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A SOLEMN WARNING.
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TO THE YOUNG MEN OF THE UNITED
STATES.
MY YOUNG COUNTRYMEN:
It is on your account, and not on my own, that without preface or apology, I claim of you a patient and a candid hearing, in what I am now about to lay
before you: And this I am satisfied, notwithstanding but few indeed of you can know any thing of me, that you will cheerfully award; for although experience
may not have taught you much, as she is a slow teacher, whom we are obliged to follow long before she answers half the questions we have to put to her;
and too often; alas! does she leave the wisest of us to sink into the grave the victims of ignorance, error and delusion; yet the native good sense, as well
as good feeling, of American youth, will at all times, I believe, as they ever have done, induce them to listen with candour and patience to whatever is
intended to promote their own happiness, and render them worthy of themselves, to their country, and her high destinies.
I am well aware how almost impossible it is to put old heads upon young shoulders. The brightest and the dullest youth are equally in want of experience;
and without some experience, it is difficult, if not impossible, for any human being calmly to suffer the dangers that
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encompass him, and clearly to perceive the means of averting them.
The youth of bright intellect and sound native judgment, it is true, will sooner arrive at the necessary information, to enable him to steer his bark safely
through the stormy ocean of life, than he to whom Nature has been less bountiful in mental or intellectual endowments: But still both may need the monitions
of the aged, of those who have had experience, to enable them to start the more fairly in the race which is to terminate in their temporal and eternal
salvation or destruction.
It certainly is not from arrogant presumption, on my part, that I now address you. Nor is it from any wish to court your favour, of render you subservient to
any selfish purposes of my own. Ambitious of power I am not at this time of life; for I have calmly surveyed the heights of political elevation, and know full
well that however fascinating they may be at some times, and under certain circumstances, they possess but few if any charms for him who has lived
long, been chastened by adversity, * as I have been, and seen much of mankind: Covetous of wealth I am not; for I have tasted, or rather tested, both
extremes of prosperity and adversity; and full well have I learned, that in pursuit of riches there is a happy medium, at which every wise man will aim; and
that however necessary it may be to arrive at that, for our temporal comfort and convenience -- yet it is not that alone -- and still less is it the possession of
power, that can ensure the tranquility or happiness of a rational and immortal being.
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* See Appendix, Note I.
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I have said thus much of myself, because I am well aware that the subject, to which I wish to call your attention- -- and especially the honest, just, bold
and proper manner in which a sacred sense of duty to God and my country demands of me to treat it -- are calculated at this peculiar crisis, to bring no
small share of odium upon my head from a certain quarter. Those who have already basely misrepresented my motives, malignantly slandered my reputation,
and attempted by means far from honorable, to injure my interest, on account of my editorial exertions, feeble and inefficient, it is true, but Heaven knows
virtuous and sincere, to bring to light the foul conspirators, who, in the language of Judge Throop, (when he sentenced four of them to a punishment by far,
very far, too mild for the enormity of their crime, "have robbed the state of a citizen, a citizen of his liberty, a wife of her husband, and a family of helpless
children of the endearments and protecting care of a parent:" Those, I say, who on this account have pursued me with their slander and malignity, will be
equally busy, I have a right to presume, in persuading you, that this address is the dictate of a selfish heart, or an unsound head.
From these remarks, my young countrymen, you will perceive, that FREE MASONRY is to be the theme of this Address. It is so -- and it is to warn you
most seriously and solemnly against that ORDER, as one fraught with incalculable mischief to all your dearest interests in this life, as well as in that which
is to come, that I have taken up my pen on this occasion. It is to convince you, if I can, that your safety and your duty, your happiness and your glory, equally
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demand of you to shun, as you would the Bohon Upas, or the Simoom of the Arabian deserts, the alluring steps that lead into a Masonic Lodge Room; for
they are emphatically the steps which "lead down to the gates of hell!"
I shall now proceed to give you my reasons why you ought not to enter into the Masonic Association: And as Free Masonry boasts of her FIVE POINTS of
fellowship, I will exhibit, as beacons to warn you from her dark and infernal paths, at least Five Points of Her Folly and Wickedness.
You cannot, then, become Free Masons, without --
1. Risking your life, if after obtaining the wicked, as well as the frivolous secrets of the
Order, you should, on calm reflection, think it your duty to God, and your country, to reveal them.
2. Sacrificing your personal dignity, or self-respect, in a manner too humiliating for young
men of honor and sensibility to stoop to.
3. Running the risk, and a very imminent one it is, of learning to tipple, and thereby losing the
respect and esteem of society, and becoming vagrants.
4. Betraying the rights and liberties of your country.
5. Incurring the displeasure of Heaven, if the Bible be not a forgery, and Christianity a fable
of man's invention.
That you will run the risk of your lives as above stated, by becoming Free Masons, you may learn from the following letter, which I had recently occasion
to write, to say nothing of the mass of evidence collected at three different
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trials of persons, charged with the conspiracy to kidnap William Morgan and David C. Miller, in the counties of Ontario and Genesee, N. Y. -- and the still
further evidence afforded by a late Executive Proclamation. *
[From the National Intelligencer.]
Messrs. Gales & Seaton --
Gentlemen -- As, in giving place to my advertisement or rather prospectus, you have expressed an opinion, founded on an article which you have
copied from the United States Gazette; and as I know that article to be utterly destitute of truth, I will not say intentionally so, from beginning to end, will
you permit me through your columns to make a counter statement, which I know to be strictly true?
The Gazette article asserts, that the excitement in relation to the abduction of Morgan and Miller, was got up for electioneering purposes. But let us look
at the facts.
On Sunday morning, the 10th September, 1826, William Morgan was arrested in Batavia, on a criminal process, and carried off to Canandaigua. There the
criminal charge was abandoned, which those who had arrested him on it knew would be the issue, as it was, from the beginning, a mere trick to get him off
the limits at Batavia, where he was confined for debt. Immediately on his being discharged by Justice Chipman, on the criminal process, a debt was trumped
up, which had no real foundation, by the same party who had brought him from Batavia, on which, being poor and friendless, he was put into the jail at
Canandaigua. The
__________
* See Appendix, note II.
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next night after this event, one Loton Lawson, (since convicted of kidnapping Morgan, and now in prison for the deed) came forward under the mask of
friendship, and persuaded Morgan to permit him to pay the debt, inducing Morgan to believe that it was out of pure friendship, and that he would take him
to his house. Poor Morgan was too credulous -- he agreed to Lawson's proposal -- but the moment the latter got him out of jail, he was seized violently by
Lawson and one or two other persons, and notwithstanding his cries of murder, was forced into a carriage, and drove off, Jehu like; since which he has not
returned; nor have any tidings been had of him, excepting, that it has been clearly proved, at the last Ontario Sessions, that he was taken to, and confined
in, the magazine of Fort Niagara. So far we accompany the unfortunate Morgan. I shall barely remark here, that the reason why the criminal charge was
abandoned was, that, if they had put him into jail on that charge, they could not have got him out again, and their intention, from the beginning, to make
way with him, would have been defeated.
Now for a few words as to David C. Miller, the Editor of the Republican Advocate, at Batavia. He was engaged in printing a book -- Illustrations of
Masonry -- of which Morgan was the author; and for which the latter had been kidnapped.
The night after Morgan was carried from Batavia, Miller's printing office was set fire to, and came near being consumed.
The next day in the morning, being the same as the morning, of which Morgan was [bailed]
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out of the jail at Canandaigua, from sixty to eighty men, all Freemasons, entered the village of Batavia, armed with hickory clubs, seized David C. Miller,
likewise under pretenses of a criminal process, and carried him off by force, as far as the village of Le Roy, where he was given to understand that he was
to join with and share the fate of Morgan. But, fortunately for Miller, the people had become alarmed, and turned out to pursue his captors; and he was
rescued at Le Roy, and escorted safety back to Batavia; the process on which he had been taken turning out to be a sham, like that which had unfortunately
succeeded in the case of Morgan. But I cannot take leave of Miller here, without paying a merited compliment to John Hascall, Esq. of Le Roy, a Royal Arch
Mason, to whose intrepidity Miller was greatly indebted for his release from the ruffians who had seized him. Mr. Hascall has since openly seceded from the
Masonic Fraternity, on account of those unlawful proceedings.
Were not these unparalleled outrages, gentlemen, sufficient to excite the people, without the aid of electioneering artifice, or selfish views, on the part of
any one? They certainly were. -- They did, of course, cause an excitement, of which I will now state briefly some of the results.
Town and county meetings were immediately held in the counties of Ontario, Genesee, Monroe, Livingston and Niagara, by which, delegates were appointed,
(all of respectability) upon whom it was enjoined, as a duty, to investigate thoroughly, as far as they possibly could do, the facts attending the abduction,
and supposed subsequent murder of Morgan, as well
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as the outrages committed to the property and person of Miller. This delegation, consisting of some of the first men in the Western District, assembled at
Lewiston, and hence have been styled the Lewiston Convention.* They entered fearlessly and honestly upon the duty assigned them, and have ever since
pursued their object steadily. Through their exertions principally, FOUR of the conspirators, those who took Morgan from the jail at
Canandaigua, were indicted, put on trial and convicted on a plea of guilty, in Ontario county; and three have since been convicted of kidnapping Miller, after
pleading not guilty in Genesee county. A considerable number stand indicted, who have not yet been tried; on account of both Morgan and Miller. It is true
that sixteen or seventeen were tried at the last Court of Sessions in Ontario county, and were acquitted; but whoever will peruse attentively the testimony
as reported, will find abundant proof in it of the abduction, if not the murder of Morgan; and will perceive, at the same time, such a mass of non mi
recordo statements as was never before exhibited in any court of justice. The Judge, however, one of the ablest in the state, (I mean Judge Howell)
in charging the jury, declared that "the proof to establish both the conspiracy and its consummation, was full and conclusive: that Morgan had been
unlawfully kidnapped and carried off; was abundantly certain; and that he had been subsequently unlawfully put to death, there was too much reason
to believe." He stated at the close of his charge, after summing up the evidence, and explaining the law, "that the testimony, though abundant to prove
__________
* See Appendix, Note III.
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abstractly all that was alleged; did not charge these defendants with the crime." "The time of the court," he remarked, "had, notwithstanding, been
profitably spent, in eliciting testimony, which must ultimately unravel this horrible mystery."
I give you, gentlemen, the precise words of an able and upright judge, as reported by the several reporters of the trials in question.
