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Article FREEMASONRY VINDICATED, ← Page 4 of 8 →
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Freemasonry Vindicated,
The exclusion of political and religious subjects from our programs , and the adherence to strictly moral and scientific matters , proved to he a wise and highly prudent plan , which prevents dissention from creeping in amongst us , and to which our Order owes , at least in a great measure , its long preservation ;
whereas we have had to lament the fatal effects which a deviation from this plan has produced in various continental Lodges . Fanatics and perverted minds have , at all times , invented sufficient motives to calumniate and persecute us ; what would they not do were we to arm them with so dangerous a pretext , —the very rock against which all profane institutions are constantl y dashing
themselves to pieces ? History shows us that the Equality and Fraternity of the profane world are misery and slavery on one side , riches and tyranny on the other ; to some , privileges for every enjoyment and every vice ; to others grief , tears , dungeons , tortures , excommunications , funeral piles , and death . What Fraternity , good God ! was that which actuated Torquemada , of execrable memory—the wretch who invented and established the horrid , the vile , the infamous
Tribunal of the Inquisition ! What fraternity was that which was jiractised therein ? Thus the world , swayed by worldly passions , and lost in a maze of jarring doctrines in diametrical discordance with those passions , is obliged to betake itself to latent means , to subterfuges , cunning , perfidy , baseness , and cruelty , to gratify them and to accomplish
its designs . Hence the continual terror , the incessant anxiety that besiege and confound the human mind , and which make the world itself the victim of its own malice , of its own guiles . Well may the world boast of its grand secrets , of its high conceptions ! Alas ! all its genius ancl secret springs consist in contriving and deceiving , and of being , in its turn , deceived .
the secret oi FREEMASONRY—that grand secret so much renowned , so much sought after by the profane , is precisely the contrary : our secret consists in the exercise of every social and moral virtue , not only in the ostensible actions of our conduct , but also in private life ; our latent springs are science and truth ; our craft is reason and good sense ; our cunning is justice and
humanity ; our plots and contrivances are sincerity and benevolence ; our revenge against our enemies is , as Pythagoras tells us , I 13 ' " labouring to convert them into friends .
Note: This text has been automatically extracted via Optical Character Recognition (OCR) software.
Freemasonry Vindicated,
The exclusion of political and religious subjects from our programs , and the adherence to strictly moral and scientific matters , proved to he a wise and highly prudent plan , which prevents dissention from creeping in amongst us , and to which our Order owes , at least in a great measure , its long preservation ;
whereas we have had to lament the fatal effects which a deviation from this plan has produced in various continental Lodges . Fanatics and perverted minds have , at all times , invented sufficient motives to calumniate and persecute us ; what would they not do were we to arm them with so dangerous a pretext , —the very rock against which all profane institutions are constantl y dashing
themselves to pieces ? History shows us that the Equality and Fraternity of the profane world are misery and slavery on one side , riches and tyranny on the other ; to some , privileges for every enjoyment and every vice ; to others grief , tears , dungeons , tortures , excommunications , funeral piles , and death . What Fraternity , good God ! was that which actuated Torquemada , of execrable memory—the wretch who invented and established the horrid , the vile , the infamous
Tribunal of the Inquisition ! What fraternity was that which was jiractised therein ? Thus the world , swayed by worldly passions , and lost in a maze of jarring doctrines in diametrical discordance with those passions , is obliged to betake itself to latent means , to subterfuges , cunning , perfidy , baseness , and cruelty , to gratify them and to accomplish
its designs . Hence the continual terror , the incessant anxiety that besiege and confound the human mind , and which make the world itself the victim of its own malice , of its own guiles . Well may the world boast of its grand secrets , of its high conceptions ! Alas ! all its genius ancl secret springs consist in contriving and deceiving , and of being , in its turn , deceived .
the secret oi FREEMASONRY—that grand secret so much renowned , so much sought after by the profane , is precisely the contrary : our secret consists in the exercise of every social and moral virtue , not only in the ostensible actions of our conduct , but also in private life ; our latent springs are science and truth ; our craft is reason and good sense ; our cunning is justice and
humanity ; our plots and contrivances are sincerity and benevolence ; our revenge against our enemies is , as Pythagoras tells us , I 13 ' " labouring to convert them into friends .