Free Masonry - The Masonic Trowel

ANCIENT FREE MASONRY IS DEISM. 251
character, and to the value of plain truth, but solely to her
own advantage; (in the words of her Books of Constitutions,)
" to her own profit and praise."
Sueh a moralist, who had contributed' an incalculable
amount of labour to produce the scenes of the reign of
terror^ when the Scriptures of heavenly truth, and of glorious
promise, were indignantly rejected before the multitude,
denounced by the national convention, and burned in
the public place by the common executioner, while reason
mounted tfye throne of moral government, and received
the homage of laws abolishing the Sabbath day, and the
religious rite of marriage, might be pardoned for thinking,
in the fulness of her joy, that interest required her to exhibit
more completely, the features of a faqe, which, darkly
seen, drew multitudes of admirers. It is the interest of
vice, when her pupil has become familiar with one shade
of her character, to exhibit a darker.* Free Masonry
is a perfect illustration, of this truth, while .the fact is a perfect
illustration of the character of Free Masonry. And it
was for her interest, in the progress of vice, to scoff at the
name she had always despised.
Again; Free Masonry has been proved to havq a complexion
suited to each of her followers; religious, convivial,
and faithless. It is nothing strange if she has acted a part,
and now acts a part, in suitable places, to the satisfaction of
infidels, as/she has done in New-York, to the great praise of
her Christian character. No place is more suitable, than
the scene of, Esprit"s labours; and, in view of the pretended
origin, the vain morality, and the plain interest of Free
Masonry, the reader will conclude, that Esprit spoke truth
in testifying to what he considers the " useful, lofty, and
divine" object of Fr^e Masonry, representing Immaaud
under the allegory of Hiram.
u Vice is a monster of so frightful mein
u As to be hated, needs but to be seen;
" Tet seen too oft, familiar with her face,
" We first endure, then pity, then embrace."