Spring at last! How great the handiwork of Deity who assures us of the return of the seasons and the variety of scenes which each season displays to the discerning eye.

May is a significant month in the trestleboard of the Lodge. Twenty-six members and family will travel to King of Prussia to share with Elkins Lodge the fellowship of their Ladies Night on May 5. The following Thursday, May 12, has been declared Transportation Night. We look for a delegation from Transportation Lodge of Newport News and for transportation minded brethren from the surrounding area to join with our own members for a program of interest to all.

On May 24 the Wardens will take over. RW Brother John Boyd Obenchain, Deputy Grand Master of Masons in Virginia, will bring us a message you will all want to hear. Let us support these Wardens and fill the Lodge room. Then on the following weekend, from Friday evening until Sunday morning, we will host Liberty Lodge of Beverley, Massachussets. Many strong friendships have developed among us through the years. I urge you all to join in the fellowship. They will put on a Fellowcraft Degree at two o'clock, Saturday afternoon. Dinner and program will follow.

Take a good look at the highlights projected for June and enter them in your calendar now lest they be passed over.

By the time you read this, dedication of the new Pamela Ann Cunningham Library and Research Building at Mount Vernon by Alexandria-Washington Lodge in due Masonic form will have been accomplished. It was another notable milestone in the distinguished history of our Lodge, continuing the centuries old tradition that binds the Lodge and Mount Vernon through our joint association with George Washington - our most eminent Past Worshipful Master.

Things are happening in your Lodge, my brethren. Come and become a part of it, and bring a brother. You'll both profit.

Fraternally,

Archibald W. Lyon
Worshipful Master

"The Freemasons, variously called the Ancient and Honorable Society of Free and Accepted Masons, Ancient Free and Accepted Masons, Masonic Fraternity, or simply Masons, is beyond question the oldest, the most numerous, the most widely dispersed, and the most curious of all secular societies. Questions concerning its origin and the history, nature, and meaning of its ceremonies have attracted the attention of the closest students and the most indefatigable antiquaries, without completely satisfactory answers. As the survival of the mediaeval fraternity of builders, architects, artisans, and artists, the order can be traced back about five centuries to a time when, though then suffering decay from the decline in Gothic construction, it possessed and preserved legends of a much earlier origin, which have been the inspiration for many efforts at enlargement, illustration and embellishment.

Some of the legends and most of the principles and behests contained in the earliest records of the Fraternity, i.e. the Gothic Constitutions, have been adhered to with remarkable consistency, even into the present era, and, notwithstanding the lapse of time and the changes in social structure, have drifted but slightly from their original import, and then only reluctantly. Though the Society has experienced many vicissitudes and been subjected to many stresses, particularly, in being transplanted from its original habitat in Britain into many lands and among various peoples, though its control and administration have been loose, never unified under a single authority, and though its symbolism and ceremonies have been expanded and embellished, and, at times, supplemented by new themes woven into the fabric, yet, due to a persistent distaste for inovations, which seems to have animated its votaries from the first, its fundamental character, philosophy, purposes, tenets and customs have remained remarkably true to the original stock."

From "A Comprehensive View of Freemasonry" by Henry Wilson Coil.

Lost Brother. We have lost contact with Brother Sidney I. Weatherford. If you nave any information that might lead to his current address, will you kindly inform the Secretary?