practice: by whom he is taught to regulate his life and actions according to their dictates, if he be ambitious of peace in this world or happiness in the next.

At this period of his life, Freemasonry recommends to his most serious contemplation the volume of the Sacred Law; charging him to consider it as the unerring standard of truth and justice, and to regulate his actions by the divine precepts it contains. And he is further told that this First Great Light will teach him the important duties which he owes to God, to his neighbour, and to himself. To God, by never mentioning his name but with that awe and reverence which are due from the creature to the Creator; by imploring his aid on all lawful undertakings, and by looking up to him in every emergency for comfort and support. To his neighbour, by acting with him upon the square; by rendering him every kind office which justice or mercy may require; by relieving his distresses, and soothing his afflictions; and by doing to him as in similar cases you would wish he should do to you. And to himself, by such a prudent and well regulated course of discipline as may best conduce to the preservation of his corporeal and mental faculties in their fullest energy; thereby enabling him to exercise the talents with which he has been favoured by God, as well to his glory, as to the welfare of his fellow creatures.1

Such is the recommendation of the two great parallels supporting the circle and point, which is corroborated in the system of Freemasonry, and necessarily include FAITH and practice; and having attained these, the candidate is entitled to ascend the first division of the Ladder, through the portal which will be freely opened to him by the gracious Virtue who guards the entrance. In the vigorous stage of manhood, his duties and obligations will materially increase; but if he steadily perseveres in the path chalked out by the Sacred Law of God, he will not find any difficulty in discharging them to the satisfaction of his own conscience. This will afford a reasonable ground of HOPE, and enable him to apply confidently for admission to the upper portion of the Ladder. Hope, with a cheerful countenance, opens wide

1 Dr. Hemming's E. A. P. Charge.

the gate, and the ripened man, animated and enlivened by these two virtues, passes the middle age of life, and his soul ascends slowly, but surely, to the haven of peace, as his weakening body goes downward towards the grave.

Old age succeeds-a time of comfort and satisfaction, after a life spent in the performance of the three great moral and masonic duties. He has no fear of death, because he is prepared for it. The coffin and its mournful embellishments display no terrors to him, because he considers life as the sleep of darkness, and death as awakening him from a disagreeable dream to the enjoyment of light and happiness. The peace of God, which passeth all understanding, keeps him firm in the faith; by the aid of which, added to the practice of universal benevolence and love for his fellow creatures, he is enabled to contemplate with calmness and equanimity that event which will separate him from all his earthly friends and connections; because he sees before him, by the eye of faith, a world where everything is bright and glorious; where he shall be reunited to his friends; where sorrow and trouble cannot intrude; and where never-ending pleasures will reward the cares and troubles of his mortal pilgrimage. He approaches the scene of his hopes and wishes with a palpitating heart, and finds the portal of CHARITY thrown open to receive him, and the bodily pains of death are alleviated and cheered by the sound of the angelic host singing the anthems of heaven, and ready to conduct him to that place of rest, where he will wait with patience, in company with the spirits of other just and holy men, till all things are consummated, and the day of resurrection ushers in the eternal reign of the Messiah.

Nothing could be a more wise and just arrangement than the appointment of an intermediate state for the soul, from the time of its departure from the body to the day of judgment. Having been clogged with a corrupt and sinful body, which the Platonists denominated "the bondage of matter," it would scarcely have been in a condition, at the moment of its exodus, to bear either the refulgent glory of God's presence on the one hand, or the extreme punishment of eternal fire on the other. It is true, man is sent into the world with a commission

to "go on towards perfection," which, though unattainable in this world, will certainly be completed in the next. And accordingly, while the just are ripening for glory, the wicked degenerate from bad to worse in a similar proportion, as a fit preparation for the perdition that awaits them.

It may be as well to observe here, that this doctrine was embodied in the Spurious Freemasonry; and Olympiodorus, in his commentary on the Gorgias of Plato, thus explains it:-he says, "When Ulysses descended into Hades, he saw, amongst other things, Titius, Sysiphus, and Tantalus. The former was lying supine upon the earth, and a vulture was devouring his liver. The liver signified that he had lived solely according to his animal propensities and the indulgence of his passions. Sysiphus was continually employed in rolling a stone up a hill, which, having attained the summit, escaped from his hands and rolled down again. This was the punishment of ambition and anger; its descent showing the vicious government of himself, and the stone symbolizing the hard, refractory, and rebounding condition of his life. Tantalus lay extended on the borders of a lake, and under a tree bearing abundance of fruit; but he was unable to derive any benefit from either. The fruit which evaded all his attempts implied that he had been living under the dominion of fancy; and his vain attempts to drink out of the lake, showed the delusive and rapidly gliding condition of his life."

