istics of his maturity. As if fed by the purity of the field anemone, perfumed by the balsam breath of the groves, and softened by the gurgling brooks of his early home, he came out in manhood's time with a heart that was quick to feel, a sympathy that was waiting to minister, and a friendship that ever hastened to give welcome; so that, in all the humility of his laborious and useful life, he was a universal friend, popular with all, and trusted by all. He moved gently but efficiently, a solvent and a healer amid the trials and contentions of his fellow-men.

In other ways, also, the sweetness and excellence of his nature, from the very beginning, made themselves manifest. His inborn and culturing gifts were unwilling to submit to the fetters and narrowness of the farmer's life, and he early began to feed and develop his intellectual faculties; and then, to give them command and sweep, he engaged in the wonderful experience of school-teaching, where he found the truth of the poet's words, that

"The wealthiest treasure to his lot shall fall

Whose heart, receiving, still returneth all."

At first the seasons were divided between the labors of the farm and the more exhausting toil of the school; then, until twenty-five years of age, he devoted himself to the kindred pursuits of literature and teaching, and in this he rested upon his own sense of pure strength and upon his simple faith of final success, refusing to receive his share, or any thing, from the small estate left by his father at his decease, but cheerfully relinquishing it all for the more comfortable support and stay of his sisters and mother.

He then became connected with the Maine Wesleyan Seminary, where he enjoyed the friendship, counsel, and instruction of those eminent teachers of youth, the Rev. William C. Larrabee, LL.D., and Rev. Benjamin F. Tefft, D.D., LL.D., whose influence he freely acknowledged to be one of the continual inspirations of all his after-life.

In 1839 he entered upon the work of preparation for the gospel ministry, which he had chosen to be the occupation of his life. Impaired health soon clamored for a change and for a cessation of the enthusiasm with which he was pursuing his favorite study, and so, in 1840, he removed to Greencastle, Ind., and became associated as a tutor with the corps of instruction of Asbury University, located in that place.

Here he renewed his relations with Dr. Larrabee, one of the acting professors, and established new ones with Bishop Matthew Simpson, then president of the university. Here, also, under the advice and supervision of these distinguished friends, he continued his classical education, and graduated from the university on Sept. 14, 1842. On the evening of his divorce from the college by graduation (Sept. 14, 1842), he was united in marriage to Miss Martha Dunn, daughter of Col. William Dunn of East Poland, Me., and sister of both Mrs. Tefft and Mrs. Larrabee, thus by the time, and the ties of marriage, illustrating the sweet affinities of literature and love.

During a part of the years 1842 and 1843 Brother Titus and his new wife conducted a private academy at Madison, Ind., with great success; but the care and anxiety of the enterprise became too much for his feeble constitution, and, finding his health becoming more and more precarious, he made a long tour of the Mississippi and the Lakes in company with Bishop Ames. All the incident and adventure of this journey, which made by two such men must have been both memorable and romantic, seem to have gone irrecoverably away into the great forgotten. In August, 1844, health being restored, he was ordained to the office of deacon by Bishop Hedding, and soon after was appointed to the pastorate of the church at Frankport. From this place, at the expiration of his constitutional term of two years, he was offered a transfer to the Providence Conference, embracing churches in Rhode Island and Massachusetts. Within this Conference, as pastor and presiding elder, his life of labor and influence has been mainly passed; not with any brilliancy of career, or exceptional splendor of talents, but with an even, steady, continual, useful light, that has been potent to a strong growth in goodness, and that has won not a few from the lower to the truly higher life. He was settled as a pastor successively in New Bedford, Woonsocket, Edgartown, East Weymouth, and Taunton in Massachusetts, and in Warren, Newport, and Phoenix in Rhode Island, and again a second term at Taunton and Warren. In each place he has left sweet and loving memories of his useful labors and his genial manhood. One of his dearest friends says that his labors were "to the gratification and growth of the churches and congregations under his oversight, winning hosts of warm friends, both in the ministry and laity by his zeal, urbanity, and by his great Christian nobility of char

acter." He has had two children, — Laura Jane, the wife of Mr. Edgar Pratt of Providence; and Charles Henry, a graduate of Harvard College in 1872, and for some time his assistant in the office of Grand Secretary.

Further details of the life and history of Brother Titus have been well prepared, as we are informed, under his own eye, and are published with the Proceedings of the Grand Lodge of Free and Accepted Masons of Massachusetts for the year ending December, 1873, being the year of its one hundred and fortieth anniversary.

Illustrious Brother Titus from his cradle to his coffin was always of a genuinely honest, true, pure, sweetly reasonable mind. His spirit was attuned to all good things. He was a loyal, loving citizen, discharging with quiet dignity and earnestness all the duties and trusts that befell him to do. He was a kindly affectionate, sympathizing, helping neighbor. His aim was to make life sunnier and better. He was a steady, trusted, plain, sincere teacher, a comforting, gentle, hopeful, faithful pastor and counsellor. As a husband and a father he combined and lived out all those forgiving and self-sacrificing virtues, wore always that hopeful cheer, that undisturbed assurance of faith, that wise evenness of judgment, and that calm discretion of act, that made home to him and his at once the sweetest and most sacred spot of earth. He was a man of decided opinions; and when his mind had accepted a principle, plan of life, or faith, he had no more doubt. He was an excellent judge of human nature, and this quality served him nobly in his mission of peace between his fellow-men.

