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life-like accuracy , and so intimately associated with Solomon's temple ? Surely our lady friend has not succeeded in giving us the picture of the groat Solomon himself ? Yet tho printed account of her work seems to almost suggest it .

Masonic Sociability.

MASONIC SOCIABILITY .

( From an Address to the Kensington Square Association , by Bro . George W . Hall P . M . of Lodtie

No . fUl , and Member of the Library Committee of the Grand Lodge of Pennsylvania J .

1 VTOW wo all know that in its lowest and meanest sense li sociability is sometimes used as a term of ro ; i-nach aud censure to Freemasons by the ignorant and piui ' iue . But let ns briefly consider the subject in its high i- and nobler meaning . In this light sociability expresses all there is in Freemasonry . It means noble and extensive

charity . Free and Accepted Masonry is a Society—free to take into its midst all who are accepted by its members ; opening its arras to embrace all tho worthy who knock upon its portals ; kking all Avho dosiro to meet each other upon tho Level and to part upon the Square , and

ccmentmg thorn into tho grandest Society ( excepting tho free Church ) upon which God has smiled since the beginning of time . All its beautiful teachings and sublime precepts are imparted and impressed with hand to hand , voice to voice , and heart to heart . The immortality of Freemasonry

consists not only in its scientific researches and their artistic interpretation , but more especially in their moral application and adaptability to human affairs , and moreover in that perpetual and living fellowship that exists the world over between its member ? .

Indeed , sociability in its highest aud most comprehensive sense is the very foundation and requisite of government and of law , of civilisation and of tho nation . Nothing of human contrivance ( hat now is could be without that law of mutual attraction that binds tho human family together ,

as well in private and pergonal as in public and general association . The law of atlrnction permeates all nature . Without it the stars would not keep their places in tbo heavens , the earth would not remain suspended in spaceall creation would become involved in helpless and hopeless

nun in the wreck of mull or and the crush of worlds . Without the attraction called gravitation nothing would remain upon the surface of the earth . Suspend tho law of gravitation for the shortest imaginable fraction of time aud everything upon tho earth ' s surface would go plunging

headlong into destruction . Without that mutual attraction which human beings possess for each other , call it what you please , and the result would bo antagonism and confusion indescribable . Men would wage open and constant warfare upon each other , and human affairs would

be plunged into the discord and darkness of pandemonium . Therefore all the blessings wo enjoy aro duo to that law of God which makes it desirable and necessary for men to combine for help and protection , for pleasure and for profit .

Hence" All nature is but art unknown to thee , All chance , direction which thou canst not see , All discord , harmony not understood , All partial evil , universal good . " The recluse who flees from society wrongs himself and

the community . People have tried , and in vain , to sever all human ties , and the voice of our common nature is heard loudly and repeatedly asserting itself within the hermit ' s cave and behind tbe cloister ' s veil . But who does not remember the beautiful story of " Abon Ben

Adhem , " with its universal lesson of the Brotherhood of man ? Abou Ben Adhem ( may bis tribe increase ) awoke one night from a dream of exceeding peaco ; he thought he saw an angel in his room writing men ' s names within a ponderous tome . And Abou said : —

I pray thee write me as one who loves his fellow men . "

The angel wrote and vanished . Next night reappeared , with great awakening- light , and showed the name 3 of those whom God loved best ; and lo : Ben Adhem ' s name led all the rest . It is indeed inconceivable that mankind ever lived without recognising the social ties . But some theoretical

Masonic Sociability.

writers havo imagined a period when mon lived in a stato of nature , that is , when each one actually lived separate and apart from all other ? , until after a time , drivon by want and fear , these individuals came together in a largo field aud chose the tallest rann present to bo the governor .

The idea is wild and improbable . Certainly there never was a timo when two human beings coming together did not owe a mutual duty to each other and a common dut y to God . And the Bible teaches that mankind was first preserved by tho family relation , single families forming

the first natural society among themselves , with tho Grand Parent ns tho head . These families increased in size , and , uniting and becoming rotated , grew into tribe ? , with an old man , the Patriarch , as tho leader . Originally mon wero roving and restless creatures , and some of them havo

the samo nature unto this day . As Arfcomus Ward says " You may have noticed that . " And tho ancients wore free to conic and go , wandering towards every point of the compass , and driving their flocks before them , until they got tired of travelling—as men will—and settlo down in

favourable spots where pasture and water abounded . Now when men settle they learn sometliitig thoy never knew before , and our ancients soon learned that thoy could dig in the ground , plant a seed and wait for the increase . That developed their faith in the Supromo Being . Iu tho worda of Balwor , thero is no unbelief , for

He who plants a seed baneath tho sod , And waits to see it pnsh its wny ahovo tho olod , He believes in God . Prom shepherds men became farmers . Onco settled md a society followed as a matter of course . Various

tribes located near to each other united , by tho eatno characteristics that draw us together to-day . Agriculture increased , and some failed , some prospered , some fought , some married , some combined by arrangement , and some by accident , until , through compulsion or conquest , want

or fear , tho tribes located in the same neighbourhood were cemented into a common association . After awhile they built a wall around their place of habitation for bettor protection and closer union , and thus cities wero bora . Cities having common interests joined larger unions , over

them all a king arose , and tho nation was complete . So while it was the invisible but over-potent law of attraction that drew men together , it was and it is a sense of weakness aud imperfection that keeps us together and saves us from disruption and disunion . Tho bonds sometimes chafe .

States and individuals stand arrayed against each other iu battle , yefc the ruler and tho ruled must continue to yield , to give up certain natural rights for his own and for tho common good . Woo bo to him who thinks otherwise , for he then becomes a tyraufc or a traitor . Divided wo fall , only in union is thero strength .

I have tried to show in this hasty sketcli that man is a social being by nature and it is a wrong to try to got away from it . Ilo is made to livo in tho society of others when

truo to himself a very little solitude suffices . You would rather bo a private in the tent of an army than be tho king over a desert . But if it is curious and interesting to consider how men first carnc to see their relation to each

other as brothers , God being tho same Father of us all , it is next necessary to reflect upon how the wheel came to bo placed within the wheel , and why tho smaller circles wero drawn within the larger circumference . No sooner did mankind come together into a great and general society ,

than they saw the necessity of smaller and private associations —a necessity that bred tho " prido of nations , the strongth of armies and the power of the church . Tho pendulum of time swings from side to side . At first a scattering of individuals , then the desire and necessity for

sociability . Without taking the timo now to go fully into the reasons of why and how private and secret societies came to be established , it is sufficient for our present purpose to say that ifc waa in obedience to the same innate law of human nature that first subdued the roving

dispositions of men and brought them together into a general society . Thus it is that we say Freemasonry was cooval with mankind . We mean that its piinciples were implanted within the breasts of Adam and his progency , and their complete development was only a question of time . Every

Brother has a sufficient and substantial reason for the faith that there is within him in our exalted society of Freemasons . Speaking generally , however , the human family became so large , the world ' s society was so great and still men wore so divided by selfish and individual interests that it became a matter of charity and philanthropy for good