Where The Laugh Comes In.

tude of its blocks ; the Mason Avho believes in treating all alike and requiring all to make suitable proficiency before advancement , in fact as well as theory ; the Mason who believes that Masonry is a serious undertaking , to be upheld

and carried forAvard by serious men ; who feels that there is a greater gain to his lodge in the malting of one just and true man than in the reception of a dozen candidates Avho have no higher conception of the institution than that it

confers the privilege of Avearing a certain badge and knowing a great secret ; " whose vision of the ancient Landmarks is never dimmed by the recollection of a depleted treasury ; " who believes that Masonry is never in a hurry , and that whatever is Avorth doing at all is worth doing well ;

who shrinks instinctively from the surging tide of neophytes rushing past the gates of the temple and pushing their Avay to the very holy of holies , with the dust of the world upon their shoes , Avhich , in their haste , they have nofc laid side—at

tliis point , Ave repeat , plain , old-fashioned , methodical , painstaking , earnest Masons may laughive always do . Not in sorrow , nor yet in anger , but with a hearty rejoicing thafc one leak is stopped ; one breach iu the Avail through Avhich

so many have tumbled into the fold built up ; one more warning given against marrying in haste to repent at leisure ; one more safeguard set up which , like the burning pharos , shall warn the heedless of shoals and quicksands , to venture upon Avhich is fatal .

We laugh—quietly , as Leatherstocking practiced it—when Ave see a young man , with his Masonic wiugs just fledged , busily engaged in revising Masonry in genera ] , and especially that part of it which he deems to be most important , to wit , the

ritual . His proposals to modernise the phraseology , to improve the grammar , to throw in a neiv part in one place and cut out an old one in another ; his supreme contempt for the musty old ' fogyism of our regulations ; his virtuous indignation at the autocratical tyranny of the Master are immoderately funny .

AVe laugh—not noisily , but judiciously—when Ave come across an old fellow who is constantl y telling every one who will listen that he has been "forty years a Mason "—and never thinking it worth his while to mention thafc for thirty-eight years of the forty he has never been inside of a lodge , nor contributed one cent toward

maintaining the Craft or giving aid to its distressed members , their widows and orphans . We laugh—not hilariously , but "with quiet enjoyment—Avhen vie see a lodge committee , after looking at a package of greasy papers and

listening to the one hundred and seventieth rehearsal of a Avell-conned story , return to the lodge and recommend a donation to the worthy brother who makes more money by fleecing them than they do by honest labor .

We laugh—not in sonorous numbers , but euphoniously—when Ave see the members of the Ancient and Accepted Rite , born and educated to be gentlemen , honored and respected by sendee and station in Ancient Craffc Masonry , beloved

for social amenities and charitable deeds , when mounted on the Scottish hobby , degenerating into common scolds and abusing each other like the veriest drabs .

We laugh—not exultmgly , but at low breathwhen Ave hear a brother declaiming against Masonic publications because they let the world into our secrets ( sic . ) and make the general public acquainted with the principles and ideas of

Masonry ; all of which they hold should be locked and barred in the most impenetrable recesses of inviolable secrecy , while we daily witness the good effects proceeding from the vast moral ' power of the press AA'hen discreetly used .

We laugh—not vociferously , but with mild humor—Avhen Ave see a brother charging another with a specified offence , and then on the trial attempting to prove an entirely different one ; of course breaking down , getting the whole thing reversed , inveighing against everything and

everybody concerned , and making a Judy oi himseli generally . We enjoy a full sense of jocund satisfaction Avhen Ave come across a lodge more anxious to do a little square Avork than an immense quantity

which is neither oblong nor square ; more anxious to comfort the distressed , to visit the sick , to bury the dead , to minister to the wants of the Avidow and the fatherless in their affliction , than to make senseless displays , full of sound and signifying

nothing ; more willing to learn than to teach , more Avilling to act than to talk ; ever ready to do a good deed , and never anxious to boast of it , quietly pursuing the even tenor of their way , and gradually laying up a store which neither moth nor rust shall consume , which thieves cannot steal , and which shall afford a quiet satisfaction