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AMERICAN

MASONIC REGISTER,

AND

LADIES AND GENTLEMEN'S MAGAZINE.

BY LUTHER PRATT.

Blessed is he that considereth the poor: the Lord will deliver him in time of trouble. The Lord will preserve him, and keep him alive; and he shall be blessed upon the earth: and thou wilt not deliver him unto the will of his enemies.

DAVID.

[No. II.]

FOR MAY, A. D. 1822. A. L. 5822.

[VOL. II.]

NOTE-NO numbers of this work have been published since September last, owing to a long and distressing illness of the Editor.

MASONIC.

FOR THE MASONIC REGISTER.
CHRISTIAN MASON.

BY COMPANION SAMUEL WOODWORTH.

NO. VI.

because he can in no other way expect to acquire such a spiritual knowledge and discipline, as will secure him a future reward. In moments of weakness or fatigue, he clings to the immoveable pillar, whose strength and beauty he has already contemplated with wonder In the preceding number, we saw and delight, and looks forward with our young candidate for spiritual hope to a period when his services masonry, introduced into the porch, will become less arduous, and their or outer court of the temple, on performance more productive of "the lower pavement, over against pleasure and profit. If he be faiththe length of the gates, ,"* where he ful in his services, he does not look now begins to labour, not as a free-forward in vain. The term of his man, but as a bondman or an ap- apprenticeship at length expires, prentice, receiving no more spiritual and he finds himself prepared to be meat, drink, and raiment, than is admitted among those who have bejust sufficient for his present spirit- come fellow-workers with their Diual wants. He labours under a vine Master; "who works in them heavy load of newly discovered sins; (although they are as yet ignorant and is the bearer of "burthens of it) to will and to do of his own grievous to be borne." He performs good pleasure." certain prescribed duties,not because the path of duty seems pleasant, but

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But as in the first degree, his progress was from darkness to light, so also must it be in this; for an evening must, of necessity, precede every new morning. A state of temptation and consequent humility is necessary to prepare the candidate for

a reception of the new spiritual exalted into the inner or higher retruths about to be communicated.gions of the understanding, and there It is true that he does not again find become confirmed by an interior himself in total darkness; but he is light. made feelingly sensible that there is While man is in a state of nature, a vast difference between natural thinking of nothing, and loving and spiritual knowledge. He per- nothing but what appertains to this ceives that notwithstanding one temporary state of existence, his morning has dawned upon his be- whole mind is a mere confused chanighted mind, and that he has been otic mass, mingled up in rude disorendowed with a few moral truths, he der-its internal and external are is still, comparatively," poor, blind, confounded together, and he is altoand naked." He sees, more than gether ignorant that a distinction, ever, that it is necessary to ask be- division, or separation, is either nefore he can receive; to seek before cessary or possible. But when he he can find; to knock before the finally consents to yield to those didoor of grace can be opened to him. vine impulses which are continually Owing to the darkness of his preced- operating in his conscience, and by ing state, he had been prevented such yielding receives a ray of from perceiving that he was under spiritual light into his understanding, the Divine inspection, and subject he then perceives that there is and to the strictest scrutiny of the All- ought to be a division between the seeing Eye. But now he is enabled mere exterior memory and the inteto sce clearly that such is the awful rior intellect. The perception and fact; and that his spiritual existence acknowledgment of this important depends upon his shunning evils, as truth, is the second morning of man's sins against God, and living a life of new creation, when there is formed charity, faith, and obedience. He in the mind, a firmament or expanse, is, however, still permitted to ima- which may be called reason or ra gine (in his present low state) that tionality, to separate natural from he labours from and by his own spiritual ideas. Thus the human strength, and that his works are, mind, when reduced to order, comconsequently, meritorious-an ex-prises three degrees, viz. scientific, pected reward being the sole end of all his exertions.

rational, and intellectual; and these are so distinct from each other, that they ought never to be confounded. These three mental degrees are what an enlightened mason understands by the lower, second, and third stories of Noah's ark; and, also, by the windows of the three sto|| ries in Solomon's temple.*

The human mind, like the human body, consists of two parts-an external and an internal; the latter being, in every respect, superior to the former. The internal of the human mind is more particularly adapted to the reception of innate, or rather of spiritual ideas and affections, flowing in, immediately, from the spiritual world; whereas, the external of the same mind, is adapted to the reception of natural ideas and affections, flowing in, mediately, through the bodily senses, from the world of nature. All genuine truths, however, which flow into the exter-ture and regulations of the institunal, through the medium of the tion preclude a more particular exbodily senses, may be clevated or * See 1 Kings, vi. 4. 6. 8.

