Free Masonry - The Masonic Trowel

ATTIRED IN HER MASONIC APRON. 157
For the embrace of the five points of fellowship, and for
the Shibboleth of Free Masonry ? * Not they.
What.was their object, Jet others say: surely it was not
for the light or the love of Free Masonry. Franklin and
Warren saw the storm of the revolution in the clouds which
precede the ram. They sought the deliverance of their
country from foreign sway.. One who works against the
ruling powers of any form of government, will find Free
Masonry, as Weishaupt did in working againdt all forms of
government, a good tool.
Many officers of our revolutionary army, for pastime,
and a confederacy to sustain them under their peculiar trials
and dangers, fell into the arms of Free Masonry. They
were regarded as rebels,, without being paid like patriots;
and so it was, for whatever reason, Free Masonry first flourished
in our country, through the struggle for our national
independence.
Why Frederick the Great was engaged in the lodges, will
appear in the sequel. That the present king of England*
while Prince of Wales, presided over the lodges of England,
may be accounted for by the use then made of Free Masonry
on the continent of Europe, to destroy, not only every throne,
but every form of government. He, as heir to a throne,
would take care for it: and how better, than by heading
and thus guiding the most powerful engine of attack levelled
against the Bourbons of France ? A prince, having the
wisdom to confer a knighthood for the capture of an Ame- *
rican frigate, would cheerfully have given an earldom to the
subject, who, at that period, had blown Free Masonry fairly
out of water; but parliament, in 1799, putting an extinguisher
upon its vanity, by confining it to the three degrees;
and the royal family condescending to govern it, it is now
in England as harmless and respectable and silly, as a
cotirt fool.
• It is harmless only as a political engine ; in its influence
upon the morals, Free Masonry is a curse to any people.
Gentlemen may point out a thousand instances of her ex-