering light fpread over the dark

neffes that furround it! With what vigor and courage will it infpire the weary and heavy laden heart! With what a lenient hand will it bind up its wounds; with what animating encouragements awaken its hopes! To this kind end, what attention, what affiduity, what complacency, what indulgence, what facrifice, is too inconfiderable or too great! And what repays and rejoices more than when we see the suffering brother suffer lefs, fuffer more compofedly, or fuffer no more; when we can fee him restored, ftrengthened, cheered, and satisfied; again in poffeffion of the comforts of life.

THIS, I am bold to fay, is the genuine spirit of our inftitution. These are its appropriate services, its peculiar duties. In this philanthropic affection, and in these benevolent and gentle cares, does it endeavor, by the inculcation of forceful precept and the exhibition of affecting example, to instruct and exercise its attentive and faithful difciples: exciting the generous difpofition of love; adding to brotherly kindness, charity; confirming the habits of difinterested beneficence; and prompting "the capacious wish that pants for univerfal good."

Not that I would by any means be understood to intimate that those who are not of the fodality may not be as confpicuous in all these amiable regards as those that are : but only that our institution adds to the law of our natures and the requifitions of our moft excellent religion, another and prevailing inducement to their obfervance. that to fay" an uncharitable or unkind Free Mafon" implies a grofs contradiction: and if fuch an one there be, he has done violence to his profeffion, and is an odious excrefcence on our fociety.

So

HERE indulge me the freedom of one remark. Inafmuch as Masonry is profeffed in those nations which have not yet been converted to the Chriftian faith, and as it enkindles benevolence and excites virtue fo accordant with the genius of the Gospel, it may eventually have no inconfiderable tendency towards introducing and propagating among them that most glorious system of revealed truth; at leaft by humanizing the difpofition, foftening the manners, and removing the prejudices, may prepare the way

с

for that moft defirable event.*

I hazard

this obfervation, with more confidence from knowing that the SUBLIME GRADES, to which all the initiated with fo much eagernefs afpire, do in fact imply the knowledge. and cannot be attained but through the acknowledgment of Christianity.†

FINALLY ; with confiftent views of our Society even the prejudiced will forego their diflike. They must acknowledge that the blunders of its ignorant or the vices of its degenerate members do not indicate defect nor prove baseness in the inftitution itself. As we do not know the heart, we may be deceived, and unhappily adopt the unworthy. As we cannot alter the nature nor control the paffions of men, there may be fome among us whom our perfuafions have been ineffectual to meliorate or our injunctions to reform; who "remember not the brotherly covenant,”‡ or

So St. John the Baptist, the first Christian Mason, was commiffioned to prepare the way of the Lord; to smooth the way and remove the obstructions to the introduction of his truth.

+ Particularly the " Companions of the Holy Sepulchre" and the "Knights of St. John of Jerufalem."

† Amos i. 9.

difregard its bonds. We lament these unfortunate circumftances. We pity our weak, and reprobate our corrupt brethren. We are forry too, that the world is so disposed to treat us contemptuously on their account. Still we comfort ourselves with the hope that the candid will fee where the error lies, and not withhold honor from those to whom it is due while we are affured that every friend of enlightened reason and rectified humanity will approve and patronize our focial plan. Herein we this day indulge a livelier joy, and felicitate the members of the newly erected lodge on the happy occafion.

Right Worshipful MASTER, Worshipful WARDENS, Refpected OFFICERS, and Beloved BRETHREN of Fellowship Lodge,

YOUR joy is the joy of us all. Pure be the pleasures of your union, increasing the prosperity of your lodge! Ever may you exhibit for each other, and for every member of the Masonic family, that conftancy of affection which fignalizes the friend who loveth at all times, and that tenderness of Sympathy which designates the brother who is born