Lodge Thorntree No. 1038 
Toast To The Visitors
Michael Bauer, WSW
Portobello #226, Edinburgh, Scotland
Tonight I have the pleasure
To all I must confess
To give to you this toast
To our visitors and our guests.
The fellowship you bring tonight
Is something that can’t compare
You know we like to see you
And glad that you are always there.
The harmony the chat and jokes we have …
With our old and new found friends
We wish it could last for hours
And somehow never end.
But … all good things must come to an end
And we go our separate way
We hope you enjoyed yourself tonight
And return again someday.
And now I ask the members
To raise a glass in cheer
To toast to all our visitors
Who supported us this year.
Keep It Up
Benjamin Franklin (1706-1790)
If you would not be forgotten,
as soon as you are dead and rotten,
either write things worth reading,
or do things worth the writing.
Wages of a Mason
Benjamin Franklin (1706-1790)
Masonic labor is purely a labor of love. He who seeks to draw Masonic wages in gold and silver will be disappointed. The wages of a Mason are earned and paid in their dealings with one another; sympathy that begets sympathy, kindness begets kindness, helpfulness begets helpfulness, and these are the wages of a Mason.
GLOBES
by William R. Fischer
A question was asked, “If King Solomon’s Temple was built in 967 B.C. and globes were placed on top of the pillars, how did they know the world was round?”
This question is quite pertinent because it was not until 1522 that Magellan proved the world was round. How could the men of King Solomon’s period know the world was round? The answer is they did not know.
The contemporaries of Solomon believed the earth stood still, and was inside a hollow sphere with its inner surface dotted with stars revolving about the earth. This slow turning “celestial sphere” is the oldest theory of mankind observations of the “starry-decked heavens”.
This could explain the globe on the pillar at the right, but what about the one on the left? Even if they knew the earth was round this globe could not be a good representation of it. They did not know about the Americas. They thought the earth was an oblong square or rectangle, so there should have been a rectangle on the top of the pillar.
What was there?
It is believed that the “globes upon the pillars” are a corruption of the lily-work of the old testament. The lily was apparently the Egyptian lotus which was in Egypt a symbol of the universe. Thus the symbol of the universe was placed atop the pillars and referred to, as centuries past, as globes because of there round hollow shape.
“I keep six honest serving-men
They taught me all I knew;
Their names are What and Why and When
And How and Where and Who.”
Elephant’s Child in “Just So Stories” – Joseph Rudyard Kipling 1865-1936
