On Wednesday, P. Wadsworth, who at the time of his decease was the oldest member of that Lodge. At the grave in the cemetery at Milton, when the body was about to be consigned to the earth. Brother Charles Breck, almost overcome with emotions of sorrow, and loneliness, yet borne up with strong faith in God, and hope in Immortality, spoke as follows:. Yet regret is sweetened and tempered by the happy thought, that our separation at most can be but short.
Month after month, and year after year, for more than fifty years, we together have trodden our Masonic paths. To us they have been ways of pleasantness, and paths of peace. Times without number together we have been called from labor to refreshment, and from refreshment to labor again; now for the last time you have been called from labor to refreshment and rest, while I still toil on-You have been called to that refreshment, which never cloys, to that rest which never ends.
You have been translated from this imperfect, to that all perfect, glorious and celestial Lodge above, where the Supreme Architect of the universe presides. There we trust to meet one who for so many years was nearer and dearer to you than a brother, to meet, nevermore to part; there also to meet with many of the ancient brothers of Union Lodge, and to convey to them the pleasing intelligence that Union Lodge, once supposed to be dead, has had a glorious resurrection here below.
Peace to your ashes, and rest to your soul. Again I say farewell. Brothers, we can best honor his memory by imitating his virtues.
After this address one of the brothers offered a heartfelt, fervent prayer, all joining in saying the Lord's Prayer. It will be remembered that Brother Breck made a most excellent speech on St. John's Day, in December last, at the Grand Lodge banquet, and that he and Brother Wadsworth were then both surviving signers of the Declaration of , and together had steadfastly breasted the storm of anti-Masonry. The mutual regard thus nurtured, which had existed so long between these two good and true Masons, will explain the deep feeling of Brother Breck, and the scene at the grave, as witnessed by W.
