MAGLWAlger
Contents
WILLIAM ROUNSEVILLE ALGER 1822-1905
BIOGRAPHY
From Proceedings, Page 1873-364:
REV. WILLIAM ROUNSEVILLE ALGER, A.M., BOSTON. Unitarian. 1855-1856, 1863-1867.
ALGER, WILLIAM ROUNSEVILLE, clergyman and author, b. Freetown, Ms., Dec. 30, 1822. Camb. Theol. School, 1847. In that year he became minister of a Unitarian Society at Roxbury, and in 1855 exchanged for a similar charge in Boston. He now preaches at the Music Hall, Boston. He pub. A Symbolic History of the Cross of Christ, 1851; The Poetry of the East 1856. His chief work is A Critical History of the Doctrines of a Future Life, with a Complete Bibliography of the Subject, by Ezra Abbot, 1864. He also edited, with an introduction, in 1858, Studies of Christianity, by James Martineau.
— Drake's Biographies, 1872.
Bro. Alger was born at Freetown, Mass. He did not graduate at any college, but received the Honorary Degree of A.M. from Harvard University in 1850. He was initiated into Masonry in Washington Lodge, Roxbury, Mass., on the recommendation of that worthiest of men and of Masons, the late venerable Winslow Lewis, Senior; and has served as Chaplain in various branches of the Masonic Institution.
— History of Columbian Lodge, 1856.
The compiler would call the attention of the reader to the beautiful and impressive address of Brother Alger delivered at the funeral of Rev. Stephen Lovell, which will be found in connection with the notice of that Chaplain.
SPEECHES
ADDRESS ON WASHINGTON, FEBRUARY 1853
From Moore's Freemason's Monthly, Vol. XII, No. 7, May 1853, p. 204:
BROTHER ALGER'S EULOGY ON WASHINGTON. [The Rev. Br. Alger having declined the invitation of the Grand Lodge of this Commonwealth to publish the eloquent Eulogy delivered before that body on the 22d February, on the life and character of Washington, has kindly permitted us to make the following elegant extract from his manuscript, it being the conclusion of the address]:
Brethren of the Mystic Circle!
Standing here by your kind favor to-night, I should not only speak of Washington as a model man and patriot, to a company of patriotic Americans, bnt also as a free and accepted Mason to an assembly of those who in this respect, too, are of bis own spiritual kith and kin. You will not expect me to close without a brief reference to bis relationship with our cherished Order.
Brethren of the holy Tie!—In Washinoton we behold a consistent embodiment of the Masonic rule of strict Morality. The integral purity and righteousnesss of his character and conduct afford a fair specimen of the genuine fruits of Masonry, wherever its influences are received and its instructions followed. Every member of this ancient, guiding Institution, is solemnly pledged to revere, love and obey every law of right, and to abjure, and keep himself unsullied from, every element of wrong. From first to last he is thickly surrounded by the most significant and impressive symbols, ever to remind him of his Masonic obligations to observe truth and holiness in all their aspects, and to refrain from falsehood and vice in every form. The garment of the consistent Mason is innocence; the measures of his motives and deeds are the square of virtue and the plumb of rectitude; his heart is'a vase still exhaling the incense of gratitude to heaven; the contents of his hand are charitable acts; the cardinal guardians of hia soul are prudence, temperance, justice and fortitude; his monitors are the winged hour glass of rapid frailty and the pointing sword of certain retribution and the spade fast by the narrow house; his encouragers are the emblematic ladder, the starry canopy, and the resurrection sprig; and he walks over the variegated carpet of life's vicissitudes spread on the level of time, as one who knows that the All-Seeing Eye is on him. If our word be doubted and the society we honor and love be yet suspected and traduced, we reply to every calumny by pointing to Washington, its worthy representative, and asking, is it possible that he would have remained to the day of his death in full communion with an Institution any of whose fundamental, or permitted usages, or tolerated results, were treasonous, or immoral, or perilous!
Brethren of the sacred Fellowship! In Washington's connection with our society we see a fine exemplification of the Masonic law of equal Fraternity. By the traditional essential rule of our body, from primeval times till now, just as by the great ordinance of unperverted nature, we are commanded to meet on the level of a common humanity, and open warm hearts and ready hands to each others distresses, and give love for love, eschewing all hate, envy and pride. On the threshold of our temple all titular distinctions fall off, and standing within it consecrated walls, on inherent merits alone, with equal rights and sympathies, but with strict subordination of offices, man meets as the free and affectionate brother of man, the merchant Croesus clasps in mystic grasp the toil-worn hand of the penniless laborer, and the peasant is pressed to the bosom of the prince. Often at evening did Washington descend from his elevation and on the floor boards of temporary Lodges, sit on terms of close friendship and perfect equality, side by side with the humblest soldier whose weary arms through the day the heavy musket had galled, and whose naked feet had tracked the flints and the snows with blood. All who enter the guarded enclosure of Freemasonry are taught by beautiful ceremonies and touching symbols to throw their arms and hearts wide open as very brothers indeed, to all who bear the typical word and sign to whatever race they belong, Hindoo or Saxon, and wherever they meet from the equator all round to the poles. Has not our Order in this particular, a magnificent and merciful mission yet to perform in a jarring and alienated world?
