Free Masonry - The Masonic Trowel

ELOQUENT AND PATRIOTIC APPEAL. 387
sarcasm; and they are pleased with the support of others.
The desire of making proselytes is in every breast—and
it is whetted by the restraints of society. And all
countries have discontented men, whose grumblings will
raise discontent in others, who might not have attended to
some of the trifling hardships and injuries they met with,
had they not been reminded of them. To be discontented,
ana not to think of schemes of redress, is what we> cannot
think natural or manly; and where can such sentiments
and schemes find such safe utterance, and such probable
support, as in a secret society ? Free Masonry is [not] innocent
of all these things, but Free Masonry has been
abused, and at last totally perverted; and so will, and must,
any such secret association, as long as men are licentious
in their opinions, or wicked in their dispositions.
M It were devoutly to be wished, therefore, that the
whole fraternity would imitate the truly benevolent conduct
of those German lodges who have formally broken tip, and
made a patriotic sacrifice of their amusement to the safety
of the state. I cannot think the sacrifice great or costly.
It can be no difficult matter to find as pleasant a way of
passing a vacant hour; and the charitable deeds of the
members need not diminish in the smallest degree. Every
person's little circle of acquaintance will give him opportunities
of gratifying his kind dispositions, without the chance
of being mistaken in the worth of the persons on whom he
bestows his favours.
" But not only are secret societies dangerous, but all so- '
cieties whose object is mysterious. The whole history of
man is a proof of this position. In no age or country has
there ever appeared a mysterious association which did not
in time become a public nuisance.
u The object remaining a secret in the hands of the managers,
the rest simply put a ring in their own noses, by
which they may be led about at pleasure; and Hill panting
after the secret, they are the better pleased the less they
see of their way. A mystical object enables the leader to
shift his ground as he pleases, and to accommodate himself