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Work With Dignity.

e noticed on many occasions a lack of dignity on the part of officers and members while conferring degrees that is far from becoming. One of the degrees is designated "sublime," and there is an old adage that "there is but one step from the sublime to the ridiculous."

How often is this step taken in many of our lodges?

To the candidate first impressions are the most lasting, and levity at the beginning impresses him with the belief that the forms and ceremonies are not matters of solemnity, but mere farcical necessities in order to make up a form of initiation. We have seen candidates who have acquired there impressions in the ante-room, maintained them in the preparation roon, and could not divest themselves of them even during the solemn ceremonies of the lodge-room. The reason of this has been the folly of members who profess to be the friends of the candidate, but who really, for the purposes of Masonry, are exactly opposite.

Some men are sensitive. Masters of Ceremonies should remember this, and perform their duties with such dignity as would impress the candidate with the solemnity which is expressed in the words of the Senior Deacon when he bids him enter the lodge room. To use levity outside and beyond the eye of the Master is to treat him with a disrespect which would not be allowed in his presence, and at the very outset give the candidate a bid impression. Men of refined tastes become shocked, while those who are of a different frame of mind are illy prepared to receive those valuable moral lessons which Masonry is designed to teach.

How much more so is this the case when those who are engaged in tie "floor work" of the "sublime degree" forget the lesson which is the true interpretation of the allegory? What integrity can be expected from one who has been made the victim of a farce? And yet it must appear so to those who, having been the first to go through the ordeal and have the opportunity of seeing their companions pass along the same road, when tiny notice members in their seats "enjoying" the mishaps of their fellow man, apparently without considering the lesson taught thereby. Can it be wondered at that the subsequent instruction is not attentively listened to on such occasions?

Work then, with dignity, so that each lesson may make its proper impression and become lasting.—New York Sunday Times.

Blue Water.—From the fact, determined by W. Spring, that the colour of pure water in great bulk is blue, M. Ch. Montigny explains the predominance of this colour in the scintillation of the stars just before and during wet weather. The luminous rays, he argues, traversing the air with large quantities of pure water, are necessarily tinged with the blue colour of this medium. The excess of blue thus becomes an almost certain means of predicting rain. This theoretic conclusion corresponds with the results of his observations continued for several years past on the appearance of the stellar rays in connection with the state of the weather. During the few months of fine weather in the last year blue has been much less conspicuous than in the corresponding months of previous years since 1876, when wet weather prevailed. It also appears that green, which had always coincided with clear skies during the fine years before 1876, has recently again become predominant. Hence he thinks it probable that we have got over the cycle of bad seasons, and that dry weather and more normal summers may be anticipated, at least for some time to come. The above is from Nature, and the same number contains an abstract of a paper by Professor C. Mitchie Smith, on green-coloured suns, in which he concludes that this phenomenon is due to the presence of unusual quantities of watery vapour in the atmosphere.