Free Masonry - The Masonic Trowel

158 FREE MASONRY,
cellertt moral influence; but she is a deceiver, and cannot
be trusted when she speaks the truth. All have heard
of the veracity of the thirsty savage, who* on a winter's day,
received his quart for a deer, which the shopmap " might
find 91 '—but did not find. The savage, when afterwards
challenged, replied, " You found Sigamond lake ?" " Yes."
—"And the great white oak ?" " Yes.' 1 —"It is well if Indian
tell two truths to one lie." Like this veracity is the
moral influence of Free Masonry. She defines geometry
and the sciences, like Playfair; and teUs you, "these are
t,he delight of the lodges." You find the lodge, as certain
as the shopman did the big white oak by Sigamond lake,
but no deer is there. She discourses upon religion and morality,
like a saint; and pretends to guide her followers to
a blessed immortality. They find the white oak and the
lake, two truths; but the main thing is false: Free Masonry
is a blind guide. She pretends that " the WORD in the
first verse of St. John, in all its relations to man, time, and
eternity, constktUes the very spirit and essence of speculative
Free Masonry:" Town's Spec. Free Mas. p. 154.) an assertion,
so barefaced, that it beats the effrontery of the Indian
by two bow shots; and it is impossible to conceive how
it could be solemnly pronounced, and officially sanctioned,
and, after five years opportunity of reflection, repeated, in
the second edition of Town's S. M. But there it is, p. 144;
let the Grand Chapter look to it; Free Masonry can an-
• swer it only with her life.
O, could this voice reach the ears of the honest fraternity,
how distinctly would it cry: " Free Masonry is a fiend,
a legion of foul spirits; a wonder, like the smoke coming
up from the bottomless pit, that darkens the sun and the air.
Full of all subtlety and craftiness, she takes the profession
of an angel of light, yet dwells unseen in the dampness.
She plants herself upon the same co~eternal and unshaken
foundation with Christianity, as taught in divine revelation,
thus comparing her midnight face with the church,