It appears, then, that in three several and distinct Courts of Justice, the Ontario Circuit, at which Judge Throop presided, when the first four conspirators
were convicted; the Genesee Circuit, at which Judge Birdsall presided, when four were tried and three convicted; and the Ontario Sessions,
at which Judge Howell presided, when the seventeen (save one who swore off his trial for want of a witness) were tried and acquitted: it appears, I say,
that in these several and distinct Courts of Justice, the facts of the conspiracy and its consummation, have been established by "abundant, fully and
conclusive," legal testimony. How then can any editor assert that this excitement has been got up for electioneering purposes! Would it not be, on the
other hand, an eternal disgrace to any portion, number, or section of the citizens of the United States, if they could sit quietly and tamely, and see their
friends, their neighbors, their fellow-townsmen, kidnapped and carried off by violence, contrary to all law, human and divine, to be confined perpetually, or
assassinated at the will and pleasure of their kidnappers? I should esteem the man, who could see all this without being highly excited,
as a wretch, wholly unprincipled, and totally unworthy the name of an American citizen.
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But to return to the Lewiston Convention.This patriotic body, to whom the People of the United States will hereafter look with gratitude, have been principally
instrumental in producing the results above stated. It consisted of THIRTY-EIGHT of the most respectable citizens of the Western District,
of all parties; and, so far from there being any ground to charge them with electioneering or selfish views, only one of them has come forward since as a
candidate for office, and he has been brought forward by the voluntary suffrages of his friends and fellow-citizens. They have just published the entire result,
thus far, of their long, laborious, and important investigation, in a pamphlet of about eighty pages, octavo; and I venture to say, that there is not an honest,
sensible man in the United States, who will not be thoroughly convinced, on reading it, that Morgan was not only kidnapped and murdered, but that David C.
Miller, the independent Editor of the Republican Advocate, at Batavia, would have shared the fate of Morgan, had he not been rescued by the anti-masonic
party from the hands of his kidnappers.
It may not be amiss to state, that among the signers of the Report of the Lewiston Convention, are gentlemen who hold stations of honor and responsibility
under the Government of the United States. I have not the Report at hand at this moment, but I recollect distinctly the names of three officers of the Federal
Government, viz. O. Benjamin, Trumbull Carey, and Bates Cook, Esquires. These gentlemen, together with their worthy and patriotic colleagues, have
laboured almost incessantly for nine months, or more, to unravel this horrid
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mystery. They have not only spent their time in the investigation, but large sums of money in searching the Niagara River and Lake Ontario, for the body of
the hapless Morgan, which was, undoubtedly buried beneath those waters. -- These gentlemen, I mean all those who formed the Lewiston Convention,
deserve the highest praise, instead of the least censure: for their labors have been directed to unravel a conspiracy, the principle of which goes to the entire
subversion of our Federal and State Constitutions. Away, then, with the groundless and calumniating assertion, that they have been actuated by electioneering
or selfish motives of any kind.
This, gentlemen, is the last article which I shall ask you to publish. In the National Observer, *however, I shall continue the subject, which has given
rise to this letter, so long as I have health and life to perform, the task. In my next paper, l shall develope facts, which, if true, and I solemnly believe them to
be so, will add a tenfold deeper hue of darkness to the cause of those who from the abduction of Morgan and Miller to this day have been open and
undisguised advocates of kidnapping and murder.
I have heard more than a hundred free-masons assert, that Morgan, if killed was served right! What induced me to take ground, when I first came out in my
editorial capacity, on this subject, was, the declaration made to me, by a Royal Arch Mason, a very respectable lawyer, "that he knew the Morgan was
killed or executed, although he had taken no part in it himself." I asked him how he knew it? He replied, "how do ordinary facts come to your
__________
* See Appendix, Note IV.
18
your knowledge? I know it in the same way." I asked him if he thought it right? He said in reply, that he "would not have had a hand in it for the world; but
the rascal was rightly served!" This conversation was among the most important considerations which induced me to throw off all masonic trammels,
and put my shoulder to the editorial wheel, to bring to light, if possible, the whole truth in the case. I drew the conclusion, whilst yet talking with the gentleman
above mentioned, that if men like him, who had been classically educated, and had studied a science which teaches, with so much discrimination and
correctness, the nature of all oaths and obligations, could be rendered so fanatical by their masonic ties, it was time to destroy the institution entirely: For
what I have stated is strictly and literally true, and I can add with equal truth, that the person alluded to is, in his general character and habits, a worthy man,
and of respectable talents, as well as standing at the bar. His name, of course, I shall not reveal, because at that time he addressed me, not only as a
mason, but as a man to whom he could freely deliver his opinions in a confidential way. In fact, independent of any such revelations, the struggle I had in my
own breast, to throw off entirely my obligations to the Order, satisfied me of its dangerous tendency, and the absolute necessity of curtailing, by some
lawful and constitutional means, its mysterious and destructive influence on civil and political liberty.
I remain, gentlemen, with the highest respect, your friend and obedient servant.
SOLOMON SOUTHWICK.
Albany, Sept. 27, 1827.
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< FrdWith6 JWJJfcedhigJ I««WfiW t^ trymeh>. you ^'liipet^^ve tW me that ^J n^
€lwaftt yoii^, if yoo^&iKrtild c«itWiAtdonie> of th^e cowdaVes of dflrrajjtkw; thei Wttfifoniij !od§fr-
rdotai^;; and sb^a4d Wfifet^&rds, vif CJAlrti teftefc-* tidJi, cUitermine,* as'^^^et of diitf t
of its coldness W^aA, tfiWf^I did 0oti at the time of writing it, know how fiif the Editors of the
National Intelligencer might feel disposed to permit me the indulgence of the ffeeftngv^/ as a
correspondent; Hhrt)iigh the irttedftimdf their columns; fitxr saiih has beito the editp^ialodn-
i^lktit^nceeA ahtf siippfede the briith' 6ii thifi^ 6bc*mdft> to cdhedal the efi«k«yOf wimler; *i*d:
shield the nitai^der^if'6 froinf^fl&e^'cii'cn^^^ te^ir^ that it has led me aittioert to difiKiht seriously,,
whether the Press, with the iid^ tit^t' 16 which it belongs, bed blessing or « feursW to my
country. NeTfer^ -- nevef-^inf any'a^'W ^Ifri**^, hfle the Pi^heeit i«iti Vilely^ w iHtti(tibii^\ ^WMt^ ^dly
pi^ituted', afe ift ftas bwtti- iftiAfts^^dfee.'i-; That sublime ihsHruttiedt; li*iifih Kk^ *h(i ifet^ef
of Ahjhimede^ m
Btiiibrlk of fiterttiiire^^bertjri that mister-toiteteWirf^scfefibfe^ttf^^^ #fe^ <« «h* dttVB
«(lF6di(itiiifibHU^aJv6e6t«^^ by m
spirits of a Free^miMi^'fa^AcmTHwicK^^ aud
__________
* See Appendix, Note ^
20
4^er revolutionary worthies)-* was the beacon that led them to ' freedom and to glory; that
noblest of all human inventions has, in this case, been abused, perverted, prostituted, and
rendered in the strongest possible sense of the terms, the detestable organ of falsehood,
mystery and corruption; the vile instrument of a barbarous and blood-stained faction; the
…pol-hited engine of treachery, tyranny and oppression; the pander of Pandemonium! Oh! how
degraded, how fallen, from its lofty eminence, from what it was, wb^nt… like the pillar of fire
in sacred history, it guided the footsteps of our fathers, and ...im^ir^d them, with that noble flame
of patriotism, which ...i;trged them to the heights of Bunker Hill and of Saratoga, to the frozen
plains of Abraham; and the burning sands of Monmouth …tabbed fuid to, die for the
redemption of their country, and the freedom and happiness of thejrpjjstj^i^y!.^ Could the shade of
FRANKLIN) he vhaf>referred poverty and want, as an Editor, witb truth, honor and independence!
as the guide is of his pen -- to wealth and luxury, with sycophancy, … servility, falsehood and
corruption^ aa the ^^iqmates of his soul! Could I|iii in>mortal shade JQpk.down from its sainted
oir<>Wof '* the ^pifitd of justfnen made perfect,.'* and behold l^hf^ipFe^siof his; country^ which in
his hands wa^; the;ise9tiE(l I flame of freedom, and the consuming 4rff.^ta tyrants thus abandoned,
degraded, pe^y?B^,d and prostituted, the bliss of Heaven y^ffAA Jbdcooj^ ta him; the torment of
HelI. Nor ^|^h^re(9Mhe]Pey without wishing
t^rtturft :to e^ffiW t^ re-kindle the flame of virtue in the lMcefMpit»/Q^ degenerate
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brethren of the type; and to animate them to protect and defend, and not meanly, treacherously
and barbarously desert and betray the sacred cause of liberty and humanity! Shame
on the hirelings and the cowards! -- curse on the slaves and the traitors! -- who would exclaim:
they have looked on tamely, and seen the blood of the brave and the innocent shed by the hands
of masonic ruffians -- the constitution, laws and liberties of their country, violated and trampled
upon by midnight conspirators -- the halls of legislation, which ought to constitute the high
and holy sanctuary of law and justice, deaf as the adder to the claims of righteousness, the
voice of patriotism, and the cry of blood; the Courts of justice filled with and polluted by
the breath of Perjury -- the arm of the law paralyzed, as by the touch of the torpedo, by the
operation of a dark, secret, mysterious and criminal agency! -- and above all, the violation of that
most holy law ol their Creator and Redeemer -- Thou shalt not commit murder! All this
they have witnessed -- calmly and coldly witnessed -- and instead of maintaining the sacred
liberty of the press, and the unsullied dignity of virtue; instead of putting ...^Hn every honest hand
a scourge to lash the rascals naked through the world, they have themselves deserved the lash
of the scorpion, if not the hook of the gibbet, for becoming the wilful panders of rascality,
the suppressors of truth, the propagators of falsehood, the conspirator's apologist, and the
murderer's friend !
Another reason of the coldness of my narrative was, the unparalleled importance and
magnitude of the subject. It is a theme, of allothejn
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most worthy of the patriot, the sage, the hero and the christian -- a theme, which it would
require more than the combined genius, and talents and acquirements of a Demosthenes,
a Cicero, a Milton, a Shakspeare, and a Cur#RAN, to do it ample justice. Yes, my young
countrymen, more than all the mighty powers of all those sublime geniuses, would be
requisite to pourtray, in all their horrors, and in all their ruinous and destructive bearings on
our constitutional liberties, the abduction and murder of William Morgan! It is a theme to which
no genius, merely human, can do justice. He alone, whose page was illumined at the altar of
Divine Inspiration -- the poet and the prophet of Israel -- the unparalleled and matchless Isaiah --
he alone could give it the appropriate colouring, the appaliirig Fight, the dark and infernal shade,
the bold and indescribable relief that would belong to such a picture.
Every man, ...whether young or old, sacrifices his dignity of character, that personal and
self-respect, which it is essential to his happiness and reputation to preserve, whenever he tamely
permits his person to be degraded, or suffers his mind to be contaminated, by exposing either to
rites, ceremonies or contemplations, which are puerile, insignificant or vicious; and such as
his sober judgment must condemn as unworthy of a rational being, responsible to his Creator
for the uses to which he lends his person, his talents, and his time.
