w of Nature.

A survey of Nature, and the observation of her beautiful proportions,
first determined man to imitate the divine plan and study symmetry and
order. This gave rise to societies and birth to every useful art. The
architect began to design, and the plans which he laid down, being
improved by time and experience, have produced works which are the
admiration of every age.

The lapse of time, the ruthless hand of ignorance and the devastations
of war have laid waste and destroyed many valuable monuments of
antiquity, on which the utmost exertions of human genius have been
employed. Even the Temple of Solomon, so spacious and magnificent, and
constructed by so many celebrated artists, escaped not the unsparing
ravages of barbarous force. Freemasonry, notwithstanding, still
survives. The attentive ear receives the sound from the instructive
tongue, and the mysteries of Freemasonry are safely lodged in the
repository of faithful breasts.

Tools and implements of architecture and symbolic emblems most
expressive have been selected by the Fraternity to imprint on the mind
wise and serious truths, and thus through a succession of ages have been
transmitted unimpaired the most excellent tenets of our institution.

But the letter G. has a far greater significance still. It is the
initial of Deity--a name that, at the mere mention of which, all, from
the W. M. in the east to the youngest E. A. in the northeast corner,
should with meekness reverently bow.

* * *

Lecture.

* * *

Symbolism of the Degree.

If the object of the first degree is to symbolize the struggles of a
candidate groping in darkness for intellectual light, that of the second
degree represents the same candidate laboring amid all the difficulties
that encumber the young beginner in the attainment of learning and
science. The Entered Apprentice is to emerge from darkness to light; the
Fellow Craft is to come out of ignorance into knowledge. This degree,
therefore, by fitting emblems, is intended to typify these struggles of
the ardent mind for the attainment of truth--moral and intellectual
truth--and above all that Divine truth, the comprehension of which
surpasseth human understanding, and to which, standing in the Middle
Chamber, after his laborious ascent of the winding stairs, he can only
approximate by the reception of an imperfect, yet glorious reward in the
revelation of that "hieroglyphic light which none but