With Ill.. Bro.. Titus, Masonry had an early and romantic birth. When he was but ten years of age, an old neighbor and very dear friend of his family, an influential townsman and a good Mason, was buried with full Masonic honors. The severe criticisms against secret societies, that thoughtlessly or ignorantly were bandied about from mouth to mouth, had fallen upon his ear; and his curiosity was on fire to witness the strange and solemn ceremony. But in the language of his maturer years, "the rich Masonic regalia, the mournful music, the muffled drums, the solemn march around the grave, the sprig of acacia reverently deposited by each brother, saying, as he dropped his emblem of immortality into the grave, 'The will of God is accomplished - Amen So mote it be,' stirred my soul to its very depths; and I there

resolved within myself that when I became a man I would be a Mason." This youthful impulse was continually cherished and strengthened with his age; and as soon as his health was established, and the sojournings of his ministry had come into the steadiness of residence, which was one of the fruits of his presiding eldership, he at once sought admission among the Brotherhood of King David's Lodge, and received the Sublime Degree of Master Mason on the 15th of December, 1858. In 1859 he received the Capitular degrees in Adoniram Chapter of New Bedford, the Council degrees in Providence Council of Royal and Select Masters, and the Orders of Knighthood in St. John's Encampment of Knights Templar at Providence, R.I. In 1860 he was invested with the Ineffable Degrees in King Solomon's Lodge of Perfection at Providence, and the remaining degrees of the Ancient Accepted Rite in Newport. May 18, 1865, he was created a Sov.. Grand Inspector-General, thirty-third degree, at Boston, and elected an Honorary Member of the Supreme Council of the Northern Masonic Jurisdiction of the United States of America.

His Masonic services have been abundant and always acceptable, and may be briefly enumerated as follows: he was Wor.. Master of King David's Lodge of Taunton, thrice Ill.. Master of Webb Council of Royal and Select Masters of Warren, R.I., Eminent Commander of St. John's Commandery of Providence, R.I., Grand Prelate, Grand Captain-General, Deputy Grand Master, and Grand Master of the Grand Encampment of Massachusetts and Rhode Island. He has also acted as first officer of the Lodge, Council, Chapter, and Consistory in the A. A... Rite, but rather for the purposes of organizationand establishment of these Bodies than for actual work in the ritual of the Rite.

For several years, and up to the time of his death, he was Grand Prior of the Supreme Council, 33°. He also, for a number of years, served as Grand Prior of the Massachusetts Council of Deliberation, until, at its session in June, 1878, he was elected Ill.. First Lieut.-Commander of that Body.

In 1872 he united with some of his old Brethren of King David's Lodge in the formation of a new Lodge in Taunton, which was called in his honor the Charles H. Titus Lodge.

When our Brother Titus received the appointment of Grand Secretary of the Grand Lodge of Massachusetts, he regarded it as an interposition

of divine Providence, some of whose meanings and mercies he seemed to himself at once to discern; and although no cloud rested upon his faith, and in no respect was his trust in God weakened, yet the breakfast prayer that ascended to heaven after the news had been told him was the rolling-away of a great burden from his heart, and an uplift of thanksgiving that was radiant of relief and joy. It was sent of God to answer some present needs of so much was he sure. He recognized in it also, some larger good and some profounder purpose, which he was not then able to forecast, and which, perhaps, by all the aids of his later life can only partially be told.

He entered upon the office, by his own free will and accord, a somewhat rigid Methodist and a Christian sectarist. The human race was divisible into two classes, the workers with God to the elevation and salvation of men, and the workers against God. The former were the church organic and visible, employing the instruments and ceremonials of the church: the latter were the world, busy and engrossed about the things of time, with motives and tools of work, selfish, and at best only moral or prudentially good, and not religiously so. The former were the saved, children and servants of God, doing and walking in God's purposes: the latter were not in the covenant of salvation, — children and servants of human interests, doing and thinking in the laws and processes of the merely natural world; a human brotherhood that were to be converted and changed into good men. God's kingdom was to come only by their religious conversion, and gathering into the church.

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His intimate and daily life with the Masonic Brotherhood, as it happened in the contacts of his great office, gradually more and more effaced this line of churchly limitation, till, as he came near his closing days, he often with marked pleasure repeated to his nearer associates what a delightful change had come over his views by reason of this Masonic knowledge, and how wonderful it had become to him to find and to know so many good men who neither belonged to any church, nor were even professing Christians, who were still so devotedly, so faithfully, and so wisely working to establish among their fellow-men the very principles and laws and motives of life which make the gospel and kingdom of God. He declared it was a conception which had not been possible to him, except that his eyes had seen, and his heart felt it in the intimacies and communions with his Brethren. It was an exuberant surprise to him, and a partial interpretation of the Providence that had