Free Masonry - The Masonic Trowel

40
PRETENSIONS OF FREE MASONRY.
open to the gifted mind; professes to carry one through
almost every branch of polite learning,* discovering new
truths, and beautifully embellishing those already known,!
when, in fact, it barely names the sciences, as a lure to
catch the gaze of the simple, and has no more to do with
science, as science, than with the Mohawk alphabet which
never had existence-fit honestly deserves not the countenance
it receives; it ought to be abandoned by upright
men.
Masonry is used to denunciations, but not from its own
members. It has somehow held the minds, or at least the
tongues and pens of its members, under that restraint which
has permitted hardly a groan of disappointment to reach
the public ear. How it is possible so long and so effectually
to have imposed upon its own members, is "difficult to be
conceived.
I shall not, at this stage of the work, do more than point
out the difficulty, that the reader may know I see it. In
the conclusion, both the writer and the reader will be better
able to meet this difficulty, and to answer the question, Masonry
being a bag of ill wind, how have sensible men endured
it so long?
And here let me, with all carefulness and sincerity, separate
Masons from Masonry; the members of the fraternity
from the institution itself, while I present Masonry within
" This supreme and divine knowledge being derived from the Almighty
Creator to Adam, its principles ever since have been, and still are, most sacredly
preserved, and inviolably concealed." Smith's Use and Abuse of
Free Masonry, p. 27.
" Hail, mighty art! Hail, gracious gift of Heaven!
" To aid mankind by our Creator given. 1 '—Hmrdit'tMon. p. 70.
* Monitor, chap. 10. and Richards 9 Preston, p. 54. and 59. Book of
Constitutions of S. C. p. 62. Free Mason's Library, or Book of Const, of
Maryland, p. 165.
t Book of Const, of Mass. p. 121.