Free Masonry - The Masonic Trowel

\ FEBTENSIONS OF FREE MASONRY*
charity, we must suppose the Masonic Reformer* did not
intend to date the commencement of our order before the
creation of the human species; and (as the words will not
bear an interpretation at all suited to any period since the
creation of man) I am willing to suppose that the creation
of man was the time, when, according to the Monitor, symmetry
and the Masonic order had their being; as it is also
written, u From the commencement of the world, we may
trace the foundation of Masonry, "t
This view of the subject is confirmed by the fact that the
best authorities place the era of man's creation 4000 years
before the Christian era; and Free Masonry, reckoning like
the self-styled eternal city, ab urbe condita, makes the year
1828, of the Christian era, to be the year 5838 of its era;
that is, the year of light, the lucis of Free Masonry,
agrees exactly with the year of creation.
In strict accord with this view, the poet sings in lines approved
by the constituted authorities of Free Masonry;
" When earth's foundation first was laid
By the Almighty Artist's hand,
'Twas then our perfect laws were made,
Established by his strict command."
It ifr plainly, then, one of the pretensions of Free Masonry,
that the order of Masonry was established at the period
of creation. That (as is asserted in the lines above
* The author of the Free Mason's Monitor, Col. Thos. 8. Webb, whose
memory lives in the hearts of many of the fraternity, introduced changes
eo numerous and important into the roles, and habits of work, in the Lodges
of America, that he may with propriety be regarded as the great modern
Reformer of Masonry. He was deceived; but his object was praiseworthy
; his aim was ppblic good—was extensive benevolence. He lived to
publish many editions of the Monitor, and succeeded in bringing the work
so nearly to suit the wants of the Fraternity, that it has the authority of
a most valued ferf too*.
t»Tbe first stage of Masonry took its rise in the earliest times, was
originated in the mjnd of Adam, descended pore through the antediluvian
*gw,* &c. &c. HulehirmrC* Spirit of Matonryi p. 119.