SOUVENIRS OF AN ODD-FELLOW. When are we happiest, then? Oh, when resigned To whatsoe'er our cup of life may bring; When we can know ourselves but weak and blind Creatures of earth! And trust alone in Him MISS BROWN. HAPPINESS has been a phantom of human pursuit from the hour of the first sin through all succeeding time. As the wants of society multiplied, objects of pursuit became more numerous, and humanity for uncounted centuries has been running through life, pursuing shadows in various directions, like school-boys dispersing at play-time to chase butterflies as they gayly flutter from flower to flower over the whole extent of the enameled plain. Happiness! what a delusive word when applied to earth, its associations and pursuits. Who has ever found it? Can wealth, or fame, or any possession bring it to our hearts? Deluded by hope, we gaze upon bright pictures in perspective, but one by one they fade away, like the scenes of the dissolving tableaux, ere the eye or heart has enjoy ed them. Go ask the broken-hearted youth, who weeps over the cold grave of his young heart's love, why he lingers about that spot? He will tell you all his bright dreams of happiness lie buried there. Go ask the gray bearded sire, and he will tell you that earth and its dreams are all vanity, vanity and vexation of spirit. Oh! if we could cause to pass in review before us the countless dreams of the young, as they have arisen and faded in disappointment and sorrow, what a sad phantasmagoria would be exhibited; how false and fleeting would earthly happiness appear.Happiness, true happiness, is an exotic; it is transplanted from heavenly climes, and nurtured in the human heart by faith in the Son of God!— This is the happiness of patience and humility in life, and triumph and majesty in death, that clothes a worm of dust in the garments of triumph and victory, and seals his title-deed to an inheritance incorruptible in the heavens. This was the character of my reflections as I stood in the church-yard beside two graves! and in the softened media of memory looked back to the young day-dreams of the sleepers. Purer dreams of happiness never cheered the heart of humanity than those in which they once indulged; but ere their sun had reached its meridian the picture was surcharged with disappointment and death, and their cold graves are but two other beacons lighted along the highway of life to guard others from similar folly. Henry Smith I knew from childhood; a nobler hearted boy never laughed and shouted in gay and thoughtless innocency than he; his manhood fulfilled the promise of his youth. He had one fault-he looked to earth for happiness. Among his first acts on attaining his majority, was to become an Odd-Fellow, and well and nobly did he discharge his vocation as such. One of the graves was his! Who in ******* does not remember Ann Elmore, a laughing, blue eyed Hebe. Wherever she went she diffused her own sweet spirit. There was a gay warm heart beating in her bosom; the poor called her an angel, and many a dying eye has rested in its last look upon her sweet face as she wiped the death-drops from the brow of suffering. Her sweet tones still linger in my ear, as she whispered comfort to the sick, or in the hour of joy sent out her innocent ringing laugh upon the heart. Hers was the other grave! Henry and Ann loved from childhood; they were destined for each other; their parents smiled upon their mutual love, and amid prayers and blessings they plighted their nuptial vows, and never did wedded bliss seem to be more perfect and complete. Henry was a rising man-his profession engaged largely his time, yet was he punctual to the duties of Odd-Fellowship. Often, while Noble Grand of his Lodge, have I seen him and his wife visiting together the sick brethren, or if their families were ill, Ann was certain to be with them, ministering by a thousand attentions to their wants and sufferings. This pair were Odd-Fellows indeed, and often have I heard the remark made, that the conduct of Henry and Ann did more to remove unjust prejudices from the Order, than every thing else beside. Noble, generous and high-minded as he was, Henry had one fault-he was a slave to that corrupt and barbarous opinion, that deep insult, implicating his honor, could alone be washed out with blood. His profession (law) naturally led him to take part in party politics, and in this, as in every thing else, what his hand found to do he did with all his might. During the excitements of an animating canvass, he had in a political speech reflected severely upon the course pursued by the opposite party. This led to an altercation between him and the candidate of that party, who attributed his defeat to Smith's speech; an apology was demanded and refused, and a challenge passed. Fearful of the interference of friends, the preliminaries were soon settled; the parties met; Henry fell mortally wounded. He survived some eight or ten hours -long enough deeply to repent his folly, and breathe his life out in the arms of his distracted wife. Poor Ann! how were all her dreams of happiness crushed. Oh, how full of the eloquence of despair her tearless eye and frenzied look, as she took the last kiss from the cold lips of him she had so fondly loved: and when amid