But whoever enters a masonic lodge, sabraits necessarily to the ...finest of personal and mental
and moral degradation.
He submits to be stripped naked by men
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who are perhaps far his inferiors in moral and intellectual worth -- ...what indeed, possessing
such worthy would deliberately condescend to such employment,, or stoop to become the
object of it -- under the indecent and ridiculous pretences of ascertaining his sex, and that he
has no minerals or metals about him! For you must know, that it is of wonderful import, in
the sublime science of Free masonry, that there should be neither iron nor lead, brass,
nor copper, pewter nor tin, silver nor gold, (always saving the fee of initiation) in the
waistcoat or britches pocket, the purse or the pouch of the novitiate -- who is prepared in part
by this sublime operation, to receive the fraternal grip of a set of men, of whom he perceives
at a glance, from the business in which they are engaged, that it is difficult to determine, whether
they are the most fools or knaves; whether they have lost their senses and their integrity, and
their self-respect, or whether they ever had any of either to boast of: nor is this all: he must
be led blind-fold, with a rope about his neck, and half, if not quite naked, round the room in
which the initiation is consummated: and must submit, in the course of the "awful and
sublime" ceremonies through which he is hurried to still more humiliating and degrading
treatment! He must submit to be knocked down (a sham blow and fall; suffer a mimic death,
have his body hid away, and finally found again (all sham and mummery) by a set of weak and silly
men, ...bating the knaves that make noodles of them, who have been led to believe, that in all
this contemptible stage-trick and mummery there is something of ancient science and wisdom!
How degrading, after being thus stripped, blind-folded,
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haltered, and made a noodle of, to be asked by some knave or blockhead, what you
are most in want of! -- and whilst like a wretch and ninny as you are, for the time being, you are
puzzling your brain to make out a reply, to have another of the motley nocturnal crew,
whisper in your ear, that you must ask for "more light ...r when Milton's *' darkness
visible and worse than Bedlam's folly ineffable, are q^U that you have seen, or are ^ely to see,
in the science of the forms and ceremonies of the asinine conclave by whom you are
surrounded; and who are chuckling at the idea, that they have made you as silly and
contemptible as themselves, and have got your money, of which you will never know what becomes of
it, although you have got nothing for it but quackery on the one hand and self-degradation
on the other! What, for one more example, would you think of yourselves, if silly enough;
not only to be stripped like a malefactor, going to be whipped at the post or the cart's tail; but
in this degraded condition, to be obliged to walk round a room, at the pleasure of a group of
knaves or noodles, or both, with a polished marble stone, shaped like the key-stone of an arch,
of considerable weight, and oiled, in order to make it the harder to hold; to be obliged, ...J say,
to take this stone by the small end, and more slippery than an eel, as it is purposely rendered,
to carry it between the thumb and fingers of your right hand, in a suspended or vertical position,
on pain, if you let it fall, of having a sword or dagger run into you! And when these
impostors, and ignoramuses, who thus sport with your person and your feelings, have subjected
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you to this painful as well as disgraceful proceeding, until your hand and fingers become
stiff, and your arm nearly ready to fall from its socket; they will, with a laugh and a grin,
peculiar to such animals, relieve you from the ignoble dilemma; but only to try your patience
and prove their own, as well of your folly, in some other equally degrading and ridiculous
operation. What I have here hinted at, is but as one to a hundred, of all the humiliating,
self degrading mummery, through which you must pass, if you be weak enough, through a vain
and idle curiosity, to aim at fellowship and communion with the gullors and the gullees -- the
deceptive hearts and the dumpling heads -- who usually constitute a lodge of "free and
accepted masons!"
What right have you thus to degrade yourselves? Did your Creator bestow upon you a
majestic and upright form, stamp you with his own celestial image, endow you with
intellectual as well as physical strength and beauty; and breathe into you the spirit of immortality --
that you should ungratefully forget the source of all these gifts and graces, and suffer yourselves
to be treated, as though you were on a level with the meanest reptile that creeps in the dust,
or hides itself in the caverns of the earth! Shame! Shame! where is thy blush! And how
contemptible, in your own estimation, if possessed of a spark of real honor and sensibility, must
you feel, after submitting to be thus degraded.
Under the vain pretence of finding light, where there is naught but darkness -- of wisdom, where
there is naught but folly -- of truth, where there is naught but fable, fiction and falsehood -- of
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science, where there is naught but quackery -- of virtue, where there is naught but vice -- of
religion, where there is naught but idolatry, if not atheism and infidelity. The Sun was
probably the original object of Masonic worship ...fIhit in modern times while they have generally
pretended to believe in one God, many, if not lots of them, have had no faith at all. It was
from the dark recesses of Masonry that ...Atheism stalked abroad to blast the morals of the
French nation; and from thence emanated, decked in the robes of infamy and pollution,
the GODDESS of REASON, falsely so called, ...f6 contaminate their faith, and prostrate their
holy altars, at the shrines of impiety, anarchy and confusion! It was then that blasphemy
uttered her cries in the streets of Paris; it was then that the murderer's arm was bared for
the work of blood; and that saints and patriots, heroes and sages, alike were made to perish under
the ...stroke of the guillotine, or fall behind the bars and the bolts of the dungeon, by the hands
of such midnight assassins as took the life of William Morgan! Yes, Robespierre, and Danton,
Ie Egendre and Marat, were the wretches, who ministered at the dark altars of the self-styled
llluminati -- alias Masonic Fraternity -- of France; -- ^as Smith and Whitney, and Lawson
and Howard, and Gillis and Scofield have been the High Priests of Iniquity, who
have either directed or performed the bloody rites, at Niagara, of which the brave, honest and
unfortunate MORGAN was the victim, and the total destruction of our constitutional liberties
the object.
__________
* See Appendix, Note 8.
27
That you run the risk of becoming drunkards, and thus losing the esteem and respect
of society, and sinking into a hapless and degraded state of vagrancy, by joining free
masonry, is clear from the character lately given of masonic lodges by a learned and virtuous
member of the Medical Societies of Glasgow, in Scotland, a country which has long been
cursed... with the arts and wiles, the immorality and corruption of the Order; for it is the Scotch
rite which now claims to be the oldest, and the followers of which are at this moment at war,
in Mexico, with the followers of the York rite, which lately found its way thither. This York
rite, is derived from the Grand Lodge of New-York; it was introduced into Mexico, probably,
by two of Morgan's murderers, who are said to have fled thither, and who bore it with them, I
presume, as proper missionaries from the Grand Lodge! But be this as it may, the learned
Professor, to whom I have alluded, assures us, and I can vouch for the truth of his assertion, that
masonic lodges are the genuine academies of tippling." You cannot for a moment doubt the
truth of this, when you reflect that most, if not all of our lodges, are held in taverns or hotels;
and whenever they meet, the Landlord ...recalled upon to furnish hot suppers, and in winter
abundance of hot as well as cold liquors. The bottle circulates freely; and the liquid poison is
poured into the veins, to inflame the blood, and distract the brains of the young as well as old
noodles, who take much more delight in going "from labour to, refreshment," than they do in
returning "from refreshment to labour." The tippler, the drunkard, you hardly need to^*...
28
is of all others the character who loses, beyond redemption, the esteem and respect of mankind;
and heirless and wretched, indeed, is the youth, or the aged man, who has surrendered himself
a victim at the shrine of the bottle. This is the extreme of moral degradation. If then you
would shun a vice, so eminently calculated to ruin you, both in our temporal and eternal state;
you must shun the "genuine academies" of Satan, the dark conclaves of masonry, in which that
vice never fails, more or less, to be taught. --
Would God. I could add, that this is the only vice, the infection of which is to be caught in
those sinks of iniquity and corruption. But when I recollect how often, and with what
reluctance, though a thoughtless young man, I listened to the coarse and obscene jest, the bawdy
and blasphemous song; and how often I retired, in disgust, from those nocturnal orgies, in which
vice and obscenity laughed virtue and modesty out of countenance; and even the holy scriptures
were made the theme or source of poetastrcal rhyms...}' and sacrilegious ribaldry*: when I
recollect these things, which are still fresh in my memory, and at the same time feel within me
the workings of a father's heart, I shudder at the idea of beholding any generous and virtuous
youth, going, like a lamb to the slaughter, to poison the virgin purity of his mind, and blunt the
noble sensibilities of his nature, in a dark and secret conclave, where the melancholy and
degrading contrast is exhibited, of men who pass in the world for gentlemen and christians,
mingling with bacchanalians and blasphemers, drunkards and debauchees, sharpers and
black-legs...; bullies and black-guards!
__________
* See Appendix, Note 9.
29
This is indeed a portrait of deformity -- but it is a true likeness of Free Masonry thirty-two
years ago: And although I have not, since that period, been personally conversant or
acquainted with it; * yet from recent occurrences I fear that if it has not degenerated, neither has it
improved. Honest men and gentlemen there are, no doubt, who bear the diplomas of the Order,
and who are not willing, at present, and this is very much to their credit, that the world should
know it. Some such, here and there, may still be willing publicly to 'acknowledge their
fellow-ship with the craft: But these, altogether, bear but a small proportion to the knaves and
hypocrites, who join it from ambitious or mercenary motives; and the fools who are led into it,
with a halter, or ''cable tow," (as they call it) about their necks, the appropriate emblem of their
degraded condition; and who, whether they seek them or not, are sure to find ''their father's as^^e^,"
if they never found them before, so soon as they get within the four walls, and measure the
length, and try the strength of their "cable tow."...
It is to be recollected here, too, that the pious, virtuous, sensible and gentlemanly members of
the Order, almost invariably keep themselves aloof from the Lodge Rooms, having become (as
all pious, sensible, virtuous, and disinterested men do become) disgusted with the livery of an
Institution, which they have found, on a thorough acquaintance, to be utterly worthless,
excepting to those who ...specnlaifiy and live upon it, as I shall show before \... close this address..
That every man who enters fully into the views, the rites, and the rules, or laws of the
__________
* See Appendix, Note 10.
30
Order (principles it has none, as I shall clearly show) betrays more or less the rights and
liberties of his country, is evident from many considerations, a few of which I shall briefly refer
to. * When we talk of our attachment to equal laws, if we are sincere in what we say, we mean
laws not only equal in theory; but which in practice operate equally upon and for the benefit
...BIT all; which secure equal assessments in taxation; impartial justice in civil suits between
man and man; and elective suffrage at the polls, unbiased by any other considerations,
than the relative or comparative virtues and ...tjffents of the candidates. To compass all these
high and important objects, in a republican government, what is the duty of every citizen?
