Free Masonry - The Masonic Trowel

TOWN'S SPECULATIVE MASONRY. 169
CHAPTER XXVII.
Review of Towtfs Speculative Free Masonry.
" What have the Mason's taught mankind?* 9
"They have taught the arts of agriculture, architecture, astronomy,
geometry, arithmetic, music, poetry, chemistry, government, and religion."
—Book if Constitutions, Preston, F. M. Library, Hutchinson, and Cakott. >
PROTEUS had not so many different shapes as Free Masonry
puts on ; nor did he change his form with any more
facility than our modern divinity will hers. His strength
laid not in the might of his power, for though he transformed
himself into a fierce looking savage, he was tame to the
fearless assailant; though into a roaring fire, he burned not
the hand that dared to grasp him; and though into a mighty
torrent, he was easily arrested by a resolute arm. So
with Free Masonry; all her strength lies in her power of
eluding the grasp of her adversaries.* Those who have
been admitted into her cave, either despise and forsake her,
or use her arts for their own purposes, and are lost in the
* " Fiet enim subito sus horridus, atraque tigris,
" Squamosusque draco, et fulva cervice leaena:
" Aut acrem flammae sonitum dabit, atque ita vinclis
" Excidet; aut in aquas tenues dilapsus abibit."—Virgil.
" The wily god will try to loose his hold,
" And various forms assume:—
" With foamy tusks will seem a bristly boar,
" Or imitate the lion's angry roar;
" Break out in crackling flames to shun thy snare,
" Or hiss a dragon, or a tiger stare;
" Or, with a wile thy caution to betray,
" In fleeting streams attempt to slide •way."—Dryden.
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