Free Masonry - The Masonic Trowel

68 FALLOW CRAFT'S DEGREE.
make, we limit or extend our inquiries; and, in proportion
to our capacity, we attain to a greater or less degree of
perfection.
* " Masonry includes within its circle almost every branch
of polite learning; under the veil of its mysteries is comprehended
a regular system of science. Many of its illustrations,
to the confined genius, may appear unimportant;
but the man of more enlarged faculties, will perceive them
to be in the highest degree useful and interesting. To
please the accomplished scholar and ingenious artist, Masonry
is wisely planned; and in the investigation of its latent
doctrines, the philosopher and mathematician may experience
equal delight and satisfaction/ 9
An apprentice who would stop with such a bright prospect
before him, must be exceedingly faithless, especially
when on the same page it is added : " To exhaust the various
subjects of which it treats, would transcend the powers
of the brightest genius; still, however, nearer approaches
to perfection may be made, and the man of wisdom will
not check the progress of his abilities, though the task he
attempts may at first seem insurmountable ;"t and more, a
plenty; but this is enough to lead an apprentice on to the
degree of fellow craft, and to lead the uninitiated to think
there is some singular mystery in Free Masonry; and as
that is what such statements are intended for, we will proceed
next to the matter of the degree of fellow crafts, to
which this is an introduction.
Here the Monitor, the Manual, the Chart, Preston, the
Book of Constitutions of S. C, and the F. M. Library,
walk pari passu in the grandeur of their pretensions. But
I extract from the Chart.
After naming a variety of things previously to be explained,
one of which is, that " in six days God created the hea-
* This ii taken from Preston, b. 2. s. 4. and is copied verbatim in the
Free Mason's Library, p. 165.
t Webb's Monitor, chap. 10. p. 60. F. M. Library, pp. 165,166.