Is it not to guard himself sedulously against all combinations, or associations, that shall in any
respect curtail the free and unlimited exercise of his reason; that shall excite in his breast
passions, and prejudices, and partialities, incompatible with the exercise of a sound
discretion for the public good; that shall ...^nftact his views from embracing the welfare of the public
...large, to that of a. few, a sect, or a party; and those perhaps far from being the best portion
of the community? The answer to this question is obvious. How then can those who
enter into a secret Conclave, and there pledge themselves to go all lengths, and on all
occasions, to serve and promote each other's interests; who there profess their attachment to this
SECRET INSTITUTION, or CONCLAVE, its laws and ordinances, and to its members,
...iconcctitely and individually. forming with them
31
a chain of artificial friendship, connected by oaths...) the promises and the penalties of which
are at war with all their obligations to God and their country; how can they, I ask you,
who are thus trammeled, thus bound by the fetters of a secret combination, go forth as
assessors, as jurors, as ministers of justice, as electors, as law-givers, prepared to exercise
those high and important trusts, those ...vkal functions of a free government, faithfully and
impartially, in the spirit of patriotism, equity and justice?
History is full of proof, that whenever and wherever men have become firmly connected
...ft' sects or parties, either religious or political, that their attachment to their sect or party,
has expelled from their heats that divine spirit of universal charity and benevolence, which the
Redeemer of mankind taught his disciples; and which every true Christian is bound to
cherish. If then ordinary sects or parties, in pursuit of a common object, which is not
concealed by any dark mantle, but well known to the public at large; and the members of which
sects or parties are bound by nothing more than a mere esprit ...du corps; are so apt to lose
sight of their obligations to their country and mankind, in their blind attachment to their
sectarian or party views; how much more so must the members of an Order, who to the same
esprit du carps, add the excitement, the attachment, the penalties, the prejudice in favour
of each, other, which grow out of their peculiar secret and mysterious rites and ties, the force
of oaths the most horrible, the most gvoasi^kfi ...
32
suiting to tlie moral sense of mankind, as well as repugnant to the Divine and Civil Laws.
Before I conclude, on this head, it is incumbent upon me to prove the incompatibility of
the masonic obligations, with those which every citizen owes to the state.
Whether the doctrine of expatriation be well founded or not, it is certain that every citizen
owes faithful allegiance to the laws and constitutions of his country, so long as he enjoys
their protection, How, then, can any citizen, who duly reflects upon his civic obligations,
and means to preserve them inviolate, go into a masonic lodge, and there swear as follows: --
"Furthermore do I promise and swear that I will support the constitution of the Grande
Lodge of the United States, and of the Grand Lodge of this State, under which this Lodge
is held, and conform to all the bye-laws, rules and regulations of this or any other Lodge, of
which I may at any time hereafter become a member.
Can any thing be more irrational, more repugnant to the moral sense of an honest man
and a good citizen, than this oath ...t rt)r it must be borne in mind that this is an oath of
initiation, at the time of taking which, the deponent is totally ignorant of the prescriptions
of those constitutions and laws, which he swears to support: he has not read them; they have
not been read to him, nor explained by way of lecture, or in any other shape whatsoever: And
...§pt does be ...rushy thus blindly, to the altar of darkness and delusion, and swear to support
A^D^l^nd not only the constitutions and laws, already made^ %\xt those which may be made
33
thereafter: And these constitutions and laws, are those of a private, secret association; and
yet "without any mental evasion, or equivocation,'' without any reservation of his moral or
religious obligations, or the allegiance he owes to the paramount laws of his country, he swears
roundly that he will support them, though they may, for aught that he knows, lead him to the
commission of treason, murder, or any other felony! "Our armies swore terribly in Flanders,"
said Sterne's Toby; but with all their flippancy and proficiency in the art, free-masonry could
have taught them a lesson they little dreamed of.
The next obligation I shall quote, goes still further; for when the old Tempter gets his
"cable-tow" about the neck of a subject, there is no knowing whither or to what he will lead
him: And I have not the smallest doubt, that this obligation is the prolific source of monstrous
crimes and corruptions, among those members of the order, in particular, who are
ignorant and vicious: this oath, indeed, is amply sufficient to make an ignorant man a vicious
man, to render him the willing pander and instrument of wickedness.
Furthermore, do I promise and swear, that a master mason's secrets, given to me in charge
as such, and I knowing him to be such, shall remain as secure and inviolable in my breast as
in his own, murder and treason excepted; and they left to my own election.
If the oath, before quoted, was shocking C# ...the moral sense of an honest man and a patriot,
how much more so is this? If that might be called a leap in the darK, into the regions of
34
iniquity, this in an open and undisguised oath of ...fealty to crimes and criminals of the blackest
hue -- to forgers, counterfeiters, pick-pockets, sharpers, thieves and highway-men; to all sorts
of criminals, in fact, but murderers and traitors: and although the right to conceal or expose these
is reserved by the deponent, there is not much reason to believe that a thorough-going devotee
at the altars of Jachin and Boaz would ever exercise it in the way of exposition; for the man
who could conceal or harbor a thief, or a highway robber, because he was a master mason,
would find but little if any difficulty in stretching his conscience to embrace the traitor and the
murderer. l am, indeed, well aware that this embrace has been given, that this stretching of
a masonic conscience has happened, because one of the murderers of Morgan, in his flight from
Justice, passed through the city of Albany, and would have been arrested in it, if he had not
been warned of his danger, and aided to escape, by one or more Royal Arch Masons! But let
the wretched outlaw go where he may, the ghost of his hapless victim will rise, ever and anon, to
his view -- and continually …digitated by the horrors of a guilty conscience, he may exclaim in
the language of Milton:
Me, miserable! which way shall I fly
Infinite wrath, and infinite despair?
Which way I fly is hell, myself am hell;
And in the lowest depth, a lower deep
...Still threatening to devour me, ...o^^eiis wide,
To which the hell I suffer seems a heaven!
To return to the oath: Can any faithful citizen deliberately take such an unlawful and wicked oath, as I have here transcribed, and know
to have been taken by every master mason?
35
And if once indiscreetly taken, through youth and inexperience, or otherwise: is he not bound
to renounce it in the first moment of calm reflection, and throw off at once the restraints it
imposes? Virtue, patriotism, morality and religion, all answer in the affirmmive, and the
soundest principles of law concur in the same ...replp.
In this opinion all writers on moral philosophy and jurisprudence are agreed, from the most
exalted sages of Greece and Rome, down in point of time to the equally great and able ones of
modern Europe and ...intant America: of the moderns, ...G»tius, Puffendorf, Hutchinson, Paley,
and indeed every writer of any celebrity, all agree that unlawful oaths are not binding; --
but are "more honored in the breach than the observance." To quote the precise words
of all of these writers is not necessary; as you can at any time satisfy your mind by referring to
them yourselves: but as Paley is considered as good authority as any of them, attend a moment
to what he says: -- "Promises are not binding, where the promise is unlawful. There are
two cases of this; one, where the unlawfulness is known to the parties, at the time of making
the promise; as where an assassin promises his employer to dispatch his rival or his enemy; a
servant to betray his master; a pimp to procure a mistress; a friend to give his assistance in
a scheme of seduction. The parties in these cases are not obliged to perform what the
promise requires, because they were under a prior obligation to the contrary. From which prior
obligation what is there to discharge them ...their promise -- their own act and deed -- but an
obligation, from which a man can discharge
36
himself, by his own act, is no obligation at all.
The ...^uilt, therefore, of such promises, lies in the making, not in the breaking them; and if, in
the interval betwixt the promise and the performance, a man so far recovers his reflection,
as to repent of his engagements, he ought certainly to break through them."
Mr. Paley, who is one of the most able and most justly celebrated of British Divines and
Philosophers, has in the passage I have quoted conclusively shown that masonic oaths are not
binding, because of the prior obligation to the contrary, which every citizen owes to his
country, its constitution and laws; to say nothing of his duty to God. But in my humble opinion
to say that the oaths in question are ...nugatory in consequence of a prior and, if you please, a
higher obligation, is not saying enough: For to swear to conceal the crimes of any man, or
set of men, must be and is a crime as high at least as a misdemeanor, or there is no such
thing ...kfl reason, much less the "perfection of reason," (as Blackstone says,) in the law: But
to abide by that oath, when occasion requires or calls for it, is to become, to all intents and
purposes, in a strict legal sense, accessory to such crimes, and justly liable to the punishment
decreed for them by the legislature, or prescribed by the Common Law.
When we contemplate, for a moment, the oath before us, we need no longer to wonder,
or feel the least surprise, that so many criminal masons have heretofore eluded justice; that ...w
many have been able to fly effectually from the reach of legal process; that so many, on
...aoa-yietiosi^ have been punished ...bo ienici^uljr at
37
various times; and that so many, who have been sentenced to an adequate punishment,
have found the means of obtaining pardon, and emerging from confinement, without any thing
like a due expiation of their crimes! We no longer wonder, that a wretch like Stephen Arnold,
a schoolmaster of Otsego county, after being sentenced to death for the murder of an
unoffending and innocent little girl -- one of the most cruel and atrocious private murders ever
committed in this or any other country -- found a host ...of freemasons so ready to step forward
in his behalf; and a masonic legislature -- like that with which we are now ...b testy and which
has refused its aid to bring the murderers of Morgan to light -- ready to mitigate his punishment
from death on the gallows, to confinement in the State Prison for fourteen years, or for
life; and where he died in a short time after, or I doubt not masonic sympathy for a masonic
murderer would have procured his pardon.
If the masonic oaths, or rather the promissory part of them, which I have quoted, be
destructive of fealty to the state; are they not equally or more so, of the principles of
morality and religion. If indeed the Bible be not a forgery, and Christianity a fable, he who takes
them oaths runs the most awful of all risks, that of being cast off by his Creator in the life
to come: and especially when we connect with the promises, the blasphemous and horrible
penalties attached to their violation? These penalties I shall add, as they stand connected
respectively with the several oaths of an Entered Apprentice, a fellow Crafty and a Master Mason.
38
ENTERED APPRENTICE. -- "To all which, I do most solemnly and sincerely promise
and swear, without the least equivocation, mental reservation, or self-evasion of mind in me
whatever, binding myself under no less PENALTY, than to have my throat cut across, my
tongue torn out by the roots, and my body buried in the rough sands of the sea, at low water
mark, where the tide ebbs and flows twice in twenty-four hours: so help me God, and keep me
steadfast in the due performance of the same."
FALLOW-CRAFT. -- "To all which," &c. (as above) "binding myself under no less PENALTY,
than to have my breast torn open, and my heart and vitals taken from thence, and
thrown over my left shoulder, and carried into the valley of Jehoshaphat, there to become a prey
...id the wild beasts of the field, and vultures of the air, if ever should prove willfully guilty
of violating any part of this my solemn oath, or obligation of a fellow-craft mason; so help
me God, and keep me steadfast in the due performance of the same."
