Page:George Washington National Monument.djvu/53

 for the priesthood with the same ceremony, and the prophets and kings of Israel were consecrated to their offices by the same rite."

To the reflecting mind all these ceremonies have a deep and abiding meaning.

In placing upon this stone this, I invoke the blessing of plenty to the nation whose monument this is to be. May bread, that great staff of our physical existence, never be wanting to feed the hungry! In pouring upon it the, permit me to express a hope that the wine of joy may ever be found in our broad land, and that happiness may be a dweller in every hamlet, from the Rio Bravo to the Bay of Fundy, from the Pacific to the Atlantic oceans. In pouring upon it the oil, I invoke for all who may be in affliction the healing oil of consolation.

This corner-stone is now ready to receive the superstructure which is to rise above it. May no accident attend its erection, and may the cap-stone, that announces its completion, be laid under circumstances as happy and as favorable as this foundation stone has now been placed! The Grand Master then presented to the architect, Robert Mills, (who is a freemason,) the working tools of his profession, remarking, as he did it:

I now present to you, my brother, the square, level, and plumb, which are the working tools you are to use in the erection of this monument. You, as a freemason, know to what they morally allude: the plumb admonishes us to walk uprightly in our several stations before God and man, squaring our actions by the square of virtue, and remembering that we are travelling upon the level of time to that "undiscovered country from whose bourne no traveller returns." Never forgetting this sublime moral lesson, you are here to use them practically in your profession. Look well to the erection of this national monument; see that every stone is well squared, and that it is placed in its position both level and plumb, that the noble offering of a nation, to commemorate greatness, patriotism, and virtue, may stand until the end of time.

The masonic grand honors were then given, and the benediction was pronounced.