Brethren of the hidden Mysteries! In the initiation of Washington to the secrets of our Institution and Fraternity, we find an impressive illustration of the Masonic spirit of reverential humility. There is a religious awe about the entrance into the asylum of our traditions and secresy, as there is about the entrance into the invisible alluring scenes beyond the veils of time and mortality. Whoso would enter the privileged pale must come in modesty and stillness, and without pretensions. The glittering Sultan of Turkey, and the painted Indian of the Rocky Mountains must come in the same manner, with the same humble, submissive reverence. This fact is brought to our notice best by the occasion on which we are now met. One hundred years ago this night, haply at this very hour, the greatest man in the world, stripped of all insignia whereby he might be distinguished from the lowliest of his fellow-men, presented himself at the door of our sentinelled Order, and craved to be admitted to a knowledge and participation of its concealed benefits. Alone, in silence,in deep humility, he bowed before the ancient mystery and besought an entrance. The door opened, a friendly voice and hand guided him forward, the curtain which has for so many ages shrouded the secrets behind it from unworthy eyes, was lifted, and—he saw. In these ceremonies Masonry but copies the mysterious ordination, and follows the overawing spirit of all embosoming nature. Our initiation is only a miniature type, a feeble symbol of the true, the great initiation through which, and that upon impartial terms, every mortal, from the most gorgeous monarch to the most destitute slave, must, sooner or later, pass to immortality., When a fit applicant after the preliminary probation, kneels with fainting sense and pallid brow, before the veil of the unutterable unknown, and the last pulsations of his heart tap at the door of eternity, and he reverentially asks—as he cannot but do it with profoundest reverence—admission to partake in the secrets and benefits forever shrouded from the profane vision of sinful flesh, the infinite Master directs the call to be answered by Death, the speechless and solemn Steward of the Mysteries of the celestial Lodge. He comes, pushes the curtain aside, leads the awestruck initiate in, takes the blinding bandage of the body from his soul,—and straightway he receives light in the midst of that innumerable Fraternity of immortals over whom the Supreme Architect of the Universe presides.
Thns and thither, Brethren of the immortal Hope! has our Washington ascended from us. And every year as the nation goes up to mingle funereal rite and festi ve gratulation over his memory, among that vast company of congregated people appears a smaller and more intimate band, charged with fuller feeling, for they were bound to him by closer, dearer ties. They draw near the spot where his ashes sleep, and drop the branch of acacia upon his grave with a tear and a smile. They lift their eyes to heaven and say, "Glorious Brother, thither hast thou risen now, beyond all the interposing veils, to the innermost shrine of creation, and there we too shall come, and meet thee again!"
ADDRESS ON ELISHA KENT KANE, APRIL 1857
From Moore's Freemason's Monthly, Vol. XVI, No. 8, May 1857, Page 237:
We take pleasure in laying before our readers the following extract from the report (published in the Boston Journal), of the beautiful eulogy delivered by our Rev. Brother, Wm. R. Alger, on the evening of the 28th April last, before the Masonic Brethren of Boston, on the character of the lamented Brother Dr. Kane. The eulogy was pronounced in the hall of the Tremont Temple, before an audience of not less than 2500 persons, including the ladies, and gave the highest satisfaction :—
Obedient to a fraternal call, we have gathered to-night to pay tribute to an illustrious Brother, a young man radiant with beauty, genius and moral loveliness, and redolent of the sanctity of heaven.
With the clarion strain of his noble and admired adventures reverberating on our ears, we are here to weep over the broken column of his existence, and to take home to our souls the lofty lessons of his example. In an age characterized as is the present by an insane greed of money, there are pre-eminent reasons for holding up to public attention the character and memory of Dr. Kane. His brave and unselfish career cannot but extort admiration, and induce emulation. The narrative of his deeds is so noble that no man can read it without being softened and purified. Like a strain of martial music breathing magnificent emotions, it is a thrilling rebuke to cold, self-seekers, — impressing us with the superiority of will to circumstances, of spirit to flesh. It is a trumpet in the ear of every sensualist, whose soul is bound in his body, like a dead king in a sarcophagus.
There was in him, said the speaker, that symmetry of soul which draws love and infuses life, elevating and strengthening to all that contemplate it. What he did was full of merit; what he was, of power. The memory of his soul is a fountain of inspiration. He was the brightest honor of America, the first hero of the age, the modern star of Christendom.
