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THE HOUR-GLASS

Is an emblem of human life. Behold! how swiftly the sands run, and how rapidly our lives are drawing to a close. We cannot

without astonishment behold the little particles which are contained in this machine, how they pass away almost imperceptibly, and yet, to our surprise, in the short space of an hour they are all exhausted. Thus wastes man! To-day he puts forth the tender leaves of hope; to-morrow blossoms, and bears his blushing honors thick upon him, the next day comes a frost, which nips the shoot, and, when he thinks his greatness still aspiring, he falls, like autumn leaves, to enrich oar mother earth.

THE SCYTHE

Is an emblem of time, which cuts the brittle thread of life, and

launches us into eternity. Behold! what havoc the scythe of time makes among the human race: if by chance we should escape the numerous evils incident to childhood and youth, and with health and vigor arrive at the years of manhood, yet withal we must soon be cut down by the all-devouring scythe of time, and be gathered into the land where our fathers have gone before us.

Brother Gabe, permit me to call your attention to the last emblem on the carpet–the spade, setting-maul, coffin, grave, and sprig of acacia.

The spade, which dug the grave of our Grand Master, may soon dig ours; the setting-maul, which terminated his earthly existence, may be among the casualties which will, sooner or later, terminate ours; the coffin, which received his remains, may soon receive ours; the grave, that abode for the dead, may soon be our grave; the acacia (that evergreen which once marked the temporary resting-place of the illustrious dead), that bloomed and flourished at the head of our Grand Master’s grave, and was the cause of its timely discovery, is an emblem of our faith in the immortality of the soul, which never! never–no, never dies.

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SETTING-MAUL.

COFFIN, GRAVE, AND ACACIA

SPADE.

This, my brother, may soon designate our last resting-place in that everlasting and silent abode, that haven of rest, that peaceful home, “where the wicked cease from troubling, and the weary are at rest.”

Brother, be ever mindful of that great change, when we shall be called from labors on earth to that everlasting refreshment in the paradise of God.

Let me admonish you, in the most serious manner, in reference to the close of life, that, when the cold winter of death shall have passed, and the bright summer morn of the resurrection appears, the Sun of Righteousness shall descend and send forth His angels to collect our ransomed dead; then, if we are found worthy, by the benefit of his “pass” we shall gain a ready admission into that celestial Lodge above, where the Supreme Architect of the Universe presides, where we shall see the King In the beauty of holiness, and with him enter into an endless eternity.

Some Masters add the following:

Thus, brother, we close our lecture on the emblems with the solemn thought of death. We are all born to die; we follow our friends to the brink of the grave, and, standing on the shore of a vast ocean, we gaze with exquisite anxiety until the last struggle is over, and we see them sink into the fathomless abyss. We feel our own feet sliding from the precarious brink on which We stand, and a few more suns, and we will be whelmed ’neath death’s awful wave, to rest in the stilly shades, and darkness Said silence will reign around our melancholy abode. But is this

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