EXERCISES AT THE LAYING OF THE CORNEE-STONE. 181 



And now comes the Grand Lodge for the first time in the history of 

 masonry in Iowa, to show in a three-fold manner the reverence, devotion 

 and interest which the masons of Iowa, in connection witli those of Dav- 

 enport, have in the worli to-day, so happily and successfully inaugurated 

 in the laying of the corner-stone of a building owned by the Academy of 

 Sciences of Davenport, and consecrated to the advancement of science 

 and instruction in those arts which are ennobling to our nature. 



This is not the first Academy of Science organized in the State. But 

 its history illustrated the truth of the Darwinian idea, that in the strug- 

 gle of life it was the strong, the swift, and the most fitting alone that 

 survived. At an early period in our history, every pretty site for a town 

 from the Des Moines to the Wapsipinicon rivers was staked off for a 

 future city, but the march of commerce, the introduction of railroads 

 and advancing civilization of the age, had led to the pulling up of the 

 stakes and the consecration of their virgin soil to the holier purpose of 

 the agriculturist, whose fields of waving grain testified to the great im- 

 provements, as well as great changes wrouglit tliereby. So too, many 

 towns, real and imaginary, provided for or organized Academys of 

 Science, but like many other things of the i)ast, they have departed and 

 are no more. Better have one institution the pride and glory of the 

 State, commanding the admiration of scientists and the lovers of sci- 

 ence everywhere, than a number existing only in name. 



The corner-stone has been adjusted in its place by the "■ square," the 

 " level," and the " plumb," the working tools of both the operative and 

 speculative mason. They had their moral as well as physical use. The 

 square was an emblem of space, and within these walls he hoped to see 

 cultivated the wide range of science studied everywhere in the interests 

 of humanity. The level is to teach us that all science has its uses, and is 

 designed and calculated to advance its votary in the path of usefulness, 

 and make him an honor to the age and country in which he lives and 

 labors, while the plumb should ever admonish the student that the 

 science he most dearly cultivates is in harmony with every other science. 

 Indeed, said the speaker earnestly, all the sciences are ever in harmo- 

 nious relation with each and all others, natural and revealed. The God 

 of Revelation and the God of Nature is the one God, our common 

 Father, ''in whom there is no variableness neither shadow of turning." 

 The God of the devout Christian is our God, and we worship in sincerity 

 and truth at the common altar which He has created for all his followers. 

 There is truth, in the language of the Mason, '•'• We. meet upon the level 

 and part upon the square," because our great Teacher has " set a plumb 

 line in the midst of his people," of every name and profession, and in fol- 

 lowing him they walk by it. 



Upon this corner-stone we have poured the " corn, wine and oil,^' fit 

 emblems of the occasion and of the objects had in view. Science in its 

 onward march has not only developed new and before Tinknown articles 

 of " nourishment" and food, of which corn (or the wheat of the olden 



[Proc. D. A. N. S. Vol.11.] 25 [April, 1878.] 



