Note: This text has been automatically extracted via Optical Character Recognition (OCR) software.
The Freemasons' Magazine, Or General And Complete Library.
THE FREEMASONS' MAGAZINE , OR GENERAL AND COMPLETE LIBRARY .
FOR DECEMBER 1794 . ' ' SOCIAL INFLUENCE OF FREEMASONRY .
THE institution of Freemasonry has an absolute tendency to inculcate every thinglaudable and useful to society ; and its leading qualities are , Philanthropy well directed , Morality pure , Secresy inviolable , and a taste for the Fine Arts . It may be observedthat SolonLycurgusNumaand all the other
, , , , political legislators , have not been able to render their establishments durable ; and that , however sagacious mi ght have been their laws , they had at no time the power to expand themselves over all countries , and to all ages . Having little more in view than victories and . conquests , military violence , and the elevation of one set of people above anotherthey were never universalnor consonant to the taste
, , , or genius , or interest of all nations . Philanthropy was not their bas is . The love of country , badly understood , and pushed into limits on which they should not verge , destroys often , in warlike republics , the love of general humanity . Men are not to be essentially distinguished by the difference of tongues which they speak , of clothes which they wear , of countries which they inhabit , nor of dignities
with which they are ornamented : the whole world is no other than one great republic , of which each nation is a family , ancl each individual a child ,. It was to revive and reanimate such maxims , that the Society of Freemasons was first instituted . The great design was to unite all men of sense , knowledge , and worthy qualities , not only by , a reciprocal love of the . fine artsbut still mote bthe great principles
, y of virtue , where the interest of the Fraternity might become that of the whole human race ; where all nations mi ght increase all knowledge ; and where every subject of every country might exert himself without jealousy , live without discord , and embrace mutually , without forgetting , or too scrupulously remembering , the spot in which he was
Note: This text has been automatically extracted via Optical Character Recognition (OCR) software.
The Freemasons' Magazine, Or General And Complete Library.
THE FREEMASONS' MAGAZINE , OR GENERAL AND COMPLETE LIBRARY .
FOR DECEMBER 1794 . ' ' SOCIAL INFLUENCE OF FREEMASONRY .
THE institution of Freemasonry has an absolute tendency to inculcate every thinglaudable and useful to society ; and its leading qualities are , Philanthropy well directed , Morality pure , Secresy inviolable , and a taste for the Fine Arts . It may be observedthat SolonLycurgusNumaand all the other
, , , , political legislators , have not been able to render their establishments durable ; and that , however sagacious mi ght have been their laws , they had at no time the power to expand themselves over all countries , and to all ages . Having little more in view than victories and . conquests , military violence , and the elevation of one set of people above anotherthey were never universalnor consonant to the taste
, , , or genius , or interest of all nations . Philanthropy was not their bas is . The love of country , badly understood , and pushed into limits on which they should not verge , destroys often , in warlike republics , the love of general humanity . Men are not to be essentially distinguished by the difference of tongues which they speak , of clothes which they wear , of countries which they inhabit , nor of dignities
with which they are ornamented : the whole world is no other than one great republic , of which each nation is a family , ancl each individual a child ,. It was to revive and reanimate such maxims , that the Society of Freemasons was first instituted . The great design was to unite all men of sense , knowledge , and worthy qualities , not only by , a reciprocal love of the . fine artsbut still mote bthe great principles
, y of virtue , where the interest of the Fraternity might become that of the whole human race ; where all nations mi ght increase all knowledge ; and where every subject of every country might exert himself without jealousy , live without discord , and embrace mutually , without forgetting , or too scrupulously remembering , the spot in which he was