The officers who are appointed to govern your Lodge, are sufficiently conversant with the rules of propriety, and the laws of the institution, to avoid exceeding the powers with which they are entrusted; and you are of too generous a nature to envy their preferment. I trust, therefore, you will have but one aim -to please each other, meeting in the grand design of being happy and conferring happiness. Finally, my brethren, as this association has been formed and perfected in such unanimity and concord, in which we greatly rejoice, so may it long continue, and remain a monument of wisdom, strength, and beauty, which ages cannot wither, nor adversity decay. May you long enjoy every satisfaction and delight which disinterested friendship can afford may kindness and brotherly affection distinguish your conduct as men and Masons; within these peaceful walls may your children's children celebrate with joy and gratitude, the annual recurrence of this auspicious solemnity; and may the tenets of our Order be transmitted through your Lodge from generation to generation."

CHAPTER XVI.

THE SUPREME ORDER OF THE HOLY ROYAL ARCH.

"The philosophers (Pythagoreans) concealed their sentiments of the Nature of things under the veil of divine allegories; lest, being accused of impiety by the priests (which often happened), they might be exposed, in their turn, to the hatred, if not to the fury, of the vulgar."-TOLAND.

THE Book of Constitutions at its outset says, "By the solemn act of union between the two Grand Lodges of Freemasons of England, in December, 1813, it was declared and pronounced that pure and ancient Masonry consists of three degrees and no more, viz., those of the Entered Apprentice, the Fellow-Craft, and the Master Mason, including the Supreme Order of the Holy Royal Arch."

By this declaration the Royal Arch would appear, as we are told, to be only the completion of the Master Mason's Degree; and yet there is a different governing body in the Grand Chapter, another establishment beyond his Lodge into which the candidate must be admitted, different regalia, and another certificate.

What the Royal Arch was at the period of this declaration it is not easy to decide, as we have seen five different rituals of various dates within the last century, and neither bears much resemblance to the present degree.

The present ceremony was arranged by the Rev. Brother Adam Brown at the instance of his late R. H. the Duke of Sussex, and the object the Grand Master had in view was effected, as every

R. A. Mason will perceive when he has attained the rank of Past First Principal of a Chapter.

In the preceding degrees we learn how Solomon built that magnificent Temple which was justly esteemed as the most wonderful structure ever known, and for its regal splendour and unparalleled lustre far transcended all ideas that we can form of it at the present period. After the death of Solomon, his kingdom, as threatened by the Most High, was divided; ten of the tribes of Israel revolted from his son Rehoboam; the tribes of Judah and Benjamin, however, continued faithful to the house of David, and were ruled by the descendants of Solomon.

Whilst the Jews continued to serve God with that purity of worship and sincere devotion which characterized their early progenitors, the Almighty was pleased to grant them many signal instances of his divine favour and protection, by preserving their holy city from the horrors of war, but when they forsook the God of their fathers and followed the false gods of their heathen neighbours,—when, as God, by the prophet Isaiah, complains, "they forsook the fountains of living waters, and hewed out for themselves broken cisterns that could hold no water," they were justly punished for their perverse and rebellious spirit, for their wicked apostasy and blind idolatry. It almost exceeds the power of belief, but it is but the proof of the depravity of human nature, that his favoured people, for whom, when in Egypt, God wrought by the hand of Moses a series of the most astonishing miracles; to whom He displayed from Mount Sinai "the Divine Majesty of his glory, and the excellence of his magnificence;" and who heard the Almighty speaking with an audible voice out of the midst of the fire, and who had also the glorious Shechinah, the visible symbol of his presence, constantly with them,—that they should have debased themselves by idolatry and polluted their worship by the adoration of false gods. Having tried the patience and long-suffering