PRINCE EDWARD ISLAND.

How lovely is this charity. It constitutes highest dignity of human nature, elevating and refining our feelings. It causes men to look with kindness on each other and to view no one as a stranger whose joys can be heightened, whose wants can be supplied or whose sorrows can be soothed. Masonry considers no object beneath its notice that can be benefited by it. It is always foremost to promote human happiness. It teaches beautiful lessons of brotherly love, and big- otry finds no shelter in its creed. It has had a most glorious career. We are informed that the “usages and customs of Freema- sonry have ever borne a near affinity to those of the ancient Egyptians,” and that the sys— tem of Pythagoras was founded on a similar principle as well as many others of more re— cent date. The Rev. A. F. A. Woodford, in treating of the Egyptian mysteries, says, “Most of the earlier sages of Greece, like Pythagoras and Plato, are said to have been initiated in Egypt.” Pythagoras certainly visited Egypt about 500 B. C. and gained the confidence of the priests, from whom he learned many secrets, and on his way be vis- ited Phaanicia, where he was initiated by other priests into their mysteries. On his return he settled in Crotona, and formulated and taught his doctrines, which, according to Aristotle, were the first that determined anything in moral philosophy. “Their ethics were of the loftiest and most spiritual de- scription; virtue was with them a harmony, unity, and an endeavor to resemble the Deity; the whole life of man should be an attempt to represent on earth the beauty and harmony displayed in the order of the uni- verse; the mind should have the body and passions under perfect control; the gods should be worshiped by simple purifications, and, above all, the sincerity and purity of

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heart." Pythagoras instituted among his dis- ciples secret worship, or mysteries, and they were also taught the science of numbers, ge- ometry and music; and the various discoveries in mathematics, musicandastronomy ascribed to Pythagoras are proofs of the mighty im? pression he made on his contemporaries, as well as in after ages, and from the great re- spect which he paid to geometry all Masons have ever hailed him as an ancient brother, his system being certainly a close approxi- mation to the science of Freemasonry.”

Amongst the Jews the sect of the Essenes bore a great similarity to the Freemasons in their life and practice. Brother Woodford is strongly in favor of the theory of guild de- scent for modern Masonry.

The history of Freemasonry in Prince Edward Island dates back to 1797, when this Island was known as the Island of St. John. In that year a number of Masons re- siding in Charlottetown applied to the pro- vincial grand master of the Most Ancient and Honorable Fraternity of Free and Accepted Masons of Nova Scotia for a warrant of con- stitution. The warrant was issued at Hali- fax, Nova Scotia, on the 9th day of Octo- ber, 1797, signed by Richard Bulkley, grand master, and associate officers, including John Selby, grand secretary. It empowered the petitioners to open a lodge at the house of Alexander Richardson or elsewhere in Char- lottetown, in the Island of St. John on the second Tuesday in each calendar month, and on all seasonable times and on all lawful oc- msions, appointing Ebenezer Nicholson wor- shipful master, William Hillman senior war- den, and Robert Lee, junior warden. The membership included General Edward Fan- ning, who in I797 waslieutenant governor of the said Island and a charter member of said lodge, also James Colledge, Peter Mac‘