Miss Elizabeth Davis, at the time little more than seventeen years of age. They lived happily together. She was the friend who read to him the friend who shared his mental thoughts-the friend who imbibed the precious stream of masonic influence from his words. Often would she come and visit us in our study; and, without a betrayal of more than she thought fit-preserving with woman's wit her husband's masonic honour-she told much more than the letter she brought. We respected her mission, and still more the manner in which she executed it. In No. 32 of the "Freemasons' Quarterly Review," will be found an obituary of this very excellent lady. No children resulted from either marriage.

HIS SUSPENSION, ETC.

For a venial trespass against the strict construction of law, Bro. Aarons was suspended for a short time from the exercise of his masonic functions. This pressed heavily on his mind, and was the more sensibly felt, having lost his faithful and affectionate wife. He visited the then Editor of the F. Q. R., and besought his aid and advice; but, like most persons, he followed his own, and the result was, as before stated, suspension. However, the time passed, and Bro. Aarons resumed his duties and his cheerfulness.

We have adverted to his searching the Scriptures for masonic proofs and revelations. His zeal attracted the attention of the late Duke of Sussex, who, with the Grand Secretary, and the late Bro. Harrison, associated in the same examination. Bro. Aarons observed that Harrison was vain-White merely a looker on—but the Duke lent a willing ear to all Bro. Aarons discovered.

It was during the period of his examination before the Board of General Purposes, that he addressed a letter to the Editor, from which we make the following extract :

"If there be fate or not in strange events, it would be more than I could venture to give any opinion. I know this, however, that for the last four months every thing seems to go contrary, though, thank God, nothing materially to injure me. The loss of my wife is the will of God; but we must guard our steps in life from our enemies. I'll dwell no more on this subject. I felt yesterday more easy in my mind, after I left your house, than I had felt for the last four days. Without adulation, your arguments soothed my mind; but I find that we must not have too much joy nor too much sorrow. Judge then the vexation my mind experienced when I found that my papers were lost. I took off the envelopes, and put up the parcel, with no address on the outside, otherwise they would be brought either to you or myself. The only chance we have is, that they may go back to Freemasons' Tavern. I am extremely sorry. I will not be an old woman, whether it be a bad omen or anything else. I will, however, trust to my friends, as I still think, when among Masons, that I am in good company. If two nuts in a bag are not sound, it is not to say that they are all sour. I shall therefore content myself, and pass my time by private instruction, and put my faith in God for all things. I hope you are in a state of convalescence, and that the Great Architect of the Universe will restore you again, in peace and happiness, to your circle of friends."

Chronological Epochs of the Bible.

267

Bro. Aarons was remarkably neat in his dress; and so little had he of the appearance of a blind man, that strangers have been known to hold lengthened conferences with him without being aware of his affliction ; this used to please him. His good humour was proverbial. He observed the Jewish customs strictly, unless that he relaxed at masonic banquets, when he was wont to observe that the directions of the great law-giver Moses had reference to the early eastern times, and not to the temperate climate of England.

Some few years since, a very excellent lithographic portrait was published of him, which, now that he has fallen asleep, will doubtless be prized as a companion to his contemporary, Bro. Peter Gilkes. Bro. Aarons was, in his masonic policy, a neutral; but in the year of terror, 1840, when the unholy crus ide of the informers and apostates was at its height, and a division of Grand Lodge took place, in the attempt to expel a leading member of Grand Lodge, Bro. Aarons insisted on two brethren, on whom he could rely, to place him properly, and even then he was scarcely satisfied, for he loudly exclaimed-"I vote for Dr. Crucefix!" And that vote is thus publicly recorded in grateful tribu'e to his memory.

Nebuchadnezzar, King of Babylon, reigned

CHRONOLOGICAL EPOCHS OF THE BIBLE.

BY THE LATE BRO. GEORGE AARONS.

Adam died at the age of 930 years from the creation, according to the chronology of the Bible.

