of making combinations to suit each individual case, never combining without being able to give a most satisfactory reason therefor. His health was such as to forbid constant application to professional duties for a year previous to his death. He was industrious however, and applied himself assiduously until October, 1862, when he found it necessary to resign the more arduous portion of his practice. Thenceforward until his death he alternately worked and rested, frequently going into the country for a brief relaxation, and returning, recommenced work with a determination far beyond his powers, until again forced to retreat. He visited San Luis Obispo and San Rafael during 1863, always working hard while at home, despite the remonstrances of his numerous friends. It seemed impossible for him to remain in the city without being engaged in active practice. His devotion to his friends was, if possible, more than reciprocated; which a single instance will illustrate, though only an example of very many similar attachments between his patients and himself. He returned, broken in health, to attend an invalid lady in a case of emergency, whom he had watched from childhood through severe illness and much suffering. Although worn down and enduring great pain himself, he was with her almost constantly for a week, when death terminated her sufferings. He was overwhelmed with grief, and never afterwards recovered himself, following his patient in about a fortnight. Three days before death he had attended a number of patients, and was out in the street thirty-six hours prior to his decease. He died on the morning of September 24th, 1863. For eight hours. previous to dissolution he was speechless, but conscious of all that was passing around him. He had often expressed a desire to die holding a Mason by the hand. In his last moments he grasped the hand of a friend present, motioning him to a seat, when he seemed content, and so breathed his last.

The announcement that Dr. Gray was dead, though it did not take his friends by surprise, fell like a pall upon many a sorrowing household. Every one who had known him seemed to take the event especially to heart,

as at the loss of a near and intimate friend. Associations and public bodies met and passed appropriate resolutions. The wealthy and the poor alike were mourners--those for the genial companion, these for the generous benefactor-all for the skillful, sympathizing physician, who had carried hope, life, courage and healing into despairing hearts and homes. He died a bachelor, and upon the Society of California Pioneers devolved the sad duty of receiving the body at their hall, where it lay in state the night preceding the funeral. Quiet footsteps came continually through the watches of that night-rustling silks and the coarse habiliments of poverty mingling, as one after another lingered a moment and passed on-the suppressed emotions of the refined and self-possessed not less eloquent than more audible and uncontrolled grief. The casket, piled high with ever-increasing floral offerings, could at last hold no more, and the floor around was strewn with them. The services at the funeral, in which Civic orders and societies and Military organizations vied with each other to do honor to the occasion, were memorable and deeply impressive. The remains, with those of his father, were sent to New York, where they rest in Greenwood Cemetery, side by side.

We have endeavored thus briefly to depict Dr. Gray as the scientist, the physician, and the member of society. In conversation as in oratory he was singularly felicitous. His voice possessed that modulated musical quality rarely found except in superior organizations, and which with him, whether in every-day intercourse among his friends, in an after-dinner speech, or in the more formal parlance of an organized assemblage, had the same fascinating influence, enhanced by the charm of an unaffected courtliness of manner that made his presence eagerly sought in reunions of cultivated men and women. His personal appearance was as strikingly handsome as his manners were distinguished. He was a connoisseur in music, books, and works of art, which he was always selecting as gifts for his patients. He had a genuine appreciation of the grandeur and beauty of nature, and the correctness of an anatomist in the choice of fine horses,

of which he was particularly fond. His tastes combining the attributes of manliness and intellectual culture, were those of the highly educated gentleman. His nearest associates recall him as one of the finest types of man, in his physical as well as mental qualifications. To have enjoyed his intimacy may be regarded as one of those legacies to which the mind, perhaps wearied with the world's selfishness, instinctively turns when glancing back into the near past for bright examples and pleasant

memories.

Oration,

DELIVERED AT THE ANNIVERSARY OF ST. JOHN THE BAPTIST, AT THE LAYING OF THE CORNER-STONE OF THE MASONIC TEMPLE, SAN FRANCISCO, JUNE 25TH, 1860, BY THE GRAND ORATOR FOR THE DAY-SIR HENRY M. GRAY.

BRETHREN :-Beneath the blue dome of this wide, unpillared firmament, and under the magnificent roof of a temple "not made with hands," we are met in joyful assemblage, upon a day sacred to the ancient memories of our Craft, to lay with appropriate and impressive ceremonies the foundation-stone of a Temple, henceforth and forever to be sacredly dedicated to the mysteries and work of Masonry..

In due form and manner the corn, wine, and oil, poured forth upon that stone, have symbolized the great end and object of Masonic life; the swell of joyous music with its exultant harmony has awakened in our breasts the responsive echo; the light in a thousand earnest eyes, and the quickened throb of a thousand loving hearts, have told how deeply this scene and this hour have impressed themselves upon our very souls; and finally, the invocation of the blessing of Almighty God, to direct and prosper this undertaking to its successful completion, has, while it humbly acknowledges our dependence upon His powerful aid, given us the trustful hope that His paternal blessing shall be vouchsafed to us.