The mason who has advanced two steps on the pavement of the oblong court, has observed two pillars, supporting the celestial and terres trial globes. These are expressly intended to teach him the distinction between heavenly and earthly things, above alluded to. The na

planation; but this hint must be sufficient to illustrate the meaning involved in the subjects of which we are treating.

the secret interior recesses of his mind, until this time, and for this very purpose. With these materials, he now prepares to work in earn

In the Mosaic account of the cre-est, stimulated only by the anticipaation of the world, we are told that, tion of recompense and reward. on the second day," God made the An entered apprentice, or he who firmament, and divided the waters has only received the first degree of which were under the firmament, spiritual masonry, is merely the from the waters which were above "bearer of burthens"-of "burthe firmament; and it was so." So thens grievous to be borne"-even in the second degree of spiritual ma- the rough ashlars of conviction, or sonry, a separation is effected, be- those condemning truths which artween celestial and earthly things, ray his sins before him in the most in the mind of the humble and faith- formidable shapes, without furnishful candidate, who reverently per- ing him with the means of reducing ceives and acknowledges, that the them to order and subjection. But former are from Heaven, and the now that he has become a fellowlatter from the world of nature. || craft, such working tools are put inThus are the waters of spiritual to his hands as enable him to plumb, truths divided from the waters of and square, and level, the rough manatural sciences, while the admiring terials of his future building, and candidate is instructed that the in- shape them agreeably to the rules ternal man is of a higher and more and designs laid down by the Suheavenly nature than the external; || preme Architect of the universe, in for "God called the firmament his spiritual trestle-board, or the saheaven; and the evening was, cred scriptures. But while he yet and the morning was, the second works as a hireling, those rules and day."* designs appear, to his limited capacity, as completely arbitrary. The journeyman who squares and prepares a stone for a natural building, knows not the particular purpose for which it is designed, but conforms implicitly to the letter of his employer's orders, with no other end in

The internal of his mind being now in a measure opened to his inspection, the newly initiated brother has the satisfaction to find that it is plentifully furnished with moral and religious precepts, or the knowledge of goodness and truth, which he had been gradually and imperceptibly acquir-view than a stipulated recompense. ing from the period of infancy to the present time; and which, having been forgotten in his external memory, had been secretly stored up, and preserved, by the Lord, in the internal. These remains or remnants of spirituality, which are thus concealed in the interior of every human mind, as the materials of a future temple, are never called forth into use until the candidate enters on this his second degree; they having been safely locked up and preserved in

*This mode of expression is strictly according to the original Hebrew, evidently implying a succession of spiritual states.

Just so it is with the spiritual craftsman, in this his second degree. He conforms, as far as in him lies, to the letter of the divine law, hoping thereby to secure his own salvation as a reward for his fidelity. Such works are low, selfish, and cannot properly be termed good; still, however, they are as necessary in the commencement of regeneration, as is the squaring and smoothing of a rough stone from the quarry, in order to fit it for its place in a natural edifice.

But although the young spiritual mason is yet a novice in his new vocation-although he has only enter

FOR THE MASONIC REGISTER.

ST. ALBAN'S LODGE. Mr. Editor A lodge of this name having recently been installed in this village, I was asked by a stranger if I knew what, why, and wherefore it had received that appellation. I told him it was given to the lodge as a mark of respect to one of the same name which had formerly existed in this place. But he thought some account of the name would be acceptable, as he had heard a person gravely state the

ed the outer court of the temple, and has scarcely passed the two brazen pillars that adorn the porch, he has still the consolation to know that two important steps have been taken towards a state of higher illumination; and that the spiritual truths he has already acquired, can never be lost or rendered useless, except by his own wilful apostacy. His eyes have been opened to see his natural pollutions, which he finds to be many and great. This conviction would fill him with consternation and despair, did he not perceive before him, even here in the outer court, ten purify-presumption that St. Alban was a ing lavers, prepared to wash away heathen god, which the inquirer all his defilements; besides a "bra- took for granted was the case. I zen sea, on the right, eastward to- would therefore inform this honest wards the south." Here too he finds friend or enemy, as the case may be, a brazen altar, on which he must that we have nothing to do with the sacrifice his wordly loves and earth-fabulous deities of the ancient myly affections; where the natural man must ultimately be slain; where the old man with his deeds must be put off, and the new man put on where he is to die unto sin, and be raised again unto righteousness. But these latter are works appertaining to the next degree.