From Adam until Noah there were ten generations, data of the world, 1056

Abraham was born, according to the Bible

Deborah the prophetess

Jephtah, the Giliadite, who was the tenth judge of Israel

Saul, the first king of Israel

King David was thirty years old when made king

Solomon his son commenced his reign

Solomon completed the building of the temple

Isaiah the prophet gave his prophecy

Zedekiah reigned

From the creation.

1918

Jeremiah's prophecy was

3331

Destruction of the first Temple

3338

The History of Esther and King Ahassarus

3395

Esrah, the Scribe, came from Babel to Jerusalem

3415

Alexander, King of Macedonia, was 19 years old when first reigned 3442

VOL. VI.

N N

The great commentator, the Abazbanal, died

Rabi Shloma Luryioh died

Rabi Joseph Karn died

Rabi Lupman wrote

Leopold the First was crowned at Frankfort (a. c. 1658)

A Great Famine at Paris (A. c. 1662) .

Phillip of Spain died (a. c. 1665)

Fire of London (A. c. 1666)

Since the fire of London to the present era is 168 years, (being

now 1834,)

London

The date from the creation to the fire of

3621

3728

3757

3406

3761

3828

4003

4.260

4865

4934

4964

5268

5333

5335

5418

5418

5422

5425

5426

THE Queen of Portugal has lately conferred the commandership of the Order of Christ upon the Duke of Sotomayor. This Order is the direct continuation of the Order of the Temple, having merely undergone the transmutation of name, at the time of the suppression of the Templars. In old documents, indeed, the Templars are as often designated as the soldiers of Christ as of the Temple, and the terms are frequently conjoined; so that the alteration was not a very violent one. It is now a mere honorary title, though some emoluments are understood to accompany the higher commands, accruing from the remnant of property yet preserved to the Order. The whole, however, appears to be under the exclusive patronage of the crown of Portugal.

HISTORICAL VIEWS OF PROGRESS.

OUTLINES OF A LECTURE BY RICHARD HART.

NOTHING can be more essential to a true understanding of our real position, than a comprehensive historical view of the steps ascending and descending, by which society has obtained its present condition, and for that purpose, we proceed to notice some of those ancient empires, whose history mainly embodies the great principles which have, within the period of authentic history-sometimes singly, sometimes in combination -governed the world, and which have hitherto all failed to produce happiness-religion, art, force. In the great Jewish empire, we find a race who claim to be the chosen people of God: spiritually chosen, under a divinely appointed leader. To do what? To scatter the seeds of mercy over the earth, so that the great tree of charity might spring up amid the woes, trouble, and turbulence of the world, striking its roots ever farther and deeper into humanity, and spreading over the whole earth its glorious eternally fresh and green branches, bearing the bud of hope, and the fruit of joy, so that happiness might sit for evermore beneath its branches, and be fed plentifully? No, not for that; but to suffer hunger, famine, and plagues in the wilderness, to be cursed even to cursing, to forswear their faith, and after many trials and temptations, to attack the inhabitants of a land flowing with milk and honey, to slay their thousands and tens of thousands, and with their spoils to form a nation. We see these people living through ages, disgraced by slaughter and rapine, through centuries dignified by valour and endurance. We see them a prey to the spoiler, captives in strange lands, dispersed, restored, and flourishing again. We see them sinking still lower, their religion a thing of mere forms and ceremonies, of outward trappings and appliances, surrounding the ark from which the sacred fire had fled, leading them still farther away from the path of right. We find them, lost in the contemplation of symbols, to the utter exclusion of the essence which they had hidden, becoming more logomachists, disputers of terms, powerful to confuse, powerless to direct. Then we see Jerusalem fall; the veil, that time honoured emblem of the mystery which doth hedge in divinity, rent asunder: we hear the hissing whisper with which the spirit said "let us depart hence," and went, leaving a stubborn and stiffnecked people to their fate. Then came the power of the Roman spoiler, and drew his trenches round about, and raised his huge engines against the walls. Then came the determined attack and the desperate defence; the mailed Roman, confident in his strength, and invincible in his discipline, opposed to the unarmed but devoted children of Israel. But faith was lost and hope was gone. The bonds which had bound the Jew to the ark of the covenant, which had bound man to man, and tribe to tribe, had been broken, and, amid internal dissention and warfare, the Roman eagles took a victorious flight, and of Jerusalem, once the sanctuary of faith, not one stone was left upon another.