MASTER MASON. -- "To all which, &c. (as before) binding myself under no less PENALTY
than to have my body severed in two in the midst, and divided to the North and South, my bowels
burnt to ashes in the centre, and the ashes scattered before the four winds of heaven, that there
might not the least track or trace of remembrance remain among men or masons, of so
puerile and perjured a wretch as I should be, were I ever to prove willfully guilty of violating any
part of this, my solemn oath or obligation of a Master mason: so help me God, and keep me
steadfast in the due performance of the same."
39
If these horrible oaths are not unlawful, and punishable as misdemeanors at least, then
every man of common sense must perceive, that our laws are extremely defective; and it is high
time the attention of the Legislature was bestowed upon the subject. But I maintain that
these obligations do fairly render all who administer, or take them, liable to indictment and
conviction for misdemeanor, if not felony -- (constructive felony they certainly are, by the
soundest rules of construction) * -- and should any complaint be made to a grand jury against any
officer or officers, member or members, of any masonic lodge, for administering or receiving
these oaths, they would be obliged, by their oaths as Jurors, to indict the offenders.
I will fortify this position by reference to a period of history, in which a similar, if not
the same, question in all its bearings, became the foundation of a series of statutes, framed
by our British Ancestors, to protect their civil and political rights.
An Imperium in Imperio -- in plain English, an Empire within an Empire, or a governmeril
within a government -- is not to be tolerated, never can be safely tolerated, by any sovereignty
or people. But the Institution, whose oaths and obligations, or laws, are contradictory, and
in defiance of the municipal laws of the land, is an Imperium in Imperio, to all intents and
purposes: such is the Masonic Institution: And it was to prevent such an independent and
dangerous exercise of power within the realm of England, that the statutes of ...Praemunire were
called into existence. They were intended to suppress the Civil Power of the Pope, over his
__________
* See Appendix* I^tc U.
40
adherents within the Empire; although the Roman Catholics had no secret assemblies, nor
secret ties or rites, or mysteries of any kind, calling upon them expressly or by implication,
or in any other shape, to conceal the crimes of each other against the assumed civil authority
of the Pope, or the legitimate civil supremacy of the British constitution and constituted authorities.
The struggle between the Pope and the government, for the exercise of civil power, precisely
such as has been claimed and exercised by the Free Masons, in Morgan's case, so far as
that case goes, agitated the British empire through a number of successive reigns, and
produced the most serious injuries to the peace and tranquility of the nation. Either in a civil
or ecclesiastical shape it kept the government in constant broils, and consequent terror and
alarm, from the reign of Henry L... if no earlier, down to that of Henry VIII. So far was this
Imperium in Imperio carried at one time, that Pope Innocent III. demanded of John the
...re-nation of his kingdom, as St. Peter's Patrimony! and this extravagant demand was
acceded to -- and the pusillanimous "Monarch re-accepted his sceptre from the hands of the
Papal Legate, to hold as the vassal of the Holy See, at the annual rent of a thousand marks ...C^
And I venture to predict, that our government will yet be called upon by the Grand Kings,
...Old Grand High Priests of the Holy Order of St. John of Jerusalem to submit to similar
outrages, if they be not checked in their career.
But to return. Although his predecessors had ...tam^ submitted to the Popish imperium in
41
impirio, Edward I. had the patriotism and the spirit to make a bold, and to a great extent,
effectual resistance. He treated with contempt and ridicule all Papal bulls and processes. He
aimed the axe at the root of the evil. He executed one of his subjects, as a traitor, for having
obtained a bull of excommunication against another; pretty much such a bull as was lately
issued by a masonic lodge against Mr. Hollister: * And finally, in the thirty-fifth year of his
reign, was made the first Statute against this Cuckoo sort of intrusion or interference with
the civil laws and rights of the people; and which formed the foundation of all the subsequent
statutes of ...PrtBmunire. Although the struggle was still carried on; yet the Pope was
worsted from time to time, till he was obliged to surrender altogether his claims to civil
power; and finally to that of ecclesiastical rfite ...memory of Edward I. should never be
obliterated from the minds of Englishmen. He was justly called the founder as well as restorer
of their laws: And notwithstanding Popish supremacy had acquired a more dangerous
influence, if possible, over the minds of a vast portion of the people, than Masonic Supremacy
has as yet acquired among us; * yet (in the language of Blackstone) it vanished into nothing,
when the eyes of the people were a little opened, and they set themselves with vigour to
oppose it. So vain and ridiculous is the attempt to live in society without acknowledging
the obligation, which it lays us under; and to effect an entire independence of that civil stater...
which protects us in all our rights and gives
__________
* See Appendix, Id.
42
us every other liberty, that only excepted of despising the laws of the community. ^^...
Thus we see, my young countrymen, that the ...Tiara was defeated in its attempts to keep up
a government within a government -- a Papal Law, in opposition to the Municipal Law of the
land -- by our British ancestors; and let us, their posterity, take care that the Masonic Law shall
not triumph over our Municipal Law, by which I mean here the whole system of constitutional
liberty, which was purchased for us by the blood of our fathers: And this brings me back
once more to the Masonic Oaths.
These oaths, which bind those who take them to keep the secrets of masonry, right or wrongs
...arcy- not only unlawful, and therefore void ...ak initio (from the beginning) as the law ...hfiis it;
but I go further, and by fair construction, believe them to be not merely ...mala prohibita --
acts of which human policy or expediency only demands the prohibition -- but mala ...in se -- acts
wicked in themselves, and before the existence of social compacts, being determined so by the
laws of God: For if it be a thing wicked in itself to murder a fellow-creature; then it must
be so to administer or take an oath -- whether it be extra-judicial and unlawful or not -- with
the penalty of death annexed to the breach of it; and on the part of those who take and
break it, to submit quietly to be murdered. No duly constituted civil power can have the
right to administer such an oath, much less any private secret association. It is
destructive of all the elements of social existence, insulting to the moral sense of mankind, and to
the purity, benevolence and mercy of him who
43
...created us. Away, then, for ever, with this horrible notion, this moral, and political, if not
religious heresy, that a Free Mason, or any other man, has the right to set at defiance the Law
of God -- Thou shalt not commit murder -- by contracting away his life, and thus voluntarily
consigning his soul to eternal perdition, and ...Ringing from him (so far as his own act goes)
the ...all-gracious atonement of the Redeemer!
But enough, for the present, of the unlawful, barbarous and blasphemous oaths, which grace
the code of the "most ancient and honourable fraternity," of which heaven or earth can boast,
if we believe the vain-glorious and fool-hardy assertions of its inflated holiday trumpeters.
I have thus shown sufficient, I presume, to satisfy you, at least all of you who possess virtue
and good sense, that you cannot enter into the Masonic Association, without incurring the risk
of life, if conscience should afterwards prompt you to perform your duty fearlessly as men and
citizens without violating that self-respect
which is one of the brightest gems in the human character, so long as it does not degenerate
into vanity and false pride -- without incurring the risk of losing the respect and esteem
of society, by a course of dissipation -- without betraying the rights and liberties of your
country, by contracting obligations which destroy your fealty to her civil and political laws: And
finally, that you cannot hold fellowship with Free Masonry, unless the Bible be a forgery
and Christianity a fable, without violating your duty to your Divine Creator and Redeemer.
For all these sacrifices, which you must make, if you join the Order in earnest, and
44
zealously adhere to it, what adequate return can Free Masonry make to you? I answer, not
any -- not the shadow of a return. She can afford you no rational entertainment in her dark
retreats; no new principles of science; no food for the mind, or the soul, in her ridiculous
mysteries. Science of her own she has none. All her lights are borrowed. What she pretends
to hide from the world in her dark conclaves, is not worth lifting the veil to come at, especially
when she calls on you to loosen your purse-strings, and squander your money for
every peep you take at her ...rush-tight "under a bushel." What her trumpeters, her orators,
from those who are the most exalted in talent, down to the wildest fanatical, or the meanest
hireling scribbler, who has wielded his pen in justification of her murderous career: what
these, I say, have avowed as her principles, are no more her property than they are yours or
mine. She stole them from the Mosaic code, the pages of the Patriarchs and the Prophets --
from the Persian sun-worshippers; from the heathen and pagan Philosophy; and the
Christian Revelation! And how she has acted up to them, let her midnight revels and debaucheries,
and the graves, of her murdered victims answer! ...We can follow her example, if base
enough to claim what is not our own, and steal and borrow from the same sources, without
confessing the crime, or acknowledging the obligation. So far indeed from being her own,
she has not even the second-hand merit ...odTjire* serving them in their original purity and
sublimity. They have fared in her hands as the
45
brightest gem of Golconda would fare in the soiled hand, the dusky grasp of a son of Vulcan.
The universal and sublime principles of charity and benevolence which Plato, as well as
Paul, enforced at Athens, she limits and contracts to those only who have been taught in her
scientific retreats the grand operation of drawing the right hand across the tip of the chin, and
giving the pass-grip at the doors of her temples of darkness and delusion. As her benevolence
is stinted to her own house hold, and her charity begins at home; so is her chastity of the
same pure and immaculate description: hence her novitiates, when they approach her
nocturnal altars are sworn not to violate the persons of the wives or daughters of the mystic
brotherhood, knowing them to he the wives or daughters of the said brotherhood; but are left at full
liberty to seduce and corrupt, without the shield of any masonic tie for their protection, the wives
and daughters of any or all beyond the pale of this brotherhood: these are her moral and
intellectual beauties! Her religion, it is needless to speak of -- for she has non, -- she never had
any. She can embrace, with equal ardor, the atheist, the Deist, the disciples of the Arabian
Impostor, or the followers of Johanna Southcote; Lucifer himself would find admittance to her
honors, her rites and her mysteries, if he be not indeed the father of them, if he had but server
silver in his purse, to pay the fees of initiation.