the tears of those who prized him so highly, he was borne to his last resting place, she insisted on following him there; what heart but beat with sympathy for that suffering one, as when the first clod fell upon his coffin she gave one long scream of agony, and was borne fainting from the grave by her friends. This occurred in the spring and ere the leaves fell, Ann slept beside him. I stood in her chamber beside her dying pillow; I never saw her look more lovely. Her parents, Henry's too, were there, and to their grief she sought to administer consolation by pointing them to that blessed home were she expected to meet the husband of her love. "Earth," said she, "has no joy for your poor Ann; I loved Henry too fondly-too well; God has taken him from me to teach me the vanity of fixing my affections upon things here; I had many sweet dreams-many sweet hopes, but how soon they faded one by one. 'There is nothing true but Heaven.' Oh! my dear parents, let us part to meet where we shall never know sorrow or parting." The clergyman approached to administer the "last supper;" she smiled sweetly as she said to her weeping friends, "with desire have I desired to eat this passover with you; henceforth I drink no more of the fruit of the vine until I drink the wine new in my Father's kingdom." Turning to the Noble Grand of our Lodge, (a rela tive of the family,) she requested him to bring the family Bible and to present it to the Lodge as her dying gift. "Henry," said she, "loved the Order; I know it is good and useful; keep this as a memorial of our love; you will find our marriage recorded by his hand; I leave it to your friendship to record our early deaths." Her exit was soft and gentle as the departure of the summer zephyr; like the dying swan, her last song was the sweetest. We laid her beside her husband. "They were lovely in their lives and in their deaths they were not divided." A plain marble monuments their graves, and the tear of affection waters the rose tree planted at their head! Their memories live in the hearts of their friends. See you yon portrait robed in crape, immediately behind the Past Grand's chair in Lodge hall-that was Henry Smith. But my reader may ask where is he who lured poor Smith on to death by taking advantage of his false notions of honor. Where is he? Lounging about the lowest tippling houses-a miserable, hopeless drunkard.There is a retributive Providence! In vain may the murderer hope to escape. Whether he takes his brother's life in the midnight brawl-by assassination, premediated-or in the cold-blooded barborism of the field of honor-he will suffer, and suffer here, in anticipation of a heavier doom hereafter. Here is but a brief picture of the evanescence of earthly happiness; it is fleeting as the morning cloud or early dew. How important to act justly, love mercy, and walk humbly with God, making his law the rule of our practice, that we may live usefully, die happily, and be at last admitted to the Grand Lodge above, to the company of the just made perfect, around the throne of the Supreme Creator of all things. ALFRED. [From the Ind. Odd Fellow. THE MIRROR AND THE ECHO. FROM MISS MOISE'S SKETCH BOOK. A SMART Venetian Mirror of mercurial disposition Of pedigree as noble as yon lustrous chandelier. I ask no dower, for I bring no splendid patrimony, Then say at once if thou'lt be mine in holy matrimony. Oh! who would dream of sordid aims in nature's simple child? But in this mercenary age, the purest are defiled. The smart Venetian Mirror found his fondest hopes defeated, For money was the only word the echo had repeated. ANCIENT RELIGIOUS INSTITUTIONS. A BRIEF account of the religious establishments kept up in this country before the Reformation, and of the officers which belonged to some of the largest of them, as well as of their different buildings and apartments, it is presumed, will not be uninteresting. Under the general name of religious houses, are comprehended cathedral and collegiate churches, abbeys, priories, colleges, hospitals, preceptories, and friaries. In Conventual Cathedrals the bishop was in the place of an abbot, and had the principal stall on the right hand of the entrance into the choir. Collegiate churches and colleges consisted of a number of secular canons, living together under the government of a dean, warden, provost, or master; and having for the more solemn performance of divine service, chap. lains, singing men, and choristers belong to them. An Abbey was a society of religious people, having an abbot or abbess to preside over them. Some of these were so considerable that their abbots were called to Parliament, and had seats and votes in the House of Lords. They had the power and the authority of bishops within the limits of their several houses, gave the solemn benediction, conferred the lesser orders, wore mitres, sandals, &c., and carried crosses or pastorals in their hands; and some of their houses were exempted from the jurisdiction of the archbishop and bishop, and subject to the pope only. Their mitres differed a little from those of the bishops, who carried their crosiers in their left hands; but the abbots carried them in their right hands. A Priory was a society of religious, where the chief person was termed a prior