It was wise-it was necessary that it should be so. The icy chain of a theocracy had bound up progress-the institution had fulfilled its mission-had done its work; it made way for a fresher not a greater, a purer, or a holier power-else the great movement of human progression had there stood still.

The Jew is the representative of faith-firm, devoted, unreasoning,

blind faith. By faith the Jew rose: by want of faith he fell. His faith was a faith in symbols, which at first represented realities, but which, year by year, century by century, lost that connection, and at last became a hollow, withered, and dead thing. The Jew represents the action of the greatest power ever yet brought to bear upon the mind of man. But he represents it in its material and special form. It is a question at once too wide and too vexed to ask, where is the universal and spiritual form of faith? But wherever it is to be sought, there is one of the first, and most important, and indispensable conditions of progress.

Greece! what a host of tumultuous ideas, each with its own voice and form, come rolling on the mind, like ocean waves upon the sandy beach. What visions crowd upon the mental sight of old Philosophy with scanty locks, and furrowed brow, and gentle eye, and fair young beauty full of fire and grace. What thoughts of Spartan virtue and endurance-of the undying heroism of Lacedæmon, which has made Thermopylæ through ages the shrine of valour-of Athenian learning, luxury, pliancy, and grace-of Theban prowess. Old Greece, the home of the beautiful, the brave, the wise, but scarcely of the good and moral. Old Greece, of subtle brain and dexterous hand-where sculptured pillar and capacious dome, temples instinct with loveliness of form, served as the shrines of the most human gods the world ere saw. Old Greece, where there were brain and head, but scarcely heart-where the dread indefinite seeking after the unknown vented itself in mystic and deceitful oracles -where human nature, idealised and personified, was worshipped, and the great essences of nature were things rather for schoolmen to wrangle about, than for multitudes to adore.

Greece had science, and skill, as yet unsurpassed. She had philosophic lore, on which is founded the best of modern morality. She had all the productions or the head, but the heart was comparatively barren. She worshipped herself, for her gods were but personifications of the attributes of her own nature; they represented power, and craft, and force, and wisdom, and beauty. She was a great egotist. There was one altar to the unknown God; but of that blind, unreasoning faith which held together Israel, and built the Temple, she was destitute. But if Greece had less faith, she had more freedom. Freedom of thought and of action, which led her on to seek after the beautiful and the true, and to produce results both material and ideal, of which the faith-bound Israelites were utterly incapable.

Greece wanted faith, and her philosophy, the best part of her mental framework, was too ideal and abstract for practical use. It was rather the instrument of a metaphysician than the tool of a philanthropist, a statesman, or a patriot. We are turning it, I hope, to better account. Greece fell; but let us remember, too, that she did not fall till she had become a conqueror, and before she became a conqueror she herself was conquered-her small states were subjugated-her power was consolidated under one man, and made the instrument of his vast ambition. Armies marched-blood flowed-nations fell, and the spirit of Greece died. The death-bed of Liberty is a battle-field-its dirge is a martial charge; and when Liberty falls, Genius does not long survive.

Rome! the once imperial mistress of the world-the thrower down of thrones-the conqueror. Rome, the arbitress of the destinies of nations -whose bondslaves were monarchs and whose power was limited but by the sea and sky. Rome, the offspring of marauders and freebootersin her infancy winning for herself by the strong hand, whatever she