There is, said the speaker, an especial fitness in a Masonic tribute to Dr. Kane, for he, like the heroic Sir John Franklin, was a faithful member of our Order, a tie which endeared him to us more than any other. In generous acknowledgment of his greatness, surely our voices should be heard with no uncertain sounds. The shouts of Brother Masons accompanied his departure from New York when he started on that noble adventure ; Brother Masons watched the inanimate form returning to the fatherland of the departed hero. Dr. Kane was the personification of the Masonic ideal — harmonious, symmetrical, and sublimely concentrative. Glorious deeds only spring from noble souls. Hare truthfulness composed the foundation and leavened the rudiments of his character. He did not, he said, claim to be accurate in any particular, but to be truthful. With him, truth was not merely a habit of speech, but of nature, filling him with its frank nobility, and robing him with its unspotted holiness.
The trait in Dr Kane which, perhaps, soonest seizes the heart, was his chivalry ; and what Mason does not know that the element of chivalry is Masonry? The cry of a widowed wife for a husband buried and starving in his prison-house of winter, reached him as he lay floating off Florida. The vision haunted his generous mind, and he must go to the rescue at all hazards. Like a generous knight scorning luxurious sports or ease when his friend was in bondage, this dauntless darling of the gods must go to the rescue of Franklin. He went, and the world will not forget it so long as consecrated valor is praised among men.
The speaker next dwelt on Dr. Kane's unimpeachable loyalty to duty — a Masonic virtue, but not an American trait. We are generally radical, rashly trampling upon enthroned authority. Kane was free from personal whims, vanity and the love of money, and always shaped the stuff of his desires in the mould of his duties. His indomitable courage was next noticed. In this he was truly a Mason; for if there was anything that a Mason detests more than another, it was cowardice. His self-possession in great emergencies, his fortitude in suffering, and his constant cheerfulness, showed him to be unmistakably a hero. Courage with him was not a quality of iron nerve, of physical hardihood, but a principle of mind and a trait of soul. Life was but a means for the performance of duty. There is nothing in the annals of chivalry which will carry away the palm from Dr. Kane for energy, courage and fortitude. Now he goes to the hut of the Esquimaux by night, seizes a deserter from his band thrice as big as himself, and brings him in triumph to the ship. Now he harnesses the dogs to the sledges, to go forth to capture walrus-meat to save from death his crew, sick with the scurvy. In the face of disease, famine and rebellion, he maintained his courage, and even his spirits, for he knew that his death would be fatal to the whole of his companions.
He was a man of thorough culture, and, as such, there was no better example than his for the emulation of the young of our land. Every neophyte of our Order must know how, when crossing its threshold, he was introduced to the learned sciences, and the hearty admonitions he had received to enlarge his acquaintance with them. He explored nearly all of them, to some extent, and in some he excelled. He had the fine organization of the poet, and the clear head of the man of science ; and the majesty of his character, passing before the people of America, flings disgrace upon the blundering boors, who still bow to his genius, and kneel before him in the fealty of love.
His character shows the superiority of the mental over the physical qualities of mankind. What else could have urged him on to such deeds of daring — that little, puny frame, never exceeding ninety-seven pounds in weight — were it not the high intellectual and moral qualities which bore him stiffly up while others blanched by his side.
He was highly emotional; and the feelers of his heart were ever reaching out in kindly sympathy. With him, tenderness and modesty were twin flowers blooming upon the same stem, based upon the same root of chaste sensibility.
The manner in which he relates his adventures — the sympathy he felt for the benighted Esquimaux, his love for his ship—make us almost love them too for his sake. Could another Barnum bring to this country the young hunter of which Kane speaks so touchingly in his work, he would draw immensely ; for who, among the legions who are his readers, would not gladly embrace the opportunity to see anything by him commemorated.
His emotional qualities never led him into vanity or arrogance. Self-conceit or assumption were not to be found in his life or works. In his writings he seemed entirely to forget self, and related the incidents of his adventures, giving each his due, totally devoid of vanity or envy.
With the commander's decision, and the soldier's nerve, he blended the patriot's devotion and the maiden's modesty. His account of the death of Baker, one of his comrades, was touching in the extreme.
A passage in his work was alluded to, showing how the memory of home, the fragrance of green fields, and the old familiar haunts of his boyhood came to him amid the icebergs of winter's prison house.
