The Well-Spent Life; A Brotherly Testimonial to the Masonic Career of Robert Morris, LL.D.

THE WELL-SPENT LIFE.

A BROTHERLY TESTIMONIAL TO THE

MASONIC CAREER

ROBERT MORRIS, LL.D.

PAST GRAND MASTER, PAST GRAND COMMANDER IN CHIEF 32°,

PAST HIGH PRIEST, ETC. ETC.

OF LA GRANGE, KENTUCKY.

COMPILED BY

REV. THOMAS R. AUSTIN, LL.D., 330,

RECTOR OF ST. JAMES' CHURCH, VINCENNES, INDIANA, PAST GRAND

MASTER, ETC.

AT THE SOLICITATION OF HIS FRIENDS.

Mini/ est quad non expugnet pertinax opera et intenta ac diligens cura. SENECA. Tam consentientibus mihi sensibus nemo est in terris.—Cicero.

LOUISVILLE, KENTUCKY.

1878.
EDITION LIMITED. FOR PRIVATE DISTRIBUTION ONLY.

Oh, living will, that shalt endure

When all that seems shall suffer shock, Rise in the spiritual rock,

Flow through our deeds and make them pure,—

That we may lift from out of dusts

A voice as unto him that hears,

A cry above the conquered years

To one that with us works, and trusts,—

With faith' that comes of self-control,

The truths that never can be proved,

Until we close with all we loved, And all we flow from, soul in soul.

TENNYSON: In Memoriam.

THE following testimony to The Well Spent Life is compiled from the contributions of numerous friends, and at their urgent request. It is somewhat hastily sent forth, at this moment, in view of the departure of our esteemed friend, July, 1878, upon his second transatlantic tour. It is felt that the Craft beyond the sea should learn in what estimate we, who have known him best, hold this man and his labors. As was said of another: "So good a person and so sweet a poet should not be without his memorial."

The influence which Dr. Morris exerts in Masonic circles in his own country is due not alone to his amazing industry and perseverance, nor entirely to his genius, versatility and cultivated parts; it is his faith in the genuineness of Masonic tradition that has made him a leader among us. In the battle we are fighting against infidelity and the overthrow of ancient things, we have accepted this gentleman — poet, moralist and historian — as our champion. Faith in the reality of Masonic tradition means, with him, adherence to the Masonic covenants, and he is recognized here, by advocate and opponent, as "the man who believes in the reality of ancient Masonry."

Animated by this faith, Dr. Morris has labored, under many adverse influences,— such as want of means, want of health, the drawback of profound indifference among the craft,—for more than thirty years. His method is seen in this brochure, where it will be found that he has not only supplied the pabulum for Masonic study in various branches, but has originated and fostered

the very taste for study itself. He has practically educated the generation of us in the knowledge of Freemasonry. The application of our adage from Seneca, therefore ("there is nothing which persevering industry may not overcome, with continued and diligent care "), is most direct to the subject of this sketch.

IS it strange that such a man —genial, modest, industrious—should wield a masterly influence at home, or that his older friends should desire that the craft abroad should know him, not only in the flesh, but in the spirit, and should gather from his own lips a little of that wealth of Masonic research accumulated in a lifetime of travel and observation here? As the child of a Galilean peasant; as the obscure camel-driver of Mecca; as the poverty-stricken student of a German university, spoke, each in his own way, such message as had been divinely entrusted to him, so (in all reverence be the parallel drawn) this American enthusiast has given out the word entrusted to him by the S. A. 0. T. U., and, lo! our half million craftsmen are "braced up, loaded and lighted " for better travel and travail in the ages to come. Believing, as he does, that his work in the Lodge Terrestrial is nearly closed, and that the task charged upon him has been mainly accomplished, he cheerfully waits the inevitable stroke, hopeful of his wages on the reckoning-day.

As intimated before, the contributions of numerous friends are woven together, not very artistically to be sure, to make up this Testimonial. The notes are condensed from a mass of correspondence and printed matter running through thirty years, so, that among the contributors are more representatives of dead friends than of living ones. Had not our space been limited, this work were many times larger.