Since, then, in her speculative, moral and intellectual science, she can afford ...jroii nothing worth
spending your time and your money for surely you will not call upon her to teach you the
operative or practical use of the square and the
46
compass, the guage and the ...level: For of these again she knows nothing more than their mere
forms, which she has learned from the hieroglyphics on her walls, or from seeing them in the
hands of those honest practical mechanics who know how to use them, without any thanks to
her teaching; and were she to attempt their practical application, she would cut …the figure
of the monkey which in a barber's shop had the temerity to attempt the handling of a razor
...secundemnrtem! If, then, my young country-man, for her speculative science, in its purity,
you must go to Moses and the Prophets -- to David and Solomon -- to Plato and Socrates -- to
Jesus Christ and his Apostles : so, for the practical scieftee of masonry, you must call, not at
her door, but to that of some honest, industrious and sensible brick-layer; to such a man
you must go in preference to any of her teachers, many of whom, in any sense, are scarcely
qualified for hod-men, being as stupid as mules, and as ignorant as Hottentots. I profess no
classical education, or discipline. Cast off an orphan, without parent to guide, or friend, or
benefactor, to aid me in commencing my career... life, my youth was devoted to manual labor,
and my subsequent time has been full of business, cares, pleasures and perplexities: but with
all these disadvantages, I fear not to challenge the most learned champion of her cause, to show
a single feature in her system, which is worth preserving, and I will show that it does not
belong to her; that she is indebted for it to other sources than her own ...prolifia invention or
...genitls; and finally, ...'i;l|fit she has not, in any sense whatever the least pretension to the gratitade
47
of them ...eeha]ii€, the respect of the philosopher, or the veneration of the saint. To test the
truth of what I here advance, I think I may safely trust to your own good sense, if you
reflect, for a moment, that the tree is known by its fruit; and will take the pains, whenever you see
one of her pageants, or processions, moving through the streets, to discriminate between the
men of talents and intelligence who compose it and those who are stupid, illiterate, and
ignorant; you will probably perceive that five out of six belong to the latter class: And if you look
again at those who as Grand Masters, Grand High Priests, and Grand Kings, take the lead
in this courtly pageantry, which she has introduced among us; it is equally probable that these
Grand Pillars of a would-be Nobility (saving, perhaps, two or three cunning speculators) are
as stupid, illiterate, and ignorant as their blind followers: For would any man of sense, I ask
you, in a republican government, and especially a man friendly to such government, dress
himself up and parade through the streets, without a blush, in the paraphernalia of an Eastern
Monarch? But as these men, with no pretensions to education, taste, or native genius, and who
hardly know, in the language of Shakspeare, "a hawk from a handsaw," are the special
favorites of this modern "whore of Babylon," on whose forehead is written MYSTERY; are
clothed in her scarlet robes, have risen to the highest degrees in her mystic temples; and
stand forth the avowed and admitted high dignitaries; who wear her official honors; does
it not f0llow, that her science, and her secrets must be very like indeed ...tm ^ '' da^ cf/ snrnU
48
tJiings^^^... of a nighXot mist and darkness, thro' which may be seen, now and then, a straggling
and solitary ray of moonshine!
Let her away, then, my young countrymen, with her quackery, her trumpery, her fraud and
her falsehood, her ...irick and her tinsel, to the dark caverns of the Druids, which she
inhabited, ere she landed on our shores, to pollute our atmosphere with her moral contagion,
corrupt our civil and political institutions, insult our ears with her blasphemies, and ...stain our soil
with the blood of innocence: And let me conjure ^u,... if you wish for useful instruction,
instead of seeking for it at her dark altars, to repair to the real temples of wisdom and
virtue -- the scientific schools, academies and colleges -- the religious meeting houses,
churches and chapels of your country. If from the former (the latter being free to all) any of
you are excluded by your circumstance, and condition in life; then procure, if within your
reach, an Address, delivered at the opening of the Apprentices Library, in Albany, Jan. 1st.,
1821. In that work is pointed out such a course of study for youth, not in circumstances to pay
for learning, as will qualify any one who pursues it, with the aid of a good native mind, to
mingle with credit to himself in any society, however intelligent or refined, and to fill to
advantage, at least, if not to shine, in any station to which his country may call him. *
In imagination at least, I now hear you ask, if Free Masonry be so worthless, why did
Washington rank himself among its members? -- The answer is easy. It is a pretence of the
Order that whenever ...infites or solicits any person
__________
* See Appendix, Note 3.
49
directly or indirectly, to become a member: but this I know to be false by my own experience;
and I could multiply a thousand proofs of its falsehood, with very little difficulty, if I thought
it important to do so. Washington, therefore might have been seduced into it, as thousands
have been to their ruin and regret. But if this be not the fact, still I am at no loss for an
answer, and a very conclusive one, though it reflects no honor upon Free Masonry.
Washington, like a thousand other men, yea, tens of thousands, heard of an institution which
vauntingly inscribed MYSTERY on its portals; and which affected the knowledge of wonderful
secrets, calculated to make all those who shoffl\i ...possess them both the wiser and the better for
the discovery. Washington, who was a mathematician by nature, as well as a man of genius,
was, of course, more than the generality of mankind, in search after truth or wisdom; for the
disciples of Euclid, and of Archimedes, are of all others the most eager to come at
conclusions founded literally and strictly on science. Washington, therefore, in conformity to
that spirit of curiosity which is natural, in the first place, to all the brighter part of our
species, and hence is so predominant among women; but which in him existed with two-fold
force from his love of mathematical science: Washington, I say, under these impressions
which are always irresistible, determined to explore the mysteries, the hidden treasures
tS... wisdom, which Free Masonry was supposed to ...passes. He did so. But where is the
evidence that he learned anything useful, which he did not know before, and better knew than
50
he could learn it at her altars. In her threadbare remnants, her hieroglyphical fragments,
ol* ...experimental or demonstrative science or art, could he who had mastered Euclid and
Emerson, find any hidden or concealed light?... And as to her speculative, or moral science, or
principles (if speculation deserves in any shape the name of science,) could the sage who had
followed Moses and the Prophets, and the Priests of Israel to the seats of the lawgiver, and the
temples of the living God; who in profane lore, had communed with Demosthenes and Cicero
at the forum and in the senate; whose mind had commingled with the spirits of Socrates
…wai of Plato, in their labours of the academic shades; whose intuitive genius had followed
Newton in his sublime theory of gravitation; ...L(^e ia his unparalleled researches into the
narare of the human intellect; and Bacon, the father of Modern Science, in the profound
depths of his inductive philosophy: And finally, could the Patriarch, as well as the Hero of
...lii|||poui)try, who had drank deep at the Fountain of Light, which emanated from the Divine
Mission of the Redeemer of Mankind; for Washington, to the valour of the hero, the virtue of the
patriot, and the wisdom of the sage, added the faith and the graces of the Christian; and was not
ashamed, with all his imperishable glory, to take up the cross, and bear it meekly in the presence of
his country and his God -- could such a man, I ask, thus gifted, thus endowed, both by nature and
education -- could he, the Christian Philosopher, the profound scholar, the great naturalist, the
defined Father of his Country, find a solitary ...riU 05^, spring, at, which to altar, much less to
51
slake his thirst for improvement, in the scientific and moral deserts which comprise the
domains of Free Masonry? I boldly answer, NO; he could not; he did not. And did
Washington ever bend his mind upon Free Masonry, after he had been permitted, for a
price, to lift the veil which concealed her awful and sublime mysteries, as they are styled
by some of her noodle-headed holiday trumpeters? To this again, I boldly answer, NO.
The gravity of his character; the calm and sedate wisdom that sat upon his brow; the
dignity of soul which had placed him at the head of a Republic, and the love of truth, which
had ever been his ruling passion, at once and forever forbade him to seek any further
intercourse with the disciples of the Order, as ...wch, or to continue his devotions at their altars of
ignorance, quackery and imposture. I will venture to assert, that George Washington, after
his initiation, never entered a Lodge Room with any other view than that of mere social
intercourse, or common-place courtesy: nor do I believe, that he ever entered it with these views
ten times in the course of his long and invaluable life. Masonic Editors, and Masonic
Orators, boast of his fellowship with the fraternity, and give, as a proof of it, the polite reply which
he once made to an address from a lodge.
The address was one of those common-place affairs, which happen almost every day; and
the answer was of course such as a well bred man, and especially a benevolent man,
would always give on a similar occasion. The laws ef Free Masonry had not at that time
compelled the murder of Morgan; nor had her other midnight murders of Smith and
52
Murdock been brought to light. * I will vouch for it, that were that immortal sage, hero, patriot
and christian, now among us, he would blush to the cheek bone, to be seen clothed in the trappings
of the usurping and blood-stained Order. I doubt, indeed, whether he ever was seen clothed
in those trappings. The native dignity of his soul revolted at all unmeaning, frivolous and
contemptible pageantry; and his philosophic mind, his enviable, lofty and sublime genius,
soared as far above all the petty and the paltry science, the stolen and disjointed fragments, or
gingerbread work, of speculative Masonry, as the majestic eagle of our clime, soars beyond
fill meaner birds: Yes, I repeat it, as the flight of the eagle is to that of the titmouse or the
sparrow, was the soul of George Washington above the pretended secret science, and the
fulsome, degrading, and mysterious rites of Free Masonry!
But still more effectually to deprive Free Masonry of the support she derives from the
name of Washington, I shall now turn that justly venerated name directly against her,
and for this purpose it is only necessary to ...tf^er to the farewell address of the Father of
his Country. In a former work of mine I said -- "whenever posterity shall be so lost, as to
forget the virtues of those times, and degenerate into slaves, the Legacy of Washington
will prove the torch that shall light them to the tombs of their fathers, and the temples of
liberty." But little did I think, when thus expressing myself, that without waiting for posterity,
it would; in my own day, become my own labour,
__________
* See Appendix, Note 13.
53
and my sacred duty, to hold up that work as a beacon to my young countrymen, to warn
them from the paths of perdition, the nocturnal conclaves of licentiousness and corruption;
whence I venture to predict will yet emerge, clothed in the robes, and wearing the sword
of royalty, the first Usurper, whoever he may be, that shall trample our liberties in the dust,
and erect a throne upon their ruins. Such, at least, will be the event, if the people do not
take time by the forelock, and provide an effectual constitutional remedy, or preventative:
this, in my humble opinion, would be best effected, by amending our constitutions, both
state and federal, so that no man should be allowed to hold any office of honour or profit,
under them, who would not, in assuming the duties of it, swear to and subscribe a
declaration -- in addition to the oath or oaths now in use -- that he was not then a member,
and would not thereafter become one of any se*...
GREAT, SELF-CREATED COMBINATION whatsoever.
Some constitutional provision like this, but more guarded, perhaps, as well as mor^dflatedi^...
so as not to infringe upon the liberty of the citizen, in attempting the more effectually to
secure it, I do not hesitate to say, is indispensable to the salvation of our civil and political
rights. Without it they are sure to fall eventually beneath the bloody sword of some
usurper -- some Grand King -- some Knight of the Red Cross, or the Black Banner, or the Holy
Ghost! -- (blasphemous as it is, this is one of the titles of Free Masonry) -- as that ...l now
raise my warning voice, to prevent you, my young countrymen, from becoming the dupes
54
and the victims of deception, and the laws of God and my country from being again trampled
upon, as they lately have been with impunity, by ...brutal masonic ruffians, and midnight
conspirators!
But to return: -- What says the Farewell Address, the invaluable legacy, bequeathed us by
the Father of his country? It warns us, in that clear and emphatical language, which
characterizes all that Washington ever said or wrote, to "BEWARE OF SECRET ASSOCIATIONS,
under whatever plausible character," because ""they are liable to become, in the course of time
and things, potent engines, by which cunning, ambitious and unprincipled men will be enabled
to subvert the …power of the people, and usurp to themselves the reins of government. In the
language of a brother Editor, and one of the few who deserve well of their country on this
question -- I mean the Editor of the Morristown Palladium of Liberty -- "When we hear him
...f Washington… uttering a farewell warning to his countrymen, to BEWARE of SECRET
COMBINATIONS, what are we to suppose he ...roeanst. Was it a dream of the imagination that
flitted before the mind of the illustrious sage -- or was it some reality, the effects of which he
dreaded? What secret combinations existed... in our country at that time, except Masonry? --
And who was so likely to understand its dangerous tendency, as he who understood its
mysterious energies? We have never written a sentence so severe against masons: And we again
ask, for whom was it intended by Washington, the great, the good, the prudent, if not for the
masonic fraternity? unless intended for them, it
55
eould mean nothing; and Washington never uttered a caution when no danger threatened. ...
