th to support and beauty to adorn all
well governed institutions. The three principal stages of human life are
Youth, Manhood and Age--Youth as an E. A., Manhood as a F. C., and Age
as a M. M.

The five steps allude to the five orders of architecture, and the five
human senses. The five orders of architecture are the Tuscan, Doric,
Ionic, Corinthian and Composite, three of which, from their antiquity,
have ever been held in high repute among Masons--the Doric, Ionic and
Corinthian. The five human senses are hearing, seeing, feeling, tasting
and smelling, the first three of which have ever been held in high
repute among Masons, because by hearing we hear the * * *; by seeing we
see the * * *, and by feeling we feel the * * *, whereby one Mason may
know another in the dark as well as in the light.

The seven steps allude to many sevens--the seven sabbatical years, seven
years of plenty, seven years of famine, seven years during which K. S.'s
T. was in course of erection, seven golden candlesticks, but more
particularly the seven liberal arts and sciences, which are Grammar,
Rhetoric, Logic, Arithmetic, Geometry, Astronomy and Music.

(Note:--A fine effect can be had, if an organ is played, by using the
following. The organist should begin to play softly when the speaker
begins on "Music:")

Music is that elevated science which affects the passions by sound.
There are few who have not felt its charms, and acknowledged its
expressions to be intelligible to the heart. It is a language of
delightful sensations, far more eloquent than words; it breathes to the
ear the clearest intimations; it touches and gently agitates the
agreeable and sublime passions; it wraps us in melancholy, elevates us
in joy and melts us in tenderness. Again the pathetic dies away and
martial strains are heard, reminding us of the battlefield and its
attendant glory.

(As the word "glory" is pronounced the organist at once strikes the
chords of some war-music like "Dixie," "Marseilles Hymn," etc. After a
few bars are played with full organ, the organist lets the music die
away to a soft and gentle tremolo, and the Deacon resumes):

The glorious notes of the battle-hymn float over the red field of
carnage. Brave men hear the inspiring music; the ranks close up; the
bayonets are fixed; and, with a cheer which strikes terror to the heart
of the foe, they rush forward in one glorious charge, across the plain
slippery with the blood of patriots, up