Free Masonry - The Masonic Trowel

PRAYER FOR THE NOVICE. 65
rit, that will not be mocked. Prayer is, not an empty form ;
is not a service operating only upon the heart of the petitioner
; but it ascends to one who hears, and will in wonderful
condescension answer. And how can he who looks
daily to God for his Spirit, lift up his voice or his supplication,
that the great God would endue a youth " with a competency
of divine wisdom, to enable him, by the secrets of a
mystic art, the better to display the beauties of holiness!"
How incongruous the ideas! that the God of all Grace
should be entreated to do a secret service for the benefit of
Free Masonry! For the honour of His holy name, the
words of the prayer say; but, indeed, it does not mean any
such thing. He that wrote, and whoever uses the prayer,
must know in his own heart, that the mighty God is not one
covertly to honour his own name. Only Free Masonry does
that What says Jehovah to David, his offending servant ?
" Thou didst it secretly; but I will do this thing before all
Israel, and before the sun : saith the Lord." It is monstrous
presumption to entreat God to honour his own holy
name by the greater display of the beauties of holiness
through the secrets of a mystical science I Indeed, the
prayer does not mean so \ but the spirit of it is—honour
Masonry, our secret art, that it may appear in his eyes hallowed
by prayer and allied to heaven, who kneels now
blindfolded, expecting something, and who will soon open
his eyes upon vanity and disappointment.*
The propriety of this explanation will appear the more
striking, when we learn more particularly what the secret
art is. I pass over the notice of the working tools of an entered
apprentice; of the ornaments, lights, and jewels of a
lodge; brotherly love, relief, and truth; together with the
* Prayer at the making of a Mason. Book of Cons, of Mass. p. 151.—
" Great Architect in heaven! Maker and Ruler of worlds unnumbered!
Deign from thy celestial temple to look down on us, the work of thy
hands: as we are now about to enlighten a fellow mortal in Masonry, wilt
thou enlighten us in a knowledge of dirine truth," &c.
9