The New Masonic Hall At Philadelphia.

THE NEW MASONIC HALL AT PHILADELPHIA .

Oration by Past Grand Master R . W . Bro . R . A . Lamherton , Concluded . It is needless to follow on tho history of the Grand Lodge , as then constituted , and of whichFranklin , in 1794 , againbecametho

G . M ., by appointment of R . W . Thomas Oxnard , who had been commissioned by Lord John Ward , G . M ., of England , as Provisional G . M . of North America , for after many years of prosperity , it gradually

ceased to exist , leaving this Grand Lodge the sole and sovereign authority in Pennsylvania . On the 20 th of June , 1764 , by a Grand Warrant under the hands of tho Bight

Hon . Thos . Erskine , Earl of Kelly , Viscount Fenton , & c , Grand Master , and the other Grand Officers , and under tho Seal of tho Grand Lodge of England , E . W . William Ball was appointed Grand Master , and others , officers of a Provincial Grand Lodge ,

to be held at Philadelphia for tho Province of Pennsylvania , granting to them and to their successors to do and perforin all and every act which could usually be done and performed by other Grand Lodges . This was tho third warrant which had been issued

for our Provincial Grand Lodge . The first was of the date of July 15 th , 1761 , and , as we learn from a letter of Lawrence Dermott , then Grand Secretary of the Grand Lodge of England , " was delivered to the Grand

Officers in the presence of Joseph Bead ( of the Lodge No . 2 ) , who was tho person that made application for it , " and was said to have been lost on its way here , —tho ship and warrant having been taken by the

French . The second warrant was delivered to the Senior Grand Warden , and was also mislead or lost . Under the Warrant of 1764 , the Provincial Grand Lodge of Pennsylvania was duly organised , and , by virtue of . the powers thus conferred , it not only established lodges , granting warrants , or

dispensations , for the puspose , in Pennsylvania , but also in Delaware , Virginia , Maryland , New Jersey , Georgia , Hayti , the Seventeenth Begiment of the British Army the First Pennsylvania Begiment of Artillerythe North Carolina and Maryland

, Eegimonts , tho New Jersey Brigade , and the Pennsylvania Line in the Continental Army . During the occupation of Philadelphia by tho British Army , we have no account

of tho transactions of the Grand Lodge . Bat after the evacuation of the city , a pro . cession " in the Masonic form " was ordered by the Grand Master on Monday , the 28 th December , 1778 , to meet at "the College

and go to Christ Church , . where a sermon will be preached by a Bev . Brother and a collection made , to be laid out in tho purchase of wood and other necessaries for the relief of the poor at this inclement season . " Nearly three hundred of the Brethren

assembled . Among them was " His Excellency our illustrious Brother George Washington , Esquire , supported by the Grand Master and his Deputy . " The sermon was preached by Brother Wm . Smith , D . D ., from the text , "As free and not

using your liberty for a cloak of maliciousness , but as tho servants of God . " 1 Pcte r ii ., 16 . Tho collection amounted to four hundred pounds . After Divine service " the Brethren departed to their respective

Lodges , where they dined together with their usual harmony and sociability . So much did ho who afterwards so deservedly won the title of the " Father of his Country " command the confidence and

admiration of his Brethren , that in 1780 resolutions wore unanimously adopted by the Grand Lodge recommending the for . mation of a general Grand Lodge on this continent , and him to be its Grand Master . The War of the Bevolution had ended ;

the colonies had established , by seven years of bravery and suffering , the de . claration made in this city by that immortal Congress of which so many of our