Mystic masonry, or, The symbols of freemasonry and the greater ...

52 Mystic Masonry.
doing, and these results cannot be changed in a day.
Many of our modern institutions, covered over, as
they are, with abuses and injustice, are, nevertheless,
so deep-rooted that they will have to work
themselves out to the bitter end of pain, sorrow,
and, probably, through lawlessness and bloodshed.
This need not be, yet it would be impossible to convince,
all at once, a sufficient number of individuals
who are involved in these institutions, of the real
cause of all our misery, and, at the same 'time, to
induce them to co-operate at once to remove the
cause. Such a thing is not to be expected, because
of universal unbelief as to the existence of the remedy
proposed; hence, retributive Justice will have
to work out its own results.
Is it
really necessary that mankind should forever
remain in ignorance, and forever repeat the same
follies, and invite the retribution that we have invoked
?
In the following pages, two sources of knowledge
have been pointed out, viz.. Masonry and Philosophy,
and these have been shown to take their rise,
either directly or indirectly, from the Mysteries of
Antiquity. The Unqualified Brotherhood of Man
is the basis of all Ethics, and the Great Repubhc is
the Ideal State. If these concepts were accepted