Well may I now exclaim, that the time has already arrived, when the legacy of Washington
must prove the torch, that shall light us to the tombs of our fathers, and the temples of liberty!
And now it is, perhaps, time that you ask -- If the science and the secrets of Free Masonry be
so worthless, why was the hapless Morgan kidnapped and murdered for publishing a part of
the latter, and threatening to publish the rest?
This question is likewise easily answered.
The ill-informed, uneducated, or weak men, who think them valuable -- and whose weakness
and delusion are to be pitied by all generous minds -- are in general seriously and fanatically
attached to them. This portion, you may reasonably suppose, constitutes a vast majority of
the Order. On the other hand, the knaves and hypocrites, who know their emptiness and
worthlessness, but who nevertheless make money by retailing them ; they see clearly, in
such revelations as those of Morgan, the total destruction of their craft -- their trade. These
are the genuine, if not lineal, descendants of Demetrius, the silversmith, who played the same
game so successfully at Ephesus, in the time of the Apostle Paul, who was accused by this
Demetrius of spoiling his trade, in the same manner that Morgan has spoiled the trade of
his modern posterity -- by telling the truth. Then, again, the designing politicians, who
laugh in their sleeves at the folly, and perhaps secretly despise the knavery of too many of
their "brethren;'' nevertheless find, or at least have found, in by-gone times; their popularity
56
and power, in exchanging the due-guards, and grips, and ...gesticulations -- (like those of a
monkey's tail) -- with the weak vessels of the Order -- the children of six feet -- who sip the genuine
milk of masonry with the pap spoons of Jachin and Boaz! This brief reply to the last question,
is sufficient, I trust, to satisfy you, why Morgan was murdered: And if thus satisfied,
let me earnestly entreat you, my young countrymen, as you revere the tombs and the
memory of your ancestors, as you love the liberty, which they bled and died to establish, as you
believe in the religion of your blessed Redeemer, and hate the devil, and all his works
of darkness ; not only to abstain from Free Masonry yourselves, but to withhold your votes at
the polls from all who do not renounce it openly, or convince you that they are beyond the
reach of its malign influence. The universal prevalence of such a spirit as this, I deem
essential to the preservation of our republican institutions: For ...having seen what Masonry has
done, we know what she is capable of doing; and may clearly perceive what she will do
hereafter, if the present excitement be not kept up against her, till she renounces her midnight
orgies and altars, her fulsome and wicked mysteries, and her Jesuitical designs; or is totally
defeated in them by the good sense and patriotism of the community.
Having taken this brief view of Free Masonry -- brief, indeed, but true so far as it goes
-- let us take a look -- a mere glimpse must suffice for the present -- at the secret history of
her temples of dissipation and delusion.
What is the secret history of most of the
57
Lodges which have been established among us? Is it such as to command our respect for the purity
of their origin; for the motives which have actuated those who were the first to procure their
charters, and commence their operations. As to the grand source of all the present state and
local charters, or constitutions, in this country, we find it to have been a Grand Convention --
for every thing connected with the Lambskin Order, is necessarily grand -- held at Hartford,
on the fourth Wednesday of January 1798, and composed of delegates from all the Northern
States, including New-York. It is indeed remarkable, that Hartford should have been the
seat of a Masonic, as well as a Blue Lights conspiracy against the laws and liberties of this
country; and it is to be hoped, that a people, so respectable, virtuous and enterprising, may
yet take measures to wipe off for ever the odium of having given birth to two such monsters in
the Moral World, as modern Masonry and blue-light Federalism: But be this as it may, if
we examine, for a moment, the cause which has produced the multiplication of lodges, till we
meet with one or more, in almost every small village throughout the country; we shall find
them to have been the offspring of the meanest of motives, as they have invariably become the
prolific parents of the worst of vices, if not the vilest of crimes.
Whenever and wherever a village starts up, morality and good order, as well as... religion and
piety, very properly require the erection of a church: this is consonant to virtue, reason and
sound policy, as well as the duty we owe to our God. The spire of the village church, is the
58
first thing which strikes the eye of the pious traveler; and as it modestly rises, pointing to the
Christian …as heaven, he beholds in it an emblem of the hope within him, and a pleasing proof of
the progress of piety and civilization.
The next thing, if not in order of time the first, which though a convenience to the traveler,
too often becomes a nuisance to the neighborhood, is the erection of a tavern: And what
next? The village does not always grow rapidly -- the travelling is not always good --
and there are sometimes but few travelers, when it is good: in proportion, too, as the
church flourishes, the tavern fades. The landlord finds his custom not quite equal to his wants,
much less his wishes. Something must be done -- some contrivance hit upon -- and our countrymen
are not backward at contrivance -- to increase his custom and his coffers, to diffuse in
larger quantities the stimulus which fills his kegs and decanters; and to pocket in return the loose
change of the way-faring man, or the fool who heeds not the warning voice of the Prophet --
Wo unto them that rise up early in the mornings that they may follow strong drink.
Our wary Landlord, therefore, if he be not a Free Mason -- if he has never known the
mysterious sensations that seize the young and ardent "candidate," when he learns to lisp those
sublime cabalistics, Jachin and Boaz -- immediately determines to become a member of the
Lambskin ...Maternity. Full of the matter, he loses no time in repairing to the next village
or city, or wherever there is a Noodle Manufactory established, and gets himself initiated
into the sublime mysteries of the ancient and honorable Craft. To do justice to his head,
59
however, he does not mean to become a Noodle himself; but to learn the art of making
Noodles of others. The bright eye -- the dazzling sun -- the milder crescent, and the seven
little twinkling stars, are now seen to decorate his sign-board, which almost feels amazed at
finding itself the bearer of so many gilded and mysterious images; and which are held out as
so many monitors to the traveler, or villager, that within there dwells a man, whose heart is
so generous and tender, that he will feast them on the smiles of benevolence, as well as the
sweets of small-beer, brandy and beef-steaks. Brother Lambskin is now fully prepared to
give the sign manual at the tip of the chin, and the mysterious grip; and to seduce those, who
are so wise as to know how to answer his signals, to rise up early in the morning to buy his strong
drink. But as there may not be enough of such asses or cattle, in the village or vicinity, to make
the speculation equal his benevolent design in joining the fraternity; he soon recollects, that
he has a garret entirely vacant, inhabited only now and then by a few erratic rats and mice,
and perhaps a half-starved cat, (watching for her prey in the upper story, as her master watches
for his below,) not one of which has ever turned its attention to the mysteries of masonry;
but which are now in a fair way to meet on a level with the sons of light; for ... ingenious
publican has hit upon the expedient of turning his empty garret into a Lodge Room, getting a
charter from the Grand Lodge -- that focus of iniquity and corruption, and himself, with two or
three of his sly associates, constituted ...q^astefp wardens, Q%d.% Treasurery anitfhg iniir#ot
60
important object, but rather one of the chief keys of the concern.... He now begins to realise the
tuition of his golden dreams in joining the Order. He goes to work, in good earnest, at
making free masons, as well as retailing Julips -- and every "blind candidate" that he leads to the
altar, adds one to his Julip customers!
Thus the young and heedless villager is first lured to the door, whose steps lead down to the
gates of hell! -- industrious mechanics are seduced from their workshops -- the farmer, in the
vicinity, is taught to think more of prying into the secrets of the lodge, than of ploughing his
land -- wives are deserted by their husbands, at a time when their society is most expected at
the domestic fire-side -- and children are left to go ragged, and without sustenance or
education -- that our Grand Village Necromancer, our wholesale and retail dealer in Mystery,
Moonshine and Mixed Liquors, may revel and WAX fat, and flourish upon all this folly and
wickedness of his own creation: And thus, when compared with the truly useful and
indispensable village church, the old saw is completely realised: --
"Wherever God erects a house of prayer,
"The Devil comes, and builds a temple there."
Our hero is now in the full tide of successful experiment; and the sun, moon, and twinkling
stars on his ...sign-board, are but faint emblems of his aspiring hopes. With a troop of
Noodles at his heels, he emerges from the bar room to the bench, as a Justice of the Peace,
or County Judge; or leaps over the head of many a better, man into the halls of legislation, as a
I^PP^vqi totttp4)^0]|^ ! Well tridy ^e putOA ...
61
a solemn face, as Cromwell did when, stooping to find his cork-screw, he made his fanatical
intruders believe he was kneeling to pray; well, I say, may our hero, when surrounded by his
dupes in the garret, sing with all needful gravity and grimace: --
"Hail Masonry divine;
...61 >rj^ of ages shine,
Long mayst thou reign:
Where'er thy lodges stand,
May they have great command,
And always grace the land.
Thou ART divine." ...
This is a brief, but pretty fair history of the rise and progress of perhaps nine tenths of our
country temples of fatuity: motives of a similar nature, bearing, in many cases, upon
different objects, both political and mercenary, have no doubt given rise to all the city Lodges,
from the GRAND FOCUS, to the most insignificant retreat of midnight mystery and moral turpitude.
For example, let us take a glance at the ALBANY LODGE, some thirty years ago.
In the olden time of purity and simplicity, when the population of Albany was composed
wholly of a strictly industrious, moral and religious people, so silly and so wicked a thing as
Free Mason, if, …I presume, was not thought of among them. Our ancient Burghers had too
much good sense to be attracted by such a contemptible illusion; and too much of good old
Netherland honesty and piety to think of speculating in so vile a commodity. There was
indeed between the stern virtue of the Pilgrims, who first landed on Plymouth Rock, and the
spirit of the early settlers of Albany, so strong
62
a resemblance -- that deeply is it to be regretted, that their posterity have not all imbibed and
cherished the love of truth, the undefiled integrity, the sober, moral and industrious habits,
and the unaffected piety, which animated and sustained, through so many perils and privations,
those early and intrepid visitants to the shores of a barbarous and benighted region. It is
probable, however, -- I have not time at present to ascertain the fact precisely -- that during the
war of '56, or some other military epoch, Free Masonry may have slyly crept in among the Al-
banians, through the agency of the epaulette: for it has been one of the successful artifices of
the Craft, to teach young soldiers, that they would derive advantage in the hour of peril or
extremity from its ...due-gards and grips. In fact, when they find appeals to the curiosity and
credulity useless, they can stoop to alarm the cowardice of those whom they wish to ensnare.