In neither of the above cases would the spirit be prepared for a great and sudden change to perfect happiness or perfect misery. The soul of the righteous would not be sufficiently refined and sublimated to endure the blaze of light which proceeds from the throne of the Deity; neither would that of the wicked be fitted to endure the burning wrath of an offended God. Shakspeare alluded to something of this kind when he spake of the spirit of man delighting

To bathe in fiery floods, or to reside

In thrilling regions of thick-ribbed ice;
To be imprisoned in the viewless winds,
And blown with restless violence round about
The pendant world.

On which Douce observes: "with respect to the much

contested and obscure expression of bathing the delighted spirit in fiery floods, Milton appears to have felt less difficulty in its construction than we do at present; for he certainly remembered it when he made Comus say,

One sip of this

Will bathe the drooping spirits in delight
Beyond the bliss of dreams.'"'

In order, therefore, to prepare the soul for its reunion with an incorruptible body at the resurrection, and to endure the effects of that sentence whose duration shall be everlasting, an intermediate state has been provided by the Divine wisdom and goodness, where the spirit of the just man, liberated from its contact with a material Tabernacle, which obstructed its progress towards the perfection of a future state, receives an acccession of knowledge that is intended to prepare it for final glorification. It floats in liquid ether in a blessed region of light, purified from all gross and sensual appetites and desires, and enjoying a comparative degree of happiness, in a progressive state of preparation for supreme felicity in prospect.

Beyond the glitt'ring starry sky,

Far as the eternal hills,

There in the boundless worlds of Light,
Our dear Redeemer dwells

Immortal angels bright and fair

In countless armies shine;

At his right hand with golden harps,
They offer songs divine.

They brought his chariot from above

To bear him to his throne:

Clap'd their triumphant wings and cry'd
The glorious work is done.

This peaceful abode, or world of spirits, is distinguished in Scripture by the several names of Paradise, Abraham's bosom, the third heaven, and the Hand of God;2 and it appears that when the soul, which Pope denominates a vital spark of heavenly flame, has shaken off its earthly tabernacle, so called from the Tabernacle of Moses which contained the ethereal Shekinah, it will be conveyed by angels to this peaceful place of rest, there to remain

* Luke xxiii., 43, xvi., 22. 2 Cor. xii., 2. Wisdom iii., 1.

until the judgment day. It will be associated with those of Abel, and Noah, and Abraham, and Moses, and David, and other worthy and pious men, who have been admitted into God's rest, but not into his glory; and will remain in peace, exempted from all pain and disquietude, from all contention and dispute, malice. hatred, and illwill, and secure from the temptations of the devil, until it be God's good pleasure to give them the kingdom. Thus Chrysostom says, "understand what and how great a thing it is for Abraham to sit, and for the Apostle Paul to expect, until they be made perfect, that then they may receive their reward. For until we come, the Father hath foretold them, he will not give them their reward. Art thou grieved because thou shalt not yet receive it? What should Abel do, who overcame so long since, and yet sitteth without his crown? What Noah? and the rest of those times? for behold they expected thee, and expect others after thee. They prevented us in their conflicts, but they shall not prevent us in their crowns, because there is one time appointed to crown all together."

Many curious enquiries might suggest themselves in this place respecting the intermediate state of the soul; as, what is its form? does it assume the figure of one of the five regular bodies? whither does it go? what is its employment? or what its degree of consciousness? Is its place in the air, like that of the evil spirits which frequent "dry places, seeking rest, or go about continually trying whom they may devour?"4

What means these evil spirits use to tempt us we are not distinctly informed; but it is great folly, either on the one hand to doubt the reality of the fact, because we know not the manner, or on the other to entertain groundless imaginations, or believe idle stories, and ascribe more to evil spirits than we have any sufficient cause. For there is no religion in favouring such fancies, or giving credit to such tales; and there has frequently arisen a great deal of hurtful superstition from them. This we are sure of, and it is enough, that neither Satan nor all his angels have power, either to force any one of

3 Hom. 28, in Epist. ad Hebræos.
Matt. xii., 43. 1 Peter v., 8.