Free Masonry - The Masonic Trowel

170
REVIEW OF
medley of her pretensions. None grasp her and drag her
to the light; and if her bones are exposed by some shrewd,
or some perjured hand, to the common gaze, the world
finds in them small likeness of her whose name is MYSTERY,
and suffers them to be buried in forgetfulness. And there let
them lie: I meddle not with the works of others: I meddle
not with any thing properly belonging to the Masonic
craft alone ; the signs by which they know one another. Masons
may yet sing, as now,
** By points of good fellowship we still accord,
u Observing each brother's true sign, grip, and word."
I betray neither ; but the character of the whole, it is
my duty to proclaim; and that I do proclaim, in the words
of this book: those who can may answer.
The tokens are nothing to mc. What matter if some
determine to know each other^ by touching knuckles or elbows
/ The signs of Free Masonry are as genteel as whispering
in company, and among men are less offensive; for
some of them would not be observed when a whisper would.
They are a harmless thing, however, and need pot interrupt
our engagement with weightier matters.
The antique record from the Book of Constitutions, with
Mr. Locke's notes, contained also in Preston, in Hutchinson's
Spirit of Masonry, with the recommendation of the
grand officers of the Grand Lodge of England, in Calcott's
Disquisition on Masonry, and in the Free Masons 1 Library,
with the recommendation of the Grand Lodge of Maryland,
accompanied, in every case, with notes calculated to
conceal its falsehoods, utters at a breath the assertion placed
at the head of this chapter. I shall not go about to
disprove it; if it carry not in itself an antidote to its falsity,
I cannot administer one.
Free Masons teach " government and religion:" " what
appears most odd, is, that they reckon religion among the