An important feature in his character was his religious faith — faith in God, which was a chief round in the structure of Masonry. He was no hypocrite ; did not shrink even from martyrdom when it stood in the way of his duty. This, said the speaker, was what gave that sublimity to his character, which, as a distinguished clergyman remarked to me, made us pause before we decide whether to honor him most as a hero or a saint. Evidences of his true piety were remarkable in his everyday actions. He indulged in no intemperance, no profanity; and no day was allowed to pass without devotional exercises. Many a time, in moments of thankfulness, and in moments when his overcharged heart was stung with pain, he sent Up the voice of prayer to God, where, before him, no civilized being had ever been. This gave him inspiration of a peaceful strength, without the exercise of which neither he nor any of his band would ever have come forth from the frozen regions of the North alive. His prevailing cheerfulness was a great help to him in his adventures ; few men but would have lost all hope in his situation. He felt it his duty to be cheerful; and he threw down his gauntlet against famine, frost and death in strong defiance, and thus he conquered.
Some instances of his high sense of the ludicrous were mentioned; and in this particular his life has one great lesson for us all: How much we ought to be ashamed to allow ourselves to even approach towards despondency in our homes, surrounded with comforts, when we look upon the cheerfulness of Kane among the barren wastes of the domain of the Frost King. Craven must be that spirit, or very bad its condition, who would give himself up to despair fresh from the pages of this narrative.
Mr. Alger referred to Dr. Kane's journey in search of the party which started from the ship, under the command of Mr. Brooks, and who were beset by the snow among the drifts and hummocks, as one of the most remarkable scenes of the expedition, and the memory of which deserves to be perpetuated on canvass and hung in the Grand Lodge of every State of the Union, as an illustration of fortitude and courage, of self-denial and self-sacrifice, which no language could adequately describe. He pictured in glowing terms the incidents of that journey across the snow, and the providential discovery, when the searchers had almost given up hope, of the little Masonic flag which Mr. Brooks had, with thoughtful care, hoisted upon the tent where his unfortunate comrades remained. When the party reached the tent not a sound was heard, but with poetic delicacy of feeling, the men formed in silent file on each side of the door, and Dr. Kane tottered between them into the darkness, and was welcomed with the words, "We expected you, we knew you would come." Then his weakness and his gratitude overcame him, and he sank among them in a gush of tears.
This was a great picture, said the speaker. History could not afford one so worthy to be commemorated. Let it be painted ; let it be hung in every Grand Lodge in the world ; let it be floated in the breeze, until it shall crumble in dust. And now, my friends, what would you give to see this same Masonic banner which saved the lives of the noble band? It has been presented to the Grand Lodge of Massachusetts. And though it has not yet reached us, we can imagine that we see it already ; and we see it unhurt by the cannon shot, unsoiled by blood, as when it was taken from the fair hands of her who embroidered it, by the hero who bore it so bravely afterwards. And we shall ever preserve it and proudly show it unto strangers and pilgrims, until every rag of it is dust.
A Brother was lost in the barriers of ice in the Arctic Sea; a voice came from his devoted household ; and the youthful champion advanced towards the dread domain of the winter; he stood beneath the rocky towers of the pole ; and hurled down his gage against the glaciers and dared them to do their worst. He left the pleasures of civilization and the enticements of a luxurious age, to advance into the spectral gloom and terror of the Arctic regions, where, at every step, courage was met by peril, and tempests roll their ceaseless thunders against its hoary battlements.
His life exemplifies the superiority of mind over matter — the difference between smiling man and lowering fortune. In the regions of night and famine and death, mock seas and Northern lights, hideous apparitions of an unfinished world — when we see a cultivated, generous man encounter all this to save a lost Brother, we are wonder-stricken at his sacrifice and devotion — then this whole region becomes a rough frame and background to hold the brightest picture of human virtue. It gives a sublime idea of the unity of human affairs and the community of human weal.
He returned no ensanguined soldier from a victorious battle; no great statesman, crowned with diplomatic honors, but a young man whose virtues had reached a poetic height, and whose enterprise demanded our admiration.
Since then, from all parts of the earth his earnest admirers had hung in breathless suspense over the dying couch. Could the world's wishes have prevailed, he would still be with us; but the decrees of Omnipotence are unchangeable. His last words were, "I hold that man in slight esteem who is afraid to die."
He had with him in his last hours the three greatest boons that man could have — his friend, his mother, and his Bible.
His funeral dirge thrilled the heart of the nation, and soon his lifeless body rested beneath the consecrated dome of Independence Hall, at the foot of the marble statue of Washington, with a sword and the Masonic symbol resting over it.
Let us not say his death was unkind. The Lord's appointment is the creature's hour. As his grasp closed upon the laurel wreath, death sent his dart and his eyes closed upon the scenes of earth. He has found the true weary man's rest. No more will he launch the frail boat of mortality among the ills that beset us in this life. Henceforth the name of Kane is precious to Masonry and America.
In conclusion, the speaker asked — Who would not be willing to risk his life in exploring the hidden mysteries of that Northern region, if only to plant there two flags, the Masonic banner which Solomon bore, and that other, the stars and stripes which Washington unfurled?