or prioress, and of these there were two sorts. First, when the prior was chief governor, as fully as any abbot in his abbey, and was chosen by the convent. Secondly, where the priory was a cell (or, as we would now call it, a chapel of ease,) subordinate to some great abbey, and the prior was placed and displaced at the will of the abbot. But there was a considerable difference between some of these cells; for some were altogether subject to their respective abbeys, who sent them what officers and monks they pleased, and took their revenues into the common stock of the abbeys. But others consisted of a stated number of monks, who had a prior sent them from the abbey, and paid a pension yearly as an acknowledgment of their subjection, but acted in other matters as an independent body, and had the rest of their revenues for their own use.— These priories or cells were always of the same order with the abbeys on whom they depended, though sometimes of a different sex. Some great abbeys built nunneries in some of their manors, which should be priories to them, and subject to their visitation. Priories Alien were cells to foreign monasteries; for when manors or tithes were given to foreign monasteries, the monks, either to increase their own rule, or perhaps rather to have faithful stewards of their revenues, built convenient houses for the reception of a small convent, and then sent over such a number as they thought proper, constituting priors over them. And there was the same difference in these cells as in the former; for some of them were conventual, and had priors of their own choosing; these were entire societies within themselves, and received the revenues belonging to their several houses for their own use and benefit, paying only the ancient apport, or what was at first the surplusage, to the foreign house. But others depended wholly upon the foreign houses; their priors were set over them; their monks were often foreigners, and removable at pleasure; and they returned all their revenues to the foreign head houses. These alien priories were most of them made by such as had foreign abbeys of their own, or some of their family's foundations. Preceptories were manors or estates of the knights templars, where, erecting churches for the service of God, and convenient houses, they placed some of their fraternity under the government of one of those more eminent templars, who had been by the grand master created "præceptores templi," to take care of the lands and rents in that place and neighborhood, and so were only cell to the principal house at London. Commandries were the same among the knights hospitalers, as preceptories were among the templars, viz: societies of those knights placed upon some of their estates in the country, under the government of a commander, who were allowed proper maintenance out of the revenues under their care, and accounted for the remainder to the grand prior at London. Hospitals were such houses for the relief of poor and impotent people as were incorporated by royal patents, and made capable of gifts and grants in succession. In these there were generally two or three religious-one to be master or prior, and one or two to be chaplains and confessors. Hospitals were originally designed, in a great measure, for the relief and entertainment of travellers, and particularly of pilgrims. In every abbey the chief officer was the abbot or abbess, who presided in great pomp; was generally called lord abbot or lady abbess; and had a kitchen and other offices distinct from the common ones of the society. In every priory the chief officer was the prior or prioress, who had the same power in priories as abbots and abbesses had in abbeys, but lived in a less splendid and expensive manner, though in some of the greater houses they were called lord prior and lady prioress. Next under the abbot in every abbey, was the prior, who in the abbot's absence had the chief care of the house; and under him was the sub-prior, and in great abbeys, the third, fourth, and even fifth prior, who had their respective shares in the government of the monks, &c., and were removable at the will of the abbot, as all the other officers were. In every priory, next under the prior, was the sub-prior, who assisted the prior whilst present, and acted in his stead when absent. In rich monasteries there were a variety of officers whose respective duties were most exactly defined. 1. Magister operis, or master of the fabric, who probably looked after the buildings, and took care to keep them in good repair. 2. Eleemosynarius, or the almoner, who superintended the alms of the house (which were every day distributed at the gate to the poor,) who divided the alms upon the founder's day, and at other obits and anniversaries, and in some places provided for the maintenance and education of the choristers. 3. Pitantiarius, who had the care of the pittances, which were allowances upon particular occasion over and above the common provisions. 4. Sacrista, or the sexton, who took care of the vessels, books, and vestments belonging to the church, looked after and accounted for the oblations at the great altar, and other altars and images in the church, and such legacies as were given either to the fabric or for |