Table of Contents

Sacred Asylum

Sacred Asylum! here we meet
And tell our vows at Friendship's shrine;
Father! guide Thou our wandering feet,
And make the hearts before Thee Thine.

Beneath the bannered Cross we stand,
From worldly noise and strife apart,
And, trusting, grasp the offered hand,
That holds within its palm the heart.

From off our pilgrim sandals brush
The dust of busy, toiling day,
And here, in evening's quiet hush,
Bending before the Master, pray —

That in our hearts, without alloy,
May dwell the love that Christ hath shown,
Responsive to a Brother's joy
And making all his griefs our own.

With firm reliance on Thy name,
May we the path of duty tread
O'er frozen ways, or through the flame,
Whence Molay's martyr-spirit fled

And when at last, this mortal dust
Shall put on Immortality;
O, grant us then serenest trust
In Thine unending verity.

The Two Robs

Written for Rob Morris' Laureate Testimonial, at New York, December 17, 1884.

'Tis meet that Masonry should twine anew
For the sweet singer of her later days
The Laurel Wreath, that on his brow she threw,
Her earlier Rob, who 'mid "the banks and braes"
Of her first mountain home, on living strings
Of human hearts, so waked the minor chords,
Attuned to that sweet sadness which still sings
The while it weeps, transmuting into words
Tears that slake our spirits as the earth the dew,
That scarce we know if most of joy or pain
Swells when his "Heart-warm, fond adieu" thrills through
The later minstrel's "Bright Fraternal Chain!"
Twin Robs are these; when either strikes the lyre
The other's heart throbs trample on the wire.

Beneath Thy Temple's Bending Dome

For the celebration of St. John the Baptist Day, June 24th, 1866.

Beneath Thy temple's bending dome
We meet, O Architect Divine —
Grand emblems of that brooding care,
Which makes these human temples thine.

Father, as we our altar rear,
Within the over-arching wood,
Oh, do thou raise in every heart
An altar to the True and Good.

Its incense be the love we bear
To every earth-born child of Thine.
Fan with Thy breathing love to flame
The spark of brotherhood divine.

Safe resting on Thy mighty arm,
Guide us through all these earthly ways,
And grant thus in Thy heavenly Lodge
To join in never-ending praise.

Joseph Robbins (1834-1909)

The following was compiled from two longer articles by H.L.Haywood, one in Mackey's Encyclopedia on Masonic Orations (but titled "Robbins, Joseph, Oration By"), and Haywood's introduction to Robbins' Oration reprinted in The Builder.

It is a good thing for us to celebrate famous men not alone because of the inspiration gained from their personal achievements but in order that we of today may sit at the feet of the masters of yesterday, the better to learn wisdom. From few of the great and wise teachers of Masonry now gone to the Grand Lodge above would one learn more than from Bro. Joseph Robbins.

Joseph Robbins was born in the good town of Leominster, Mass., Sept. 12, 1834, of the best of stock, his granduncle having fallen in the Battle of Bunker Hill, his grandfather having served through the Revolutionary War, and his mother having been a descendant of the first president of Harvard College, all of which means that sound red blood coursed in his veins, a fact not belied by his own militant career. Little is known of his early education except that it was both broad and deep, so that at the comparatively early age of twenty-seven he was able to graduate from Jefferson Medical College at Philadelphia. Upon his graduation he set himself up in practice in Quincy, Ill., where in the course of time he became a kind of institution, with a notable practice. He was too charitable to make much money, but he made a host of friends, and had countless admirers among his own profession. In his late years he abandoned general practice altogether to become a consulting specialist. After his honorable and arduous career he fell into everlasting rest at Quincy, July 19, 1909.

Dr. Robbins was made a member of the Craft by Wyoming Lodge, Mass., Dec. 28, 1856. He transferred his membership to Quincy Lodge, No. 296, Quincy, Ill., where he removed in 1858, and where he lived the remainder of his life. Of this lodge he was W.M. during the period 1863-1869 inclusive, and then again in 1880. From his first visit to Grand Lodge in 1863 until and including 1908 he did not miss a session except for the year 1864. In addition to numerous other offices and honors of Grand Lodge he was Grand Master for 1876 and 1877.

In the opinion of literary critics, and applying the canons of eloquence rather than the criteria of Masonic scholarship, the most perfect eloquence of American Masonry is found in Dr. Joseph Robbins' oration, delivered by him to the Grand Lodge of Illinois. In 1868 he was elected Grand Orator, and as such delivered, in 1869, an oration described as "the greatest exposition of the aims and purposes of Masonry ever presented in the Grand Lodge." His Oration remained famous and familiar for half a century; the complete text was published in The Builder, August, 1925.

In this same year Bro. Robbins began his duties as Fraternal Correspondent, in which office he shone with an ever growing lustre until at the end of his career his name was known from one end of the country to the other. He contributed reports in 1869, 1871 to 1875, 1879, 1880, and then from 1888 to 1903 inclusive, making thirty reports in all.

My, how the man could write! His sentences are as lithe as an athlete's muscles, with never a waste word, or ornamental phrase, or idle trope, bound together into paragraphs as succinct as were ever printed. In and out of them play summer lightnings of wit and sarcasm, and at times a faint shimmer of poetry. Neither Parvin nor Drummond was a harder hitter; and as for comprehension of Freemasonry as a whole, and knowledge of its facts, Robbins had not a superior.

These high qualities were recognized by Grand Lodge when in 1916 it directed Bros. Owen Scott, Alexander H. Bell and George A. Stadler to prepare a memorial volume "In Appreciation of the Character and Services of Joseph Robbins, Past Grand Master and for Thirty Years Fraternal Correspondent" Masonic Life and Services of Joseph Robbins. In this cloth bound book of 163 pages one will find a collection of excerpts from his reports in which are faithfully mirrored his genius and character.

A memorial to him which still stands into the 21st century is Joseph Robbins Lodge #930 in Bartonville, IL (Website here).