Take, ruthless infidel, away, TO À FRIEND, ABOUT TO MARRY A SECOND TIME. Ne profectura precando.-OVID. Oh, keep the ring, one little year; And shed on it the silent tear, Thy lips, on which her last, last kiss, These haunts are sacred to her love, Beneath these elms you sate and talk'd; Beside that river's brink, At evening arm and arm you walk'd, LITERARY NOTICE. A new work, published by Messrs. Bliss & White, No. 128 Broadway, has recently made its appearance, entitled, "Analytical Spelling-Book: designed for Schools and Families in || the United States of America, and for Foreigners learning English. By John Franklin Jones. To exalt a free people, teach their children." We have not sufficiently examined this work to venture a judgment on its merits or demerits. The following are extracts from the author's preface. "This little work is an essay; the result of twenty years' study, reflection, and practical experience in various branches of instruction. If it should be well received, it will be rigidly revised in a second edition, amended by every useful hint suggested, and will be followed by an Thou'lt meet her when thy blood beats other volume, giving a more enlarged high, In converse with thy bride, Meet the mild meaning of an eye That never learnt to chide. Oh, no, by heaven, another here Thou canst not, must not bring; So keep it but one little year, Keep poor Eliza's ring. BY A YOUNG LADY BORN BLIND. If this delicious, graceful flower, Which blows but for a single hour, Should to the sight as lovely be, As from its fragrance seems to me; A sigh must then its color show, For that's the softest joy I know. And sure the rose is like a sigh, Born just to sooth, and then-to die. My father, when our fortune smiled, With jewels deck'd his eyeless child: Their glittering worth the world might see, But, ah! they had no charms for me. and scientific view of the nature, modifications, and analogies of our language. It will also continue the reading lessons, particularly the "Story of Jack Halyard," carried into a larger sphere of action, and connected with a higher range of human knowledge. "The writer of this has seen, with regret, and with mortification as an American, the facility with which high sounding names are obtained to sanction a worthless or stolen book. Deeply impressed with the great evil to which this abuse has grown, he neither asks nor wishes any letter of credit for the present work; but will choose to have it stand or fall by a fair trial of its merits. Too many of the numerous teachers in our country are indeed ignorant enough; but, as a body, they are not so stupid as to need a titled dunce to tell them, whether a spelling-book, which he has never read, is, in his opinion, good or bad.". ། AMERICAN Masonic Register, AND Ladies' and Gentlemen's Magazine. BY LUTHER PRATT. Happy is the man that findeth wisdom, and the man that getteth understanding for the merchandise of it is better than the merchandise of silver, and the gain thereof than fine gold. She is more precious than rubies :and all the things thou canst desire are not to be compared unto her. [No. VII.] SEPTEMBER, A. L. 5823. MASONIC. FOR THE MASONIC REGISTER. CHRISTIAN MASON, BY COMPANION SAMUEL WOODWORTH. On reviewing our speculations thus far, we discover that several important particulars have been overlooked, with which it is necessary for the Christian Mason to be made acquainted. Among these, the mysterious ladder, exhibited to the patriarch Jacob in a dream, holds a conspicuous place. To the elucidation of this most extraordinary and edifying dream, the present number shall therefore be devoted. SOLOMON. [VOL. II.] awaked out of his sleep, and he said, "Surely the Lord is in this place, and I knew it not." And he was afraid, and said, "How dreadful is this place! This is none other but the house of God; and this is the gute of Heaven.” By this instructive dream, the enlightened Christian Mason is taught that the heavenly truths derived from the WORD OF GOD, form the steps of a spiritual ladder, by which we can ascend from earth to Heaven, and by which God and his holy angels can descend to us. For who cannot see, that as often as we think of God and his angels, from a pure affection, we are present with them, and they with us? The human mind is nothing else but its supreme affection and thought; and, thereIn the 28th chapter of Genesis, it fore, wheresoever our supreme affecis written, that Jacob saw, in his tion and thought is, there our mind dream, a ladder set up on the earth, is; and, consequently, there we are and the top of it reached to Heaven; ourselves; since our real place will and behold the angels of GOD as- always be determined by that of our cending and descending on it;minds, and not by that of our bodies. and behold the LORD stood above it; and then in the verses, which presently follow, it is added, that Jacob If, then, a man's mind be in Heaven, he is there himself, although his body be still sojourning here on earth. Here, therefore, we can see is in Heaven, and with the Lord, at once, how our minds, or spirits, as it is written by the Evangelist, can ascend and descend, indepen- " The WORD was with GOD, and