Go on, and persevere, thou good and faithful servant. Another and a brighter morning shall soon arise, even the third morning of thy new creation, when the new earth shall be crowned with refreshing verdure, with "the herb yielding seed, and the fruit-tree yielding fruit, where seed is in itself." Then thy works will be the fruits of a vivified, and not, as now, of a lifeless faith. Then, as a free master-workman, thou wilt begin to perceive and comprehend the designs of the great Architect in whose service thou art engaged, and thy labours will consequently result in more pleasure and profit to thyself, and more honour and glory to thy Divine Master.

The Lord will thus create
A firmament sublime,
Celestial things to separate

From those of sense and time.

thology, as supposing them really to exist; although we may sometimes adopt a name from their vocabulary when it is merely indicative of any certain art or science of benefit and use to mankind, such as Apollo, the reputed god of physic, poetry, &c. We may also belong to St. Andrew's, or St. Tammany lodge, as well as St. Paul's or St. John's, without implicating our theological principles, or prejudice to Christian orthodoxy.

To do justice, however, to St. Alban, I would have the unenlightened know, that he was a very respecta ble English saint, a native of Veru lam in Hertfordshire, afterwards called St. Alban's, in honour of the saint, who suffered martyrdom there in the year 293. He had been at Rome in his youth, and seven years a soldier in the army of Dioclesian; in whose persecution he was put to death for embracing Christianity, and thus became the first martyr to the doctrines of Jesus in the British isles. Five hundred years after, in 793, an abbey, or monastery, was founded on the spot where his bones were discovered, by Offa, king of the

Mercians. The abbey once belong-||
ed to cardinal Wolsey. The town
is respectable and memorable on
many accounts. It was the scene
of one of the victories of Cæsar, ob-
tained over Cassibelan, and a Ro-
man station, more distinguished,
however, by a victory and the cruel-
ty of queen Boadicea, who massa-
cred 70,000 Romans and Britons
who adhered to them at that place.
In the church of St. Michael's, in this
town, is a monument of the illustri- |
ous chancellor Bacon, a native of
Gorhambury, a seat in its vicinity,
where is a statue of king Henry 8th,
&c., and a seat was erected in the
neighbourhood by the duke of Marl-
borough.

At St. Alban's were fought two bloody battles, in times more recent than the reign of the Romans in Britain. In 1455, the duke of York and earl of Warwick defeated and took prisoner king Henry 6th; and in 1461 queen Margaret defeated Warwick and retook the king, staining the victory by cruelty to her prisoners. King Henry was married to Anne of Bolen near this place. Thus much may suffice for the origin of St. Alban's.

BROOKLYN.

pose the defects or failings of their order, by trumpeting their backsliding members to the world? If the world knows not who are masons, so it is no concern of the world who have forfeited their right to the benefits of masonry. It is already well understood by the public, that masons must not be infamous in their lives or characters, and of course, that bad members, found to be irreclaimable, are expelled from the society. And whenever a man becomes notorious for vice and immorality, it is taken for granted that he is no longer in fellowship with the masonic order, whatever may have been his former rank or reputation.

Masonry cannot make all of its professors perfect, any more than religion.

There was one traitor among the twelve disciples. And there is no society free from the incidents and imperfections of humanity. But does masonry or religion enjoin upon their votaries the scorn and persecution of their erring or criminal brethren! What said our Saviour to the multitude who were so clamorous about the woman taken in the fact of guilt?—“Let him that is without sin cast the first stone." Besides, in publishing the name of an excluded member, we should recollect how many innocent and worthy persons of his family or friends we may wound by the opprobrium cast on him.

Curst be the verse,however smooth it flow,

That serves to make one worthy man my

foe,

FOR THE MASONIC REGISTER. Mr. Editor On the subject of publishing the names of expelled brethren, I do not agree to the sentiments expressed by you in your last number, as coinciding with those of the editor of the Masonic Miscel- Give virtue pain, offend an honest ear, lany. I think the Grand Lodge of Or draw from soft-eyed innocence a tear--this state have done perfectly right says the benevolent poet. And the in forbidding such publications. I philanthropic and humane would consider them as libellous, scanda-sooner let twenty criminals escape lous, and disgraceful to the society unpunished, than through one of which permits or requires them. fender inflict punishment on many Charity covereth sins. And the innocent. universal prayer is, to teach us to hide the fault we see.

Do religious, mechanical, relief, of any other social bodies, thus ex

I have always viewed with regret this practice of posting expelled masons. I believe it to be totally unnecessary, and evincing a

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