The Grand Lodge of the state, it appears, received its first charter from the Duke of Athol,
dated London, 5th September, A. L. (year of Light) 5781. * To have said A. D. (year of our
Lord, 1756) would not have comported with the ...Ducalf the Royal origin of an Institution,
which soars above the humble, though heaven-born religion of our Redeemer. But be this
as it may. Free Masonry, I believe, made no figure in Albany till after the close of the
revolution. Nobody heard of it -- nobody thought of it -- nobody would have thought of it -- had it not
been for a clever Dutch Lawyer, who wanted to multiply his clients, and a shrewd yankey
tavern-keeper, willing to increase his bar-room circle: these sage calculators put their heads together;
__________
• See Appendix, Note 14.
63
and having themselves learned the ''art, trade and mystery" of the Crafty they soon persuaded a
few simple and credulous men, that they could open their eyes to a marvellous light, which
they had under a bushel, in a certain garret. -- Thus the revival commenced.
Shortly after, there came along -- (in 1791-90)... ingenious brother Yankey of mine, with
whom I had been slightly acquainted before he settled here, who worked in leather and
paste- board on some occasions; at paper staining on others; and like many of our sun-rising brethren,
knew how to make an honest penny at the same time in several other ingenious but lawful pursuits.
To do him justice, he had a versatility of talent; and nature had bountifully endowed him
with sagacity and foresight. He had read Jachin and Boaz, honest Samuel Pritchard's Masonry
Dissected, the Three Distinct Knocks, and several other luminous treatises, and none the
more luminous for being true portraits of Free Masonry! He perceived, at a single glance, that
those who could believe, for a moment, in the utility of such trash and mummery, must be fit
subjects for him to speculate upon: hence he was not long in making up his mind to join the
aforesaid Lawyer and Publican, that a trio might be formed, who could very adroitly aid each
other's views. The coalition was no sooner conceived than it was consummated, and our hero
was elevated (being a rare genius) in the twinkling of an eye, to the highest, or one of the
highest niches in the Temple of Wisdom. He now commenced in earnest the plan he had
formed, before he exchanged the mysterious grip with his new associates. My brother Yankey,
64
as I said before, was an ingenious workman in leather and lambskins; and as every new-born
babe in Masonry would want a bib, or apron, the more ''blind candidates^'' he ushered into the
marvellous Light of Brother *****'s mysterious garret, the more aprons he sold. He employed
at one time half the young seamstresses in the ...cUt, at stitching on the borders, and finishing
on these bibs for the babes and sucklings of the mystic tie; but this was not the only source of
emolument which my sun-rising brother found in the pleasant walks of the fraternity: he was,
the reader will bear in mind, a paper-stainer, as well as a dresser of lamb-skins, and consequently
the more lodges that were chartered, the more of his coloured paper was called for to
decorate their altars and their walls! What universal charity! What expanded benevolence! ...
The Shylock of Shakspeare was a simpleton to this speculator in masonic decorations, signals
and symbols!
It is the property, if not the peculiar property of such charity and benevolence, to spread
rapidly; it meets with too much congeniality of feeling in the human breast; and so it happened
at this time. There was a very ingenious painter, also one of ...my sun-rising brethren, who then
inhabited a gloomy retreat, in a narrow lane, where he enjoyed scarce light enough by which to
mix his colours; and where, like Shakspeare's apothecary, between whom and my friend there
was a striking resemblance, he would languish, almost without hope, if not in absolute despair,
week after week, if not month after month, without ...leaving his dark hole, though it was the
retreat of genius, illumined by the smile of an ...
65
amateur, much less of a patron. The reader will, therefore, not be surprised to learn, that
this son of genius and obscurity, soon discovered, that the Lamb-skin bibs, or aprons, were not
complete -- not fit to adorn the persons of the sons of Light -- till, by the aid
the pallet, their spotless and
made to yield, in part, to the c …
ed forms of certain sublime
the sight of which the eyes of a
masonry (sis well as the optics
will glisten like those of a cat
Our worthy painter, of course, found it the best
thing he could do -- (seeing the solitary state of his shop -- of which he would often mutter --
In this dark solitude, and lonely cell,
Where heaven-born genius and starvation dwell !•)
-- to join, without delay, the grand trio, who had already got their sublime vocation in the full tide
of successful experiment! The son of the pencil and the pallet, was soon seen arm in arm with
the Paper Gilder, and with the further aid of a Five Dollar bill, perhaps the last relic of his New-England
fortunes, got the word and the grip, the Alpha and omega of masonic science, and was
hailed by the brotherhood as a worthy disciple of the Lamb-skin! Oh! how unfortunate for
genius, to be driven to degrade itself, to descend from its native dignity, and to seek fellowship
with ignorance, and quackery, inquest of patronage!
I just now recollect, that I am running a little ahead of my story: but truth will tell as well in
one part of a history as another: it i^ ikJUehood^
__________
* See Appendix. Note 18.
66
only that ...dan Wur any page. Before the painter's eyes were opened to the marvellous lights
which shines on and about the altars of the Craft, there was another worthy sun-rising brother
of mine (four Yankeys to one Dutchman) who, as the old song says,
"Made ...hau iipoft blocks, for blockheads to wear."
This honest adventurer, who had been journeyman to the Publican already alluded to, before
the latter left off handling fur, to retail madeira and manufacture Free Masons, was quick to
perceive -- and what is it that one of my keen Yankey brethren is not quick to perceive- -- that if
Free Masonry did not make blockheads, it took in... slick enough, all it could catch ready made in
the natural way. He had emerged from journey-work, and opened shop on his own account.
The main chance occupied his thoughts, as it does those of all pains-taking men. He had a
room full of blocks, for which, in the infancy of his business, he had but little if any use; and
which, as they were ranged round his shelves, in silent and solemn order, very naturally put
him in mind of a Lodge in session --
"Where one fool lolls his tongue ...<»«it at another,
And shakes his empty noodle at his brother!"
My good friend -- for all these personages were my friends and companions -- was, I repeat it,
quick to perceive, that to find heads for big blocks, the masonic lodge room was the place
to resort to, after the toils of the day; and having fully counted the cost, as well as the
consequence, he marched forward, not with the 2eat m... a pilgrim with peas in his shoes, going to
67
wait upon "our Lady of Loretto;" or that of an honest missionary among the Esquimaux, who
cheerfully runs the risk of being scalped for the good of a good and holy cause; but with the
cool sagacity of the Beaver, and the calculation of a Wall-street Shaver, did my friend announce
himself at the inner door of the temple, with the Shibboleth of Jachin or Boaz in his mouth; I
forget which; for I don't recollect, whether it was just before, or shortly after, Smith, of Vermont,
was morganised for disclosing those cabalistic terms in this country; and when they were
transposed, by official communication from lodge to lodge, to keep book masons from getting in
among the Lamb-skins, and the wolves in sheep's clothing. But be this as it may, the honest
hatter pronounced the magic word, and the awful, response admonished him to enter, when
"On a sudden, open flew
With impetuous recoil, and jarring sound,
Th' infernal doors."
But our hero was not alarmed -- he entered, not so much "with fear and trembling: as with a
lively hope, that his idle blocks would soon start from their resting shelves, and be seen to bloom
and flourish in the richest of beaver, to ...Aedk the noodles of the Entered Apprentices, and
Fellow-Craftsmen, and Masters, and Grand Masters, and Grand High Priests, and Grand Kings, and other
illustrious dignitaries, who swell the catalogue of the Noodle Nobility of the self-created Order!
These were the FIVE Scribes and Pharisees, who carried on, for a long while, the old ...JVpodk
Manufactory in North Pearl-street, and afterwards in Court... Street. It was about this time that Bni^is ...
68
and his associates formed the Executive Di- rectory of France, and were called the Five
Headed Monster; and I well recollect, jumbling ...
Freat things and small ones, that more than once amused myself in comparing the operations of
the great Five Headed Monster of Paris, with the little Five Headed Monster of Albany. The one
played off Political Quackery on a great scale; the other Masonic Quackery on a small scale.
Under the auspices of the little Five Headed Monster the work went bravely on. Every Publican
who came to town, was sure to find his way to Union Lodge, happily so called, from the
generous and noble spirited union of so many various and disinterested interests. A Dutch Lawyer, and
a shrewd one too; a Yankey Tavern Keeper, who knew something more than "a hawk from a
handsaw;" a Yankey Book Binder, who had studied mankind, as well as Pritchard's Masonry
Dissected, and knew precisely when and where to commence the art of making Lamb-skin aprons;
a Yankey Painter, who knew how to make them shine with the Insignia of the Ducal Order; and
a Yankey Hatter, who knew where to find blockheads to suit his empty blocks; -- these formed
altogether a rare "brotherhood of Iwpe..." as well as of "mutual help." ...
As I said before, these "choice spirits'' of the ...den, took good care to bring every country
Publican, who came to town, where he could get the word and the grip; where he could have his
eyes opened to the glorious light -- the "divine art" of selling two gills of rum where he sold but one
before! And where was the honest Publican, who would not come post-haste, especially at that
early stage of our back population, from S«condaga^ ...
69
CaugkncRdwch... the peak of the HeSeberg^ old Beaver Dam, or Skunk's Misery, to learn a secret
of so much importance to himself at least, if not to the great family of mankind! No sooner were
the eyes of the Pilgrim opened, at the altar of the little Five Headed Monster, than he would return,
brim-full of mystery and moonshine; and go to opening the eyes of his blind neighbors,
with one hand, to the sublime light he had imbibed in an Albany garret, whilst with the other
he would as often and as speedily close them with sixpenny opiates from his brandy or gin
bottle! I am writing sober history -- if not a history of sober things -- as true, if not so dignified
as that of Hume or Gibbon, Robertson or Ramsay; and certain I am as necessary to be studied
by every American youth, who wishes to pass through life without being made the dupe of a
set of vile impostors.
But to return to our Sacondaga, or Caughna* ...Waga Pilgrim; or the one from Skunk's Misery,
alias Old Jericho -- I knew him well -- he is no fictitious personage on this page -- or in short, to
any one of these Pilgrims: -- having thus learned the way to make the most of his mixed liquors,
from his benevolent brethren and preceptors of Albany, and concluding, like a grateful man -- a
rare thing in these days -- that "one good turn deserves another," -- and the fine arts, much less
the sciences, having at that day made but little if any progress in the country; it was proper, as
well as natural, for him to send to them -- the Five Masonic Sachems in Albany -- all such of his
children of light as had occasion to fee counsel learned in the law -- to get lamb-skin aprons
made and painted for the next festival of Saint
70
John -- to mount a new ...roram or beaver -- or to obtain a night's lodging and refreshment, while
transacting their business here, or waiting for a passage in some sloop about sailing for
New-York!
Thus the mystical science flourished, with my sun-rising brethren, who had travelled west,
instead of east, in search of