the dent of our bodies. Whenever we WORD was GOD, and the wORD was think of GOD, and his kingdom, || made flesh, and dwelt amongst us.” from a pure affection, we then ascend on the mysterious ladder; and whenever we think of other things with more affection than we think of them, we then descend from GOD and his kingdom. Jacob's ladder, as presented in his extraordinary dream, was composed of many steps, corresponding to the several steps or degrees of heavenly truth or knowledge, contained in the word of God, and de mind or spirit may ascend up to GOD, and GoD may descend down to us. But to discern clearly and distinctly all the several steps or degrees of that holy wisdom by which man, as the psalmist expresses it, climbs up into Heaven, and by What, then, is this spiritual lad-rived from it, whereby the human der, by which the human mind can thus ascend to God, or, as is too | often the case, descend to earth? What else can it be but that which is instrumental in raising the mind up towards GoD, and in bringing || down GoD into the mind? And what else can this be but the heaven-which Heaven and its King (as he ly truths derived from the wORD OF expresses it in another place) bow GOD? For have we not already themselves and come down to man, seen, that the mind or spirit of man is a perfection of mind, and of life, ascends as it moves towards GOD to which few perhaps have attained. and his kingdom, with its supreme There are three general steps, howthought and affection? But however, with which every enlightened can it either think rightly of GOD mason is familiar. and his kingdom, or be rightly af- The first general step in the spirfected towards them, but from and itual ladder, is the mere science of by his eternal wORD? If GOD had holy things, which is attained by never revealed to man his HOLY reading the sacred scriptures. The WORD, man would have been utterly || second general step, is the rightly incapable of exercising either his understanding of holy things, which thought or his affection aright upon is attained by meditating upon, and GOD, consequently of ascending digesting what we read in the inteltowards GOD. Every time, there- lectual mind. The third general fore, that he so exercises his thought step, is the love of holy things, which and affection, and ascends, he has a is attained by reducing our knowfull proof and demonstration, that ledge to practise, and suffering it to his mind or spirit is indebted to the influence the life and conversation, instrumentality of the eternal WORD until we love GoD and his kingdom of the MOST HIGH. above all things, and our neighbour as ourselves, for then the kingdom of Heaven is within us. The WORD OF GOD, then, is the spiritual ladder of the soul; the same ladder which the patriarch Jacob saw in his dream, set on the earth, and its top reaching unto Heaven, and the LORD standing above it. This is an exact and true description of GOD'S HOLY WORD, which as to its letter, or literal sense, is amongst men here below on earth, but as to its spirit, The first step of the mysterious ladder, or the mere science of holy things, is the first external notice of heavenly truth derived from reading the wORD OF GOD, which enters no further than the memory, and is there stored up for future use, but as yet does not influence either the understanding, or the will. And in of the world, and the lusts of the flesh. It implies, in short, that we enter upon the great work of repentance, separation, purification, and regeneration of life; in which case, our knowledge of heavenly things is exalted into a still higher or more interior principle of our life, nearer to God; and we ourselves are of course exalted with it, to a closer communion with Heaven and our Creator. this case, it is totally useless, because || contrary to the love of God and our truth, or knowledge, which enters | neighbour, such as self-love, the love no further than the memory, does not enter into the man, and of consequence cannot help him to ascend to his Maker. Take heed, therefore, how you, rest in this first step of the heavenly ladder, as too many, alas! are content to do; for, in such case, you must needs remain in that lowest step, and can never get up higher towards the heavenly kingdom. Be not satisfied with small attainments in spiritual things, but press forward towards the MARK.|| The second step of Jacob's ladder, or the understanding of holy things, implies that we consider well, so as to apprehend the truths of GOD's holy word, with the intellectual mind, by which means we shal see them to be truths, and begin to be affected by them as things of the first importance for us to become acquainted with. In this case, the heavenly truths are raised out of the memory into a higher, or more inward principle or faculty of the mind, and thus they take a faster hold of us, and exalt us also to a higher state of thought and reflection respecting the great things of GOD, and of his kingdom. But let the candidate again take heed, lest he should stop, like too many others, at this second step in the heavenly ladder; because the highest and clearest understanding of holy things cannot profit him, only so