The Masonic Mission.

If anything ivere required to refute the charges of exclusiveness and vain mysticism ( as distinguished from honoured and venerable mysteries ) , which ive sometimes hear preferred against IVeemasomy , it is , that , like Keligion , she invites all good men to enter her portals , to enlist under her beneficent standard . The Mason who has passed beyond the first stage of initiation already knows enough to feel convinced that , if all men

were brethren in the Order , there would be an end of the oppressions , the abuses , the harsh dealings , and the other evils which constitute the most terrible curses of the ivorld . He knows that Masonry , universal throughout the earth , would render these wickednesses impossible . He . knows that it would prove the powerful ally and advocate of the- Christian maximwhich proclaims good will to men as the indispensable test of true

, charity . And thus it is that he is anxious for the junction of as many as possible of his neighbours , in the conviction that it will prove an efficient step in correcting foibles and defects in the individual , as well as in sending forth missionaries of charity , to enrol new members , and extend the hlessings of concord and brotherhood whithersoever their influence can penetrate .

Like every thing good and great ever instituted on earth , Masonry has been the object of fierce persecution and assiduous misrepresentation . In the vanity and selfishness of which it is the unswerving opponent , it has , in its turn , found formidable obstacles to its progress . In men ' s indolence it has met another obstacle ¦ whilst yet another has - existedin the too common tendency to receive , upon calumnious hearsay , the evil report

which people will not take the trouble to examine and test . Lazy credulity is , one of the most frequent , as it is one of the most mischievous , of the vices of the vulgar . In lazy credulity , stimulated to unhealthy activity by malevolent fanaticism , have originated the most fiery persecutions to which Truth has been subjected in ancient ages ancl modern . And not a crime , not a vice , not a turpitude at which good men

shudder , but has been at some time or another charged against Masonry , whilst each dark charge has been endorsed by this same lazy credulity . It is unnecessary to refer back to the days when ignorant prejudice set down the Graft as something demoniacal in its constitution and ¦ diabolical in its secrets , overlooking the obvious fact , that these secrets were accessible to every one who chose to exercise the patience ,

industry , steadiness , ancl faithfulness , which form the passports to a knowled ge of the most solemn rites of the Order . It is unnecessary , ive say , to go back to those ages of darkness for in our own times , ancl in the great nation which accounts itself the most free ancl intelligent on earth , we have seen thousands on thousands of men—not the base and illiterate , but numbering many persons of education

and talent—rising up in ferocious fury , at the instigation of a wretched impostor , ancl calling for the penal suppression of Masonry , and the extermination _ of the Brotherhood . That such things " could be , _ may fill us with humiliation , in contemplation of the extremes to which inflamed passions seduce men ; that they have been , and that very recently , all know who remember the too-famous "Anti-Masonic move-H 2