PREFACE. IN claiming the attention of the reader to the present volume, it may be proper for me to state, that it originated in a wish to aid those charities which are at once the boast and ornament of our order, and more particularly to strengthen that which I conceive to be so full of promise -THE PROJECTED "ASYLUM FOR THE AGED AND DECAYED FREE-MASON." In waiving, for myself, all pecuniary advantage, the far higher gratification will be mine of devoting the entire proceeds of the copyright to Masonic charity. If the reader will bear in mind this design, some defects will more readily be excused. Moreover, it is incumbent on me to state, clearly and candidly, that some three or four of these sketches have appeared elsewhere. 66 Canning in Retirement," "The Foreign Sorceress and the British Statesman," "A Sovereign, a Lady in Waiting, and a Secret," figured in the fugitive literature of the day; while "The Measure meted out to Others, measured to us again," was honoured with a niche in "Blackwood." Would they were, one and all, more worthy of the cause they are designed to serve! That some of the inferences which they suggest will be controverted is probable enough: especially such as have reference to the condition of the poor. Let me hope, however, that whatever deficiency my brochure may contain, there will be found in it no want of Christian tenderness. For the rest "None of these things move me!". Who is it that says: "The triumphs in evil which men call great, are but clouds passing over the serene and everlasting heavens. Men may, in craft or passion, decree violence and oppression; but silently, irresistibly, they and their works are swept away. A voice of encouragement comes to us from the ruins of the past-from the humiliations of the proud, from the prostrate thrones of conquerors, from the baffled schemes of statesmen, from the reprobation which sooner or later visits unrighteous policy. Men, measures, and all earthly interests pass away; but PRINCIPLES ARE ETERNAL. Truth, justice, and goodness partake of the omnipotence and immutableness of God, whose essence they are. In these it becomes us to place a calm, joyful, and unfaltering trust in the darkest hour. "Shall not the judge of all the earth do right?" Rectory, E. |