far as it is a means of conducting him to heavenly love and life, which is the third, and highest step. Pause not till you attain it; for a crown of life" awaits you. The third and highest step of the heavenly ladder, or the love of holy things, implies, that we begin to form our life or love according to the understanding which we have But take heed, (ye who expect a reward for a stone you never fash ioned) lest you should fancy that you can attain to this highest step in the mysterious ladder, without ascending by the lower steps of the science and intelligence of the word of God. For as JESUS CHRIST speaks of those who would climb up some other way into the sheepfold, rather than enter in by the door, (which is a thing impossible) so it is alike impossible for you, to climb up to the top of the heavenly ladder, without the aid of the inferior steps. With the same earnestness let me give you a further caution; never to rest on the spiritual ladder, until you attain unto the third and highest step, lest you should finally be found among those unhappy ones, who are satisfied with knowing their Lord's will, without loving and doing it; of whom it is written, "he shall be beaten with many stripes." Want of room will compel me to defer a further consideration of this subject to another number, when the reader shall be introduced to the Angels who were ascending and descending," on the mysterious ladder. ORATION. The following oration was proacquired from the WORD OF GOD;nounced in Owingsville, Kentucky, especially by noting, and renouncing all those corrupt affections and fempers, in ourselves, which are on a late celebration of the annniversary of St. John the Baptist, by brother HENRY CHILES, jr. senior | under the auspices of kings, princes, warden of Webb Lodge, No. 55. BRETHREN AND FRIENDS, and potentates; but their ephemeral existence only demonstrated the sandy and unstable foundations on which they were erected. Unable to withstand the corrosive influence of time, tossed to and fro by the angry passions of man, they were ele There is hardly any situation more embarrassing to a public speaker, than that in which the craftsman is placed, when called upon to address a mixed auditory on the sub-vated to the skies, but to be precipiject of masonry. tated to the lowest depths of obli “Sic transit gloria mundi.” But such has not been the fate of masonry. Treading on the heels of On the one hand, he feels him-vion. self impelled to vindicate the character of his order, in the face of the world, to refute its calumniators, and to remove from the minds of many, the disgraceful prejudices, and un-time, regardless of the shafts of ridigenerous impressions, which a more cule, or the attacks of calumny; reintimate knowledge of its end and gardless alike of the convulsions of design, could not fail to effect. In the physical or moral world, it has the prosecution of this laudable pur-marched on to the consummation of pose, he is often led by his zeal in the glorious purposes of its instituthe cause of truth, to expose to the tion, illuminating the world at every scrutiny of a jealous world, every step of its progress, with the rays of thing connected with the order, science and learning, dispelling the short of its absolute mysteries. The clouds of superstition and barbarism, sacred recesses of the temple are in which the intellect of uncultiva unfolded, even to the portal of the ted man is enveloped, and bursting sanctum sanctorum. He treads in- || asunder the shackles of mental sladeed the brink of a precipice, where very. By its fostering hand, the one untoward step would hurl him, science of architecture was redeemin the estimation of masons, to the ed from chaos and confusion. lowest abyss of dishonour. imagination the masonic eye, from the contemplation of the utensils and implements, that are now exhibited, only as the emblems of the order, is led back to that remote period when science and architecture were blended, and may there survey, in solemn admiration, the antique monuments of infant masonry. Fancy may be indulged, till sated with sights of grandeur, it rests in silent astonishment on the masonic columns of the sacred temple. Moriah's mount, consecrated to the On the other hand, he is reminded at every step of his progress, by his high and solemn engagements as a craftsman, to watch with masonic || vigilance, that he be not led in an unguarded moment, to overleap the ne plus ultra of his limit, and that the eye of impertinent curiosity be not suffered to penetrate the veil, which covers every thing that masons hold sacred and inviolable. In In the contemplation of masonry, nothing strikes the mind with greater astonishment, than its high anti-purposes of the Deity, was destined quity. Millions of beings have clo- to be the foundation of the noblest sed their eyes in death, since the es- edifice that human wisdom could tablishment of the institution, which devise, or human ingenuity exewas founded to promote the happi- cute. ness of mankind, and is destined to immortality. Other societies have been raised But why need I attempt a description? Its fame will survive the ruins of time, and its grandeur and |