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Article THE FREEMASONS' QUARTERLY REVIEW. ← Page 3 of 8 →
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The Freemasons' Quarterly Review.
fairly represented in committees , made by the more humble , but not less useful wearers of the crimson and blue badges—of the really active and zealous working Masons . Such unconstitutional effects as these can only be remedied by a change in the rules and regulations of the Craft ;
and such changes , propounded during a Masonic Interregnum , cannot be supposed to have any personal application . Those who give each other credit for being actuated by proper motives—by a desire for the extension and improvement as well as the perpetuity of
Freemasonryand none but the vicious will do otherwise— -those who think that the principles of good government should be as well understood and practised among Masons , as among the members of any other society , will agree with us , that where no offence is meant—where none can be personall y
applied—none ought to be taken ; and that we should rather be thanked , than dispraised , from the most honoured to the most humble in the fraternity , for our endeavours to bring them all within the sphere of equity , wherein , alone , unanimity can exist ; and to leave none in the realms of injustice , where discord and disaffection must prevail .
Beginning , then , with the hi ghest office in the Craft , that of Grand Master , we object to a system which , as it has hitherto been practised , has rendered the tenure one of life ; and induced the anomaly , existing only among English Freemasons , of something approaching very closely
to hereditary right That Freemasonry is benefited by royal patronage is unquestionable ; but that it is dependent upon royal government it would be absurd to assume . Whilst no one will doubt the fact , that the very instant you invest royalty with the chieftainship of Freemasonry ,
you shut out all of emulation that leads to honourable competition . This brings us to the point , that whether the Grand Master be of royal or of noble birth , a limit should
Note: This text has been automatically extracted via Optical Character Recognition (OCR) software.
The Freemasons' Quarterly Review.
fairly represented in committees , made by the more humble , but not less useful wearers of the crimson and blue badges—of the really active and zealous working Masons . Such unconstitutional effects as these can only be remedied by a change in the rules and regulations of the Craft ;
and such changes , propounded during a Masonic Interregnum , cannot be supposed to have any personal application . Those who give each other credit for being actuated by proper motives—by a desire for the extension and improvement as well as the perpetuity of
Freemasonryand none but the vicious will do otherwise— -those who think that the principles of good government should be as well understood and practised among Masons , as among the members of any other society , will agree with us , that where no offence is meant—where none can be personall y
applied—none ought to be taken ; and that we should rather be thanked , than dispraised , from the most honoured to the most humble in the fraternity , for our endeavours to bring them all within the sphere of equity , wherein , alone , unanimity can exist ; and to leave none in the realms of injustice , where discord and disaffection must prevail .
Beginning , then , with the hi ghest office in the Craft , that of Grand Master , we object to a system which , as it has hitherto been practised , has rendered the tenure one of life ; and induced the anomaly , existing only among English Freemasons , of something approaching very closely
to hereditary right That Freemasonry is benefited by royal patronage is unquestionable ; but that it is dependent upon royal government it would be absurd to assume . Whilst no one will doubt the fact , that the very instant you invest royalty with the chieftainship of Freemasonry ,
you shut out all of emulation that leads to honourable competition . This brings us to the point , that whether the Grand Master be of royal or of noble birth , a limit should