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Yet let us fasten upon it nothing hard and fast that liberally rewarded by your existing as representative
serves well enough to make it useful today, but renders of the spirit that actuates you as citizens of our
it useless tomorrow. As the apprentice stands in the community. You have made a liberal contribution to
corner of the lodge the working tools are put in his the civilization of your time.
hands and he is taught their uses. But they are not his.
They are the tools of the lodges. He is to use them More than all else, however, is the infl uence which
that the Worshipful Master may have pleasure and the is to radiate from that mystical temple composed of
Craft profi t. The Grand Master of the Universe has the lives of your members lived in the midst of their
entrusted to us the principles of Masonry as working neighbors. As a light that shines out to illuminate and
tools. They, too, are not ours, they belong to the Lodge beautify what was once darkness and waste spaces, so
of the World. We are to use them that He may have may the light of Masonry shine out from you and bless
pleasure and the Craft of humanity that labors in this your community.
wide Lodge of the World may profi t thereby."

Brethren of the Craft, you have a splendid history
behind you. Rough and rugged at times the way you
have been compelled to trod. But your labors have been

The Story of Life

Only the same old story told in a diff erent strain;
Sometimes a smile of gladness, and then a stab of pain;
Sometimes a fl ash of sunlight, again the drifting rain.

Sometimes it seems to borrow from the Rose its crimson hue;
Sometimes black with thunder, then changed to a brilliant blue;
Sometimes as false as Satan, sometimes as Heaven true.

Only the same old story, but oh! how the changes ring!
Prophet and priest, and peasant, soldier and scholar, and king;
Sometimes the warmest handclasp leaves in the palm a sting.

Sometimes in the hash of even, sometimes in the mid-day strife;
Sometimes with dove-like calmness, sometimes with passion rife,
We dream it, write it, live it - this weird, wild story of life.

author unknown
from the Boston Transcript, 1892

Volume 95 Number 1 Montana Freemason Page 37