Brethren, the work is done! In the deep foundations of this structure you have placed your memorial. For the first time on the western shores of this continent, you have set up the pillars of your faith in enduring stone. In the generations yet to come, who shall gaze with pride upon this noble pile, and who shall under its secure shelter prosecute the glorious mission which Masonry has entrusted to their keeping, your labor will not be forgotten. They will recall,

with proud and glowing retrospects, the memory of this day. They will pay due homage to the loyal faith, the loving interest, and the deathless attachment which you held to the great work of Masonry, and which prompted you, in the very infancy of our State, thus to lay broad and deep the imperishable foundations of a Temple, which, while it should be one of the most conspicuous adornments of our city, should also serve as a perpetual record of that faith which, in all ages and in all countries, has, in its "outward visible form," illustrated itself to the world in all the triumphs of architectural glory, as, in the manifestations of its inner life, it has been the pioneer in the vanguard of civilization, charity, peace, brotherly kindness, and good will to men. If ever the light burns dim upon our altars, or the hearts of the faithful fail them "because of fear"; if the doubter or the skeptic ask: "The Fathers, where are they?" then shall this Masonic Temple answer: "The same faith that animated their hearts still survives in their descendants. This goodly Tabernacle, which the ancient craftsmen builded, yet stands in its pristine strength and beauty, a heritage to be sacredly guarded and preserved by us and by those who shall come after us. So, evermore, shall the faithful remembrance of our brethren yet to be, preserve our memory green.'

The State has

All creeds and faiths have their festal occasions. its days of patriotic jubilee, the Church its seasons of rejoicing. On commemorative days, due homage is paid to all who, in every rank and in every good work, have adorned the age they illustrated. Thus religion, art, science, heroism, virtue, wherever their votaries have ennobled life by grand achievements, have claimed the ready homage of the world. They who have died on the bloody fields of battle for the liberties of their country, where thousands in the joyous rush of death go down-they who in the fires of martyrdom have yielded up their lives a sacrifice to principle-they who in toilsome solitude have worked out the great problems of science, and given language and interpretation to the mute voices of nature-they who with strong hands and pure ambitions have guided the evolving destinies of nations-they who, as the aposties of divinest charity, have devoted life, substance, influence, all to the amelioration of human wrong or suffering, are alike canonized in the world's great heart, and compel the homage of the world's wide sympathy.

This is our festal day, my brethren; to us, a day of joy in a twofold sense. This happy hour is witness of a ceremony of no small import to the future of Masonry in this State and on this coast. We have come up together, with one accord, to aid in the laying of the corner-stone of the first Masonic Temple erected within the limits of our national confederation, on the westward slopes of the dividing mountains. For a brief space we have forsaken our usual avocations; and from fields of waving grain, from work-shops of daily toil, from the quiet retreats of scientific pursuits, from the busy marts of commerce, from the sacred chancels of religion, we have come with one heart, and one mind," to swell the pomp of this festive hour. Hallowed by our prayers and benedictions, we have placed the token

of our affection to Masonry in the keeping of our mountain granite. Our loves, our hopes, our aspirations, we place beside those memorials as soon may the one perish as the others. Not until the solid rock shall melt in the consuming fires of the final conflagration, shall die out in our hearts the noble teachings of our Order. Not even when the elements themselves shall yield to the inevitable laws of decay and dissolution, shall the pure, eternal, imperishable principles upon which our faith is based, perish or be lost.

There is no eternity to matter. The adamantine walls of earth themselves must crumble into dust: and no work of man's hand can withstand the silent tooth of time. The mighty monuments of the forgotten past reveal themselves to us only in dim traditions or in almost undistinguishable fragments, puzzling the lore of the antiquarian and baffling the light of science. They leave us like the mariners on the wrecking midnight sea, looking-and oh, how hopelessly for the coming light. But principles cannot die. Truth is eternal. Justice, equality, fraternal love, charity, faith, hope, are all invulnerable, and immortal all. They are but the emanations of the eternal good-sparks from the eternal fire--drops from the everflowing river of immortal life. Like the deathless source from which they sprang, they also (albeit in clouded manifestation) must claim the high prerogative of immortality. So, brethren, with the inner life of Masonry. It cannot die. Its temples may totter to the dust, and its visible tokens be utterly lost, but IT will survive. Its spirit is the spirit of the "All-working Good"-its work is the practical embodiment of all-working benevolence-its mission on this earth is but the reflection and exemplification of that divinest of all virtues-Charity!

Aside from the event which has convened us together, we enjoy another source of congratulation. This is one of our "holy days, set apart and dedicated to the memory of the holy Saints John. Since the early primitive rule of our first Grand Master, King Solomon, with the passing away of the ancient dispensation-with all its glorious symbols, types, and shadows-with all its rigid enforcement of the law as a penalty for disobedience-with all the magnificent surroundings which environed the ancient Masonry, and the rites and ceremonies of the early Temple worship-with all the forms and restrictions and subordinations, working in their iron channels the lapse of ages and the changing conditions of society brought an epoch in which milder laws and more tolerant systems were demanded by the necessities of the time. The early morning glow upon the eastern hill-tops announced the coming of a brighter day; the softer airs that swept westward from the ancient home of the stern wide-browed prophets and patriarchs, foretold the coming of a more genial summer; the dove, with the olive branch of peace, was flying o'er the stormy water in search of a resting-place for her weary feet; and then, when among the crumbling fragments of the earlier civilizations Masonry could find no permanent abiding place, she swept down the cloudy and perturbed centuries, until she rested under the shadow of the new dispensation of peace.