196 FROM A NEW ENGLAND HILLSIDE. 



alien people. We shall miss them sorely, 

 but what would you ? &quot;As ships that pass 

 in the night.&quot; Yea, verily. Through the 

 years it is &quot; Hail ! &quot; and &quot; Farewell ! &quot; But 

 is it not a pleasant thought that here and 

 there, scattered over the wide, wide world, 

 there are those whom you may never again 

 meet, but with whom you have memories 

 in common, those into whose eyes and hearts 

 you have sometime looked far enough to 

 see truth therein, and to know that there is 

 an unbound freemasonry in which you and 

 they are forever comrades for weal or for 

 woe ? What matters it though seas roll 

 their waves between, though ripening years 

 sink away into the eternal silence ? &quot; Age 

 cannot wither&quot; the unchanging past. 



And so, as through the night watches 

 the stanch vessels pass, and fade away in 

 the darkness, we breathe a loving benison 

 upon the disappearing craft, and bid them 

 godspeed. It may be that the storm clouds 

 lower, the lightning flashes, the thunder 

 reverberates from mass to mass, the surg 

 ing waves plunge angrily before the driving 

 gale. But above it all, the stars are shining 

 silently in the infinite spaces, and beyond 

 the tempest, and sometimes even in the 

 heart of it, there is peace. 



JULY 22, 18!)4. 



