Note: This text has been automatically extracted via Optical Character Recognition (OCR) software.
Strictures Upon Past And Present Freemasonry By Sit Lux.
STRICTURES UPON PAST AND PRESENT FREEMASONRY BY SIT LUX .
TO THE EDITOR . Sir and Brother , —In a communication with the above title addressed to you in the last number of our Masonic periodical , I find so many objectionable remarks upon the origin ancl nature of our reallg catholic system of Brotherly love , that I cannot refrain from at once entering my caveat against them . I shall do so in as brief , but decided a manner , as the very singular remarks themselves will admit ; and I readily append
my official designation ancl name to this protest , because I sincerely think the real interests and character of Freemasonry so affected by those remarks , that , whatever prestige the name may hear in the Craft , so much more weight will be attached to my open and emphatic dissent from their truth .
Freemasonry undoubtedly a Christian institution in its origin ! Then what on earth is the M . W . G . M . about in withdrawing his representative from the Royal York Lodge , at Berlin ? According to tbe writer of the article " Past and Present Freemasonry , " the Prussian Lodges are correct in excluding the Hebrews , making their Masonic rule the symbol of a sect ! Freemasonry a vile , sordid , narrow-minded sect ! That general system of ethics cut clown , cribbed , ancl cabined to the wretched confines of a maundering human intellect ! The universal love
of every son of Adam as a hrother of the dust pinched and compressed to the contracted circle of a sect ! For such is the inevitable inferences of Sit Lux ' s remarks . Such light as regards Freemasonry one would think had been kindled by the torch glare of fanaticism . It is a trite saying , you may prove too much . If that writer ' s ground of argument be defensible , then exit the ancient and honourable fraternity : it becomes foolishly situated . A brother clergyman , only six clays
ago , objected that Masonry was made a substitute for Christianity . Now if Sit Lux were right , such objection is sound . With that person ' s views , the Order or society is usurping a sphere it has no authority to entrench upon . If she be a teacher of Christianity , as some persons more than broadly insinuate , she is not merely the teacher of a sect , but she has no call for her vocation . Her mission is finished according to the hallucinations of certain writers , and she ought therefore to be reckoned among the things that have been .
I cannot conceive that the premises adduced by Sit Lux in his letter to you , can be consistent with the views entertained of Freemasonry by the Craft at large . If such they were , I should consider it my duty as a clergyman to abandon it to-morrow . My sphere as a Christian minister is fully adequate to attain whatever good might be achieved among those who believe in Christ ; and , therefore , I should conscientiously reject any such auxiliary for the purpose as a Lodge of Freemasons . The thing is to me in this aspect most ridiculousand itself opposed to the
, position in which our over zealous Brother Sit Lux would attempt to place the Craft . No , no ; if Freemasonry , illimitable , as our M . W . G . M . observed , embracing all , rich and poor , Christian and Jew , and his lordship might have added , Turk and Hindoo , within her range ; if she be that sublime , transcendant , and expansive mother of mankind , she cannot possibly partake of that sectarian nature which Sit Lux ' s remarks would lead us
Note: This text has been automatically extracted via Optical Character Recognition (OCR) software.
Strictures Upon Past And Present Freemasonry By Sit Lux.
STRICTURES UPON PAST AND PRESENT FREEMASONRY BY SIT LUX .
TO THE EDITOR . Sir and Brother , —In a communication with the above title addressed to you in the last number of our Masonic periodical , I find so many objectionable remarks upon the origin ancl nature of our reallg catholic system of Brotherly love , that I cannot refrain from at once entering my caveat against them . I shall do so in as brief , but decided a manner , as the very singular remarks themselves will admit ; and I readily append
my official designation ancl name to this protest , because I sincerely think the real interests and character of Freemasonry so affected by those remarks , that , whatever prestige the name may hear in the Craft , so much more weight will be attached to my open and emphatic dissent from their truth .
Freemasonry undoubtedly a Christian institution in its origin ! Then what on earth is the M . W . G . M . about in withdrawing his representative from the Royal York Lodge , at Berlin ? According to tbe writer of the article " Past and Present Freemasonry , " the Prussian Lodges are correct in excluding the Hebrews , making their Masonic rule the symbol of a sect ! Freemasonry a vile , sordid , narrow-minded sect ! That general system of ethics cut clown , cribbed , ancl cabined to the wretched confines of a maundering human intellect ! The universal love
of every son of Adam as a hrother of the dust pinched and compressed to the contracted circle of a sect ! For such is the inevitable inferences of Sit Lux ' s remarks . Such light as regards Freemasonry one would think had been kindled by the torch glare of fanaticism . It is a trite saying , you may prove too much . If that writer ' s ground of argument be defensible , then exit the ancient and honourable fraternity : it becomes foolishly situated . A brother clergyman , only six clays
ago , objected that Masonry was made a substitute for Christianity . Now if Sit Lux were right , such objection is sound . With that person ' s views , the Order or society is usurping a sphere it has no authority to entrench upon . If she be a teacher of Christianity , as some persons more than broadly insinuate , she is not merely the teacher of a sect , but she has no call for her vocation . Her mission is finished according to the hallucinations of certain writers , and she ought therefore to be reckoned among the things that have been .
I cannot conceive that the premises adduced by Sit Lux in his letter to you , can be consistent with the views entertained of Freemasonry by the Craft at large . If such they were , I should consider it my duty as a clergyman to abandon it to-morrow . My sphere as a Christian minister is fully adequate to attain whatever good might be achieved among those who believe in Christ ; and , therefore , I should conscientiously reject any such auxiliary for the purpose as a Lodge of Freemasons . The thing is to me in this aspect most ridiculousand itself opposed to the
, position in which our over zealous Brother Sit Lux would attempt to place the Craft . No , no ; if Freemasonry , illimitable , as our M . W . G . M . observed , embracing all , rich and poor , Christian and Jew , and his lordship might have added , Turk and Hindoo , within her range ; if she be that sublime , transcendant , and expansive mother of mankind , she cannot possibly partake of that sectarian nature which Sit Lux ' s remarks would lead us