MASONIC INAUGURATION THE FREER OF MEMORIAL WINDOW IN HEREFORD CATHEDRAL. From the "HEREFORD TIMES," Dec. 3rd, 1864. This ancient city on Monday last witnessed a ceremony the recollection of which will probably not for many years fade from the remembrance of those who participated in or saw it. It is well known to our readers that the late Venerable Archdeacon LANE FREER was a distinguished Freemason, and filled the position of Deputy Provincial Grand Master of Herefordshire. To his memory a splendid stained glass window was some time since placed in Hereford Cathedral; and on Monday (28th Nov.), being the anniversary of the grand lodge of the province, the Masonic body inaugurated the memorial by attending divine service in the sacred edifice in which the memorial forms an important attraction. The brethren assembled at high noon in their Masonic Hall, at the Green Dragon Hotel, where provincial grand lodge was opened in ancient form and with solemn prayer. The Provincial Grand Master (Dr. Bowles) received a most flattering reception, and, after the business of the province had been transacted, it was proposed by Brother Elias Chadwick, and carried by acclamation by the entire lodge, that a vote of confidence in their Grand Master be passed, expressive of their grateful acknowledgments for the kind, consistent, and able manner in which he has uniformly governed the craft in this province, and their U respect and admiration of his character as a courteous gentleman, an eminent scholar, and a Christian clergyman. Subsequently the Masonic body, decorated with their jewels and badges of office, proceeded to the Cathedral. The procession was marked by the greatest decorum, evinced by a large concourse of highly respectable citizens, who thronged every part of the Cathedral and listened. with the deepest and most marked attention to the eloquent discourse preached by the Right Worshipful the Provincial Grand Master. Mr. Townshend Smith presided at the organ, and the musical portion of the service was performed in a manner that excited the admiration of all present. There could scarcely have been less than a thousand persons within the sacred edifice. The Provincial Grand Master took for his text Heb. xi., 4: "He being dead, yet speaketh." The sermon commenced with a masterly sketch of the lessons taught by Masonry, the sentiment with which it teaches man to look upon his fellow-beings, the fraternal relation which it establishes. The preacher then passed from our material to our spiritual brotherhood, which he said was the only true bond of man to man. In heart-stirring, nervous English, he described the spiritual brotherhood as the tie which bound Masons to their departed brother, and which would continue to bind them to him in proportion as they listened to the moral and religious principle, to the inward monitor which speaks in the name of God, and which, breaking down all barriers between the seraph and the lowest human being, makes them brethren-greatness in God's sight lying not in the distinctions of this world, but altogether in the power of virtue in the soul, in the energy with which God's will is chosen, trial is borne, and goodness loved and practised. This perception of duty was the germ of immortality, the great gift of God, and that before its grandeur all the mysteries of science and theology fade away. The sense of this duty was, he said, deeply engraven upon the mind of their departed brother; religion was the light by which he walked; and his daily path showed whence the light came. Here followed a touching and eloquent tribute to the memory of the late Archdeacon, which excited strong emotion in the minds of the brethren and congregation. In speaking of the social character of the Archdeacon, the preacher said that no one who had ever met him in a friendly circle would easily forget the attraction of his manners and conversation, the cheerfulness and sunshine of the soul which he carried into society, his enlightened and enlarged views of duty, or his conviction that God requires no narrow service, which chains and contracts instead of unfolding the mind. He had gone to Jesus Christ, whose spirit he so deeply comprehended and so freely imbibed, and to God whose universal, all-suffering, all-embracing love he adored, and in an humble measure made manifest in his own life; but he was not wholly gone-not gone in heart, for a better world has heightened not extinguished his affection for his race, and not gone in influences, for his holy and consistent. example remains, and his memory is held up as a great treasure in many minds. A spirit so beautiful ought to multiply itself in those to whom it is made known. May we all be incited by it to a more grateful, cheerful, love to God; to a stronger, deeper faith in Christ; to a serener, gentler, nobler love for our fellow creatures; and then, though dead, Archdeacon FREER will yet speak with an eloquence and power even more persuasive than his living voice. Few men have ever lived in this archdeaconry whose exertions, directly and indirectly, diffused a more |