Page:Manual of the Lodge.pdf/249

204 The following exhortation is then given by the Master:

My brethren, here we view a striking instance of the uncertainty of life, and the vanity of all human pursuits. The last offices paid to the dead are only useful as lectures to the living; from them we are to derive instruction, and consider every solemnity of this kind as a summons to prepare for our own approaching dissolution.

Notwithstanding the various instances of mortality which we daily meet; notwithstanding death has established his empire over all the works of nature, yet, through some unaccountable infatuation, we forget that we are mortal; we forget that we are born to die. We go on from one design to another; we add hope to hope; we lay out plans for the employment of many years, until we are suddenly alarmed with the approach of death, when we least expect him, and at an hour when we probably think ourselves to be in the meridian of our existence.

What are all the pomp and splendor of majesty, the pride of wealth, or the charms of beauty, when nature has paid her just debt? Fix your eyes, my brethren, on the last scene; view life stripped of her ornaments, and exposed in her natural meanness; and you will then be convinced of the futility of all those empty delusions. In the grave, all fallacies are detected, all ranks are leveled, and all distinctions are done away.

While we drop the tear of sympathy over the grave of our deceased brother, let charity induce us to throw a vail over his frailties, whatever they may have