Page:Oration Delivered on the Centennial Day of Washington's Initiation into Masonry (1852).djvu/22

22 After the removal of the cloth, the following thirteen regular toasts, with several volunteers, were Masonically drank to, and appropriate responses made to them, with music from the Band.

—The mystic daughter of Philosophy, the handmaid of Religion. She conceals—to do in secret good, she reveals—that others may see her light and imitate her glorious works.

.—A hundred years have passed since the Chief Architect of Freedom’s Temple, the Master-Builder of a nation’s throne, lifted the veil of darkness, and beheld pure Masonic light, whose luminous rays are lengthened out beyond the pall of Time; the World his lodge, Mankind his brothers, and Liberty the fundamental Truth of his Order.

.—The Entered Apprentice of the Revolution, the Fellow Craft of his patriotic countrymen, and the Master spirit of a free people.

.—One of the three Masonic lights, illuminated by charity and surrounded by a halo of brotherly love, pointing to the Bible as our code of morality, to the Square and Compass as our rule of action. He is the great Providence that watches over Masonry, dispensing sympathy to the orphan and consolation to the widow, and offering the Masonic mite of relief upon the alter of indigence and wretchedness.

—FILLs the highest honor a free nation can bestow, MORE glorious than the diadem of Kings or an Emperor’s throne.

.—The luxuriant South, the grain supplying North, the prairie-teeming West, and the shuttle-plying East, are but parts of one great chain, whose links are States, joined by the patriot and the sage in perpetual Union’s bonds, never to be severed as long as reason reigns supreme, and civilization advances with the step of time.

.—The right arm of the Government. The bulwark against the encroachment of despotism. The defenders of our national honor. The soldiers of freedom. The protectors of commerce.

When this toast was drunk with great cordiality by the company, the Rev. Leander KerrKer [sic], Chaplain in the army, arose and replied as follows:

Most W. Master, and Ladies and Gentlemen, I feel called upon to respond to that toast, which has been so cordially received, as the only representative of our army present. I like that toast, Worshipful Master, not merely, because it is given to the army, with which I have the honor to be connected, but I like it because it is given by freemen, who have created our army, and who support it: and I like it especially, because it is an evidence of the good will, which is enteretainedentertained [sic] towards the army, by those who