A word as to my own part in this Testimonial, and L'Envoi will resign the pen. I have personally known Dr. Morris since 1852. For a number of years we were neighbors, nothing but the Ohio river separating us. Of equal age, of kindred tastes, I received from him those instructions in symbolical Masonry which

for so many years I have, communicated to others. One of my sons bears his name. More than one of his popular 'effusions was composed, as he says, " to embody the intimacy of friendship that makes us one." Each was long since pledged to the other to perform the last rites of Masonry due the departed. So I will let Cicero speak for us in his words, "there is no man in all the world whose sentiments so perfectly agree with mine." It seems, therefore, that in making up this brief record of The Well-spent Life, I am but performing the part due to so long, so near and so prized a friendship. And if any kind hand shall write the parting word for me, when "the silver cord is loosed" and the golden " bowl broken," I hope he will feel at liberty to incorporate the sentiment of that most amiable poet, Ovid:

Plena full vobis onzni concordia vita

Et stela ad finem longa tenatque fides.

T. R. A.

ST. JAMES' RECTORY, VINCENNES, INDIANA,

May, 1878.

THE LEVEL AND THE SQUARE.

UR Masonic poet, Robert Morris, has given us, as from a perennial fountain, more than three hundred effusions in form of odes and poems; but none wear so well with old admirers, none secure so speedily the favor of the newly-initiate, as his conception of August, 1854, which has "gone out through all the earth" under the name of The Level and the Square. It is the Masonic song of the age, tending to the immortal.

Eighteen years since, Brother George Oliver, D.D., eminent above all others in English Masonry, and the Masonic writer for all time, said of this piece: "brother Morris has composed many fervent, eloquent and highly-poetic compositions — songs that will not die,—but in The Level and the Square he- has breathed out his depths of feeling, fervency and pathos with brilliancy and vigor of language, and expressed his faith in the immortal life beyond the grave."

We meet upon the LEVEL and we part upon the SQUARE: What words sublimely beautiful those words Masonic are! Come, let us contemplate them-,—they are worthy of a thought; On the very walls of Masonry the sentiment is wrought.

We meet upon the LEVEL, though from every_, station come—The rich man from his mansion and the laborer from his home; For the rich must leave his princely state outside the Mason's door, While the laborer feels himself a man upon the Checkered Floor.

We act upon the Plumb,—'tis the order of the GUIDE;

We walk upright in virtue's way, and lean to neither side;

The ALL-SEEING EYE that leads our hearts will bear us witness true That we still try to honor GOD and give each man his due.

We part upon the SQUARE, for the world must have its due; We mingle in the haunts of men, but keep our manhood true; But the influence of our gatherings is always fresh and green, And we long, upon the LEVEL, to renew the happy scene.

There's a world where all are equal,—we are hurrying toward it fast: We shall meet upon the LEVEL there, when the gates of death are past. We shall stand before THE ORIENT, and THE MASTER will be there, Our works to try, our lives to prove, by His unerring SQUARE.

We shall meet upon the LEVEL there, but nevermore depart: There's a MANSION, bright and glorious, set for the "pure in heart": There's a MANSION and a welcome, and a multitude is there Who in this world of sloth and sin did act upon the SQUARE.

Let us meet upon the LEVEL, then, while laboring patient here: Let us meet and let us labor, though the labor is severe. Already in the western sky the signs bid us prepare

To gather up our WORKING-TOOLS and part upon the SQUARE.

Hands round, ye Royal Brotherhood, close in the Golden Chain: We part upon the SQUARE below, to meet in Heaven again. Each link that has been broken here shall be united there,

And none be lost around the THRONE who've acted on the SQUARE.

Periodically published in Masonic journals, quoted in a thousand orations, seen in fragments in innumerable epitaphs, musically wedded to sixteen airs, declaimed by traveling performers, and embodied in many "Gems of Reading," this effusion deserves best of all to herald our sketch of The Well Spent Life.

THE WELL-SPENT LIFE.

T was remarked by an English traveler in America, that " when Freemasonry was named in his hearing, the name of Rob. Morris often followed. The mystic brotherhood between the two oceans had not been favored with so many talented and industrious laborers, whose lives of brotherly duty and responsibility are spent in their service, that they can afford to slight the work of any; and Brother Morris was thought to merit the large share of the honor and respect which they yield to the advocate and hero of symbolical Masonry."

In the same spirit we now record that the friends of this veteran scholar and workman will not suffer him to leave American shores again, until this memorial has been set up of his devotion to Masonic interests and his contributions to Masonic knowledge. To all, therefore, who respect disinterested service in a noble calling, our testimonial is addressed.

AS AN APPLICANT FOR MASONIC LIGHT.

The subject of our eulogy was born into Masonic light in Oxford, now Gathwright Lodge, No. 33, at Oxford, Mississippi, on the 5th of March, 1846, being then 28 years of age (born August 31, 1818). Prof. Morris was at the time Principal of Mount Sylvan Academy, in the vicinity of Oxford, a local institution of repute. In a letter, accompanying this petition, he said: "I esteem the Masonic craft as in time, the oldest; in honors, the most eminent; in membership, the most numerous; in scope, the broadest of earth-born societies." That he rode over rough and rugged ways, twelve miles, and through a down-pour of rain, to be made a Ma‑

son, and was home again before sunrise, demonstrates the zeal with which he began his Masonic inquiries.

The second and third degrees were given him on the eve of July 3, following, and in time to take part in the ceremonial of planting

the corner-stone of the UNIVERSITY OF THE STATE OF MISSISSIPPI,

July 4, 1846, an institution that has since attained to literary eminence. His Master in Blue Lodge Masonry, still living and crowned with age and honor, was Judge James M. Howry, since Past Grand Master of Mississippi, and of the Board of Regents of the university.

AS A SEEKER OF MORE LIGHT.

Grouping together the Masonic Degrees and Orders along which Brother Morris has advanced, we lay them down in order, thus: The BLUE LODGE, as above stated, 1846.

The ROYAL ARCH, consisting of the degrees of Mark Master, Past Master, Most Excellent Master and Royal Arch Mason, at Lexington, Mississippi, 1848.

The, CRYPTIC RITE, consisting of the degrees of Royal Master, Select Master, and Super-excellent Master, at Natchez, Mississippi, 185o, and New York, 1864.

The TEMPLARY ORDERS, upon the American plan, consisting of the Orders of Red Cross Knights, Knights Templar, and Knights of Malta, at Jackson, Mississippi, 185o. In these, Jesus Christ is the grand model and example for all exigencies of life.

The SCOTTISH RITE, as far as to the 32d degree inclusive_? at New York, 1854, from the skillful inculcations of Hon. Giles F. Yates, 33d degree.

The RITE OF MEMPHIS, as far as to the 9oth degree inclusive, at New York, 1864, from Most Illustrious Harry Seymour, 96th degree.

The ENCAMPMENT ORDERS OF ENGLISH TEMPLARY, at Ottawa, Canada, 1857, from Col. Moore, as below.

The very large number of honorary appendages to Masonry,

with which Dr. Morris has been intrusted, are given here only in part. The three official orders of Royal Arch Masonry (First Principal Z, Second Principal J, and Third Principal H,) were communicated in 1859 by that truly eminent Mason, Thompson Wilson, Grand Z, of Canada; that of Past Eminent Commander, by the Very Illustrious Col. W. J. B. McLeod Moore, Great Prior of Canada, 1857, and a writer of singular ability upon all questions of chivalry; that of High Priest, ,according to the American system, by Most Excellent M. J. Drummond, Grand High Priest of New Jersey, 1854. The Masonic and Military Orders of the Knights of Rome, and of the Red Cross of Constantine, were first communicated by Col. Moore, 1857, and afterward according to the perfected system, by the distinguished Thomas Bird Harris, Grand. Secretary of Canada, 1873. The Order of Past Grand Master, as formerly communicated in Kentucky, but now obsolete, was given him at his installation as Grand Master of Kentucky, October, 1858, the venerable and well-beloved Hon. Henry Wingate, Past Grand Master, presiding. In the last pages of this brochure are given the certificates of the Strict Observance, etc., which speak for themselves.

So many of Dr. Morris' diplomas and official jewels were destroyed in the burning of his house, "The Three Cedars," at LaGrange, Kentucky, November, 1861, and in the terrible conflagration of Chicago, October, 1871, that no accurate list can now be given of them. It is within bounds, however, to assert that the number of Honorary Degrees and Complimentary Memberships with which his signal services have been recognized in America and abroad exceeds one hundred; among them that of Past Deputy Grand Master of the Grand Lodge of Canada is chiefly prized. Dr. Morris recalls a list of one hundred and forty-three regular degrees and orders in Masonry, whose covenants he has assumed. In 1856 he made this summary of them in a symbolical strain of thought:

"I have been around, under and through the temple of Masonry,

searching out its foundations, its builders and its trestle board. With its, builders I have handled, in turn, each of its implements; with the Entered Apprentice, trimming the rough ashler on the checkered pavement; with the Fellow Craft moralizing upon the pillars of the porch, and the fifteen grades of the winding stairs; with the Master Mason, smoothing the indissoluble cement with silent awe; with the Mark Master I have penetrated the quarries, found my own best block, brought it up for a place in the walls, and claimed my penny with the rest; for I never have received, of salary or official emolument, to the value of one Jewish half shekel of silver. I have shared the responsibilities of the Past Master, seated in the Oriental Chair of King Solomon. As a Most Excellent Master, my hands have aided to rear the capstone to its place, while my lips have sung the triumphant strain, All Bail to the Morning, of Thomas Smith Webb, and my face was bowed to the pavement in acknowledgment of the descent of fire and cloud. As a Royal Arch Mason, returning from exile in Babylon, my feet have wandered, weary and sore, over rough and rugged ways, seeking the Sacred Hill. As a Select Master, I have wrought in silence, secrecy and darkness, upon the mystic arches within the Holy Mountain. I have stood as a Knight Templar with companions loyal and brave, wielding my brand, Excalibur, two-edged and cross-hilted, while guarding the SHRINE where the body of MY DEPARTED LORD was laid. In all my career as a Mason I have ever held that excellence is granted to man only in return for labor, and that nothing is worth having that is not difficult to acquire. My life has been, thus far, a contest with obstacles; but no man would be what he is, had he tamely suffered the difficulties of life to overcome him."

HIS PRESENT AFFILIATIONS.

Dr. Morris' present affiliations are:

FORTITUDE LODGE, No. 47, La Grange, Kentucky. (By a singular coincidence this lodge was born the week after he was).

EMINENCE ROYAL ARCH CHAPTER, NO. 121, Eminence, Kentucky. (A village-place 12 miles distant).

LOUISVILLE COMMANDERY, No. 1, of Knights Templar, Louisville, Kentucky.

KENTUCKY SUPREME CONSISTORY, S:. P.% R:. S:. 32d degree,

Louisville, Kentucky. (The principal city of Kentucky, 27 miles distant).

AS AN OPPONENT OF IMITATIVE ORDERS.

It has become so common a custom with Freemasons in America to join the modern fraternities with which the country abounds —societies that borrow whatever of merit they possess from ancient craft masonry — that it is well to say here, Dr. Morris accepts no fellowship with them. Long since he confessed his sympathy with the sentiment which Shakespeare puts in the mouth of his heroine:

"'Tis not the many oaths that make the truth, But the plain, single vow that is vowed true."

In response to the invitation of a popular society, he said: " I shall not unite in this movement, 'for, with Horace, I had rather draw my glass of water from a great river than a little rill. I find that Freemasonry, rightly worked, consumes as much time, and as large means as I can spare.

Your little systems have their day—They have their day and cease to be, These broken lights of Masonry."

AS A LABORER IN MASONIC LITERATURE.

The mere biography of Brother Morris is of comparatively little importance. It is his poetry, his sketches, his other works, that make his life. If any Masonic literature of the 19th century endures, his productions may, we think, be commended to the best minds of the future. At present, American Masons view them as not only a valuable, but indispensable appendage to every Masonic collection. We name them, for convenience, in groups:

MASONIC JURISPRUDENCE. — Code of Masonic Law, 1855; the first work upon this subject ever issued.

MASONIC RITUALS AND HAND-BOOKS.—Freemasons' Monitor, 12 degrees, 1859; Miniature Monitor, 3 degrees; Eastern Star Manual, 1859; Rosary of Eastern Star, 1865; Guide to High Priesthood, 1865; Ritual of Knight Templary, 1858. Special Help for Wor‑

shipful Master; same for Senior Deacon; same for Secretary; Funeral Book of Freemasons—all four were published in 1866. Prudence Book of the Freemasons, 1859; Masonic Ladder, 1866; Dictionary of Freemasonry, 1867; Guide to the Consecration of Masonic Cemeteries, 1857; Discipline of Masonic Offenders, 1860.

MASONIC BELLES-LETTRES.^— Masonic Poems, 1864 and 1876; Lights and Shadows of Freemasonry, 1852; Life in the Triangle, 1853; The Two Saint Johns, 1854; Lodge at Mystic, 1862; Tales of Masonic Life, 1860.

MASONIC HISTORY AND BIOGRAPHY. — Freemasons' Almanacs, 1860, 1, 2, 3, 5; Masonic Reminiscences, 1857; History of Freemasonry in Kentucky, 1859; Life of Eli Bruce, 1859.

MASONIC REPUBLICATIONS.^—in a series of 30 octavo volumes, under the general title of Universal Masonic Library, are comprised 56 distinct works, including writings of Oliver, Mackey, Town, Portal, Preston, Hutchinson, George Smith, Morris, Anderson, Harris, Calcott, Ashe, Lawrie, DeVertot, Gourdin, Taylor, Creigh, Brown, Morton, Arnold, Towne.

TRAVELS.—Freemasonry in Holy Land, 1872.

MASONIC PERIODICALS. — Kentucky Freemason, 1853; American Freemason, 1853-8; Voice of Masonry, 1859-67; Light in Masonry, 1873.

Of all these and others, of which the compiler has not procured even the titles, it may truthfully be said, as Lyttleton, in his eulogy of Cowper:

"Not one immoral, one corrupted thought,

One line which, dying, he would wish to blot."

His rule of life, from the commencement of labor as a Masonic journalist, was borrowed from Addison: "I promise never to draw a faulty character, which does not fit at least a thousand people, or to publish a single paper that is not written in the spirit of benevolence, and with a love of mankind."

Dr. Morris was selected, by the editor of "Appleton's American
Cyclopædia" (16 vols., 1875), to write the articles on Freemasonry.
A most rapid maker of copy, he continues, from week to week,
much of that sort of literary labor styled "the fugitive," being a
contributor to the following Masonic periodicals, viz: The Review,

Keystone, Advocate, New York Dispatch, and Jewel; also of newspapers and magazines of other classes.

The mere labor involved in some of the works above catalogued, will appear incredible to persons not familiar with his natural and acquired facility and amazing industry. In gathering materials for his History of Freemasonry in Kentucky (said by a noted critic to be " a monument of amazing labors, he examined, column by column, the files of a London daily newspaper, in the Congressional Library at Washington, from 1690 to 1800; also the files of all Kentucky papers from their origin to 1859. The three little books, styled "Special Helps," are elaborated entirely from his private notes made while occupying the official stations, respectively, of Deacon, Secretary and Master. The brilliant and exhaustive reports upon Foreign Correspondence, made to the Grand Lodge of Kentucky, were, for man^y years, from his pen, and he is now engaged upon the annual paper, of that class, for the Grand Lodge of Kentucky, for its session of October, 1878. To prepare one of these requires the examination of the Proceedings of 66 Grand Lodges, aggregating some 10,000 pages of printed matter!

The Constitution of the Grand Encampment of Knights Templar of the United States was drafted by Dr. Morris in 1856, and that of the Grand Lodge of Kentucky in 1860. His "Standard Form of By Laws for Constituent Lodges," approved by several Grand Lodges, has gone largely into use.

AS A MASONIC ORATOR.

In the matter of orations, lectures and addresses (public and private) before Masonic organizations, the number delivered by Dr. Morris may be reckoned by thousands, and if to these be added his efforts before collegiate institutions, lyceums and religious and literary conventions, the figures may be doubled. He was the "Grand Orator," technically so called, for the Grand Commandery of Kentucky, 1878; Grand Lodge of Missouri, 1856; Grand Lodge

of Iowa, 1857; Grand Lodge of Florida, 1858; Grand Lodge of District of Columbia, 1858, etc.

Extensive and varied as this " one-man's conceptions " may appear, yet our list does but partial justice to this WELL SPENT LIFE, for in the SUNDAY-SCHOOL LITERATURE of America his hand appears in scores of odes, sketches and addresses, and two considerable works of travel in Holy Land, written by him for Biblical readers, are found in the bookstores.

"As we call any building or piece of architecture perfect which has all its parts, and is finished and completed according to the nicest rules of art, a brother is in like manner said to be a good Mason who has studied and knows himself, and has learnt, and practices, the first and chief end of subduing his passions and his will, and tries to the utmost of his power to free himself from all vices, errors and imperfections, not only those that proceed from the heart, but, likewise, all other defects of the understanding which are caused by custom, opinion, prejudice and superstition."

In the science of historical numismatics in America Dr. Morris is one of the pioneers,— his monograph, entitled " The Twelve Cæsars, Illustrated by Readings of 217 of their Coins and Medals," being the first issue of its class west of the Atlantic. He publishes The Numismatic Pilot, devoted to the explication of ancient coins, and is a regular contributor to the periodicals of that science. .Finally, when we say that at his home at La Grange, Kentucky, Dr. Morris has been known as chairman of the municipal board, president of the county Bible society, and a ruling elder in the Presbyterian Church, the reader will justly concede that our subject is a man of no common industry or gifts; nor is it strange that his residence, "The Apricots," the seat of hospitality, is the Mecca to many a guest, to whom the latch-string (in Kentucky parlance) always hangs outside! The genial dame who presides there is a helpmeet to her husband, to whom the vicissitudes of thirty-seven years have but the more closely endeared her. Six children, at the head of as many families, have enlarged

the original circle by a bevy of grandchildren, whose visits to the suburban home bring song and gladness to the old folks.

The literary honor of LL.D. (Doctor IN LAWS) was conferred upon him, ex emerito, in 1860, by the Masonic University of Kentucky, - an institution, shattered in the civil commotions of the period, that deserved a better fate.

THE OFFICIAL POSITIONS OF DR. MORRIS.

Our Masonic veteran is noted not merely for brilliancy of conception and fertility of resources as an author, but for extraordinary rapidity of execution in the communication of Freemasonry. Whether as Deacon, Master or Grand Master, his ability in pushing the work is remarked. His Masonic SCHOOLS OF INSTRUCTION, 18₅8-60, of which ten were national, and thronged with the highest workmen of the American lodges, gave such evidence of this, that at Cleveland, Ohio, August, 186o, five hundred brethren, of the most select classes, testified, by rising vote, that " the correct taste and clear judgment of Past Grand Master Morris as a writer are only equaled by his thorough acquaintance with the minutia of the Masonic work." The motto of that, school expressed the spirit that actuated both teachers and pupils: "There is a certain wonderful gratification and delight in gaining knowledge " ( Mira qucedam in cognoscendo suavitas et delectatio).

Such a man naturally seeks for something to do, and from 1846, when he served as Junior Deacon (Inside Guard) of his alma mater lodge, the hand of Brother Morris has ever wielded rod or gavel, sceptre or sword in his visits to tyler precincts. He reckons that he has conferred fifteen thousand Masonic degrees! Fit fabricando faber was the motto to his official circulars when Grand Lecturer of Tennessee in 1851-2, and his advice to office-bearers was uniformly in the following strain: "There is no form of soliciting a reelection to office so honorable, none so irresistible as that of filling the office well while you have it."

The official positions held by Dr. Morris during thirty-two years

are very numerous: Grand Lecturer of Tennessee and Kentucky, 1850-54; Worshipful Master of various lodges; Most Excellent High Priest; Eminent Commander; Thrice Illustrious Grand Master (Cryptic Rite); Grand Commander-in-Chief Princes of Royal Secret, 32d degree, Supreme Consistory of Kentucky, 1859-60; Chief Conservator, 186o-65; Most Worshipful Grand Master of Masons of the Grand Lodge of Kentucky, 1858-9; Grand Patron of the Order of Eastern Star, etc.

The spirit of inquiry which led our now veteran brother to acquire the minutiae of the Masonic drama, from lowest to highest, has impelled him to take a part in many of the public demonstrations of the order in America, among which may be named the consecration of Freemasons' Hall, in Philadelphia, Pa., in 1855 that of the statue of Warren, on Bunker Hill, Mass., 1857; that of the statue of Washington, at Richmond, Va., 1857; planting the corner stone of the Henry Clay monument, at Lexington, Ky., 1857, and of the Western Kentucky College, at Lodgeton, Ky., 1856; the Centennial of St. John's Lodge, Providence, R. I., 1856; the State Normal School, Terre Haute, Indiana, 1867, and many others of less interest.

The rolls of various Grand Lodges, etc., exhibit the readiness of the fraternity to adopt his name as their own, and "Rob. Morris Lodge," "Rob. Morris Chapter," etc., are terms of frequent use in Kentucky, Indiana, Illinois, Wisconsin, New York, and elsewhere.

HIS " LIGHTS AND SHADOWS OF MASONRY."

To one of his literary adventures, a special paragraph is due. In 1852 Dr. Morris gathered up the numerous observations made while visiting the lodges of Tennessee as Grand Lecturer, and out

of them compiled a volume styled LIGHTS AND SHADOWS OF FREEMASONRY. Concerning this work a cotemporary of high repute wrote, a year afterward: "This is the first effort in Masonic belles-lettres ever made. The book is a series of Masonic tales and

sketches drawn from real life, every page presenting an exoteric surface, which conceals from the unintelligent an esoteric meaning. Its popularity has been wonderful." A few years afterward Mr. Allibone, in his Dictionary of American Authors, says:

"MORRIS, ROBERT—Lights and Shadows of Freemasonry. There is perhaps no Masonic book on this continent, save our ordinary monitors, which has had so large a circulation as this. Brother Morris is the Masonic Dickens of America; and from his extensive travel and close observations he has been able to supply his ready pen with facts of the most important interest to the Craft. No Mason should be without the LIGHTS AND SHADOWS."

A critical journal, as late as 186₄, thus alludes to the volume: "The book went forth upon its own wings, for it was never named in a bookseller's catalogue. Whenever a copy was purchased, it was read as no Masonic production had been. Often it was read, re-read, lent out, relent, worn-out, and a new one ordered. Ragged copies of it are seen in many a Masonic home through the South and West. Its characteristic terms have become technical in American lodges. The Church Trial, Tim, Bertisor, the Stone-Squares Lodge, and other pieces, have been reproduced in every possible form, and yet its influence upon Masons was not more remarkable than its influence upon non-Masons. The effect upon the profane was unprecedented. Thousands of initiates, who have passed the portals of our lodges since 1852, confess that they borrowed much of the `favorable opinion,' expressed in their petitions, from this work of Rob. Morris. More than one Mason, who has dignified the highest places known to the Craft, has admitted the same thing."

In various numismatic societies his name appears; he is secretary of the American Association of Numismatists; honorary member of the Numismatic and Antiquarian Society of Montreal, Canada; the Boston Numismatic Society, and the New London (Connecticut) Historical Society, and active member of the (New York) American Numismatic and Archaeological Society.

HIS PHRENOLOGICAL DEVELOPMENTS.

In 1856, by request of the New York Masons, Dr. Fowler, the celebrated character-reader and phrenologist, took Dr. Morris in hand, and after a most searching examination, furnished in writing the following reading. If all Dr. Fowler's conclusions are as accurate as these, his science has more to recommend it than many believe, for it is certain that he had not the slightest acquaintance with the subject before him.

You have an unusual temperament and organization. Your tone of mind is peculiar and your abilities are available, especially in the higher channels of mental development.

Your physiology indicates naturally a strong constitution. There is a great amount of mental activity, susceptibility, and ardor of mind. You are noted in all your section of the country for your industry and desire to be constantly employed. You have a fair degree of the motive or muscular temperament, but there is a quality in your constitution that is hereditary, that gives you ability to perform labor and execute business. You, however, need the vital temperament. There is not enough of it to give you the warmth, pliability, easiness of disposition, and coziness of feeling, necessary to sit down and enjoy life. You exhaust vitality faster than it is supplied, and you are coming to a premature grave unless you take life a little easier. You are spending your life too much for others. You must turn the tables and take sympathy from others, allowing yourself to be strengthened instead of exhausted by your contact with society.

You have a quality of organization that is very susceptible of culture, so much so that you can use every element of your nature, but your present state of system is enfeebled by long process of over-action.

Your brain is of full size. You are known for having a high degree of the moral, reflective, intellectual, imaginative and social faculties. The weakest elements of your mind are connected with the perceptive intellect and the animal brain. You are not much attached to life. You care less for real physical pleasure than most men, and enjoy yourself the most in the higher exercises of your mind. The influence you exert over others is connected

with sentiment, thought and affection. You are friendly and make friends easily; are fond of children; parental in your feelings; enjoy the family relations, and are much interested in general domestic matters; hence you easily ingratiate yourself into the affections of all— the old and young, married and single.

You love country, are fond of home, and have a place for things.

You are somewhat gallant, but you really have not time to stop and talk long with the ladies, do not spend much time in their company for mere social enjoyment.

You love variety in business, and you do everything up with dispatch. Your thoughts and feelings are more intense than connected.

You are sharp in your spirit of resistance, and ever ready to put on the harness and labor to overcome the impediments in your way; but you are wanting in the elements of destructiveness. You would prefer to go without your dinner than to kill for the purpose of having one, especially any animal that grew up around the house. You are in feeling opposed to capital punishment and all kinds of severities; but you have courage to any extent, and are disposed to put forth more than ordinary effort in a debate where you have even file odds against you.

Your sense of food is average. You eat as a matter of necessity. You more often think it is a waste of time than a source of pleasure to eat. You value property as a means of gratifying your other faculties, but your object is not attained when you have merely accumulated wealth. You can exercise tact and conceal your feelings if the occasion requires, but are more characterized for caution, prudence, solicitude, and apprehensiveness of mind, than you are for cunning, art, tact, and intrigue.

You are ambitious, have been so from a boy; are never satisfied unless you are doing something that shall give you a name and reputation; could not live in a private sphere and devote yourself to your own individual interests, but you are anxious to gain a reputation for yourself.

You are not only social, but you are easy, affable, polite and entertaining. You have a fair degree of dignity, pride and self-respect; can be quite manly when the occasion requires it, but usually you are more affable and familiar than dignified.

You are firm, determined, persevering, rather tenacious, and in all business transactions, where cruelty is not required, you are stable, determined and fixed.

Your moral faculties are all large. You come from a religious, sentimental, enthusiastic family. Very few persons have the amount of moral activity and enthusiasm that you possess, and the influence you exert over others is of a moral nature; hence you do not fail to render yourself popular, and you inspire more confidence than most men in your contact with society. You are conscientious, and have quite a distinct idea of right, justice and duty. You have high hopes and bright anticipations, which lead you to promise much and expect much. You have strong faith in an ever-ruling Providence. Your thoughts and feelings amplify, and you have more to say when you get through a speech than when you commenced.

You have a consciousness of a Supreme Being. You could easily get the credit of being pious, whether you were or not.

You have rather an excess of sympathy, and at once embrace the cause of your neighbor and devote yourself to the interests of others.

Your mechanical ability is fair, but it takes a literary rather than a physical direction.

You are versatile in your talents, but not skillful in the use of tools.

You have strong imagination, more than ordinary scope of mind, great love of beauty and poetry, are most decidedly sentimental, fond of the sublime and grand, are full of the elements of oratory, quite imitative, and you act out your thoughts and feelings with your whole body, and employ gestures as well as forcible, impressive and characteristic language. You are naturally theatrical. You love fun, enjoy wit, are prompt in a joke and quite successful in making fun. You are not so much a man of the world, not posted up in details and particulars, not minute in observation nor particularly scientific in your knowledge, but are given to philosophizing and theorizing, to reason, to investigation of abstract principles, to the presentation of laws and plans.

Your sense of order is rather good. Local memory is comparatively good. Command of language is favorable; but your forte is not so much in the amount of language you can command as in the amount of thought you convey in your language. When animated, you exhibit no want of copiousness; still, at times you fail to come to the point directly and give definiteness to your thoughts.

Your memory of disconnected facts and statistics is poor, and

your musical talent and knowledge of dates appear to be poor; but you remember general principles, historical facts or anything that is directly to the point and illustrates your idea.

You are shrewd in your discernment of character, are quick to read the minds of others, and are most decidedly youthful and entertaining.

Your whole mind is crippled for the want of vital power to sustain you and enable you to go to the full extent of your desires. You must stop for a while and^, take life easier; recruit; live among the mountains and devote yourself to rural life, driving a horse or doing something that admits of physical exercise and not much mental action.

AS THE CHIEF CONSERVATOR.

An allusion has been made to attacks more or less virulent upon our eminent Mason. These originated in the establishment of a society, in 1860, of which Dr. Morris was chief, entitled The Order of Conservators. The purpose of this institution was to rectify certain great evils that had crept into the American lodges for want of uniform rituals. Never was a movement more popular. The society of conservators grew in two years to such proportions as to number nearly three thousand members, who represented high Masonic intelligence in nearly every state. But, although its aims were high, its purposes innocent and its numbers so great, grand lodges would not tolerate a movement that seemed to affect their own prerogatives, and the project was abandoned before half the period to which it was limited had expired. As the prime mover and chief of this order, Dr. Morris received torrents of abuse. He took them, however, stoically, in his own way, and good-naturedly, and readily submitted to the edicts that caused the dissolution of his favorite scheme. He has never been hasty to cast off aspersion, believing that malignant charges, if borne awhile in silence, will, like mud thrown upon clothes, dry and fall off of themselves. His magnanimity under injury was seen in his public eulogy at the burial of

____ , a high Mason who had been one of his worst detractors while chief conservator, and his manner of rebuke, in the cele‑

brated reply to — who had done him almost irreparable injury. It is Cowper's verse to a mad bull:

"I care not whether east or west,

So I no more may find thee:

The angry muse thus sings thee forth,

And shuts the gate behind thee."

These things, however, are now past and forgotten. Abuse and abusers are equally silent, but the old conservators are found in the van of all the Masonic societies of America, and their chief, if ever blamed, has long since been pardoned. As he said in his "Defense of Conservatism," in 1864, "what we did not well we meant well. To preserve courtesy and personal respect amidst such opposition is in itself a victory, whose fruits, though late to ripen, are precious and sweet to me. Never to despair and never to draw back is a motto with me from a child. In all our work as Conservators we had regard to the sentiment of Cicero: Sacred thins must be preserved inviolate."

The basis of the Conservators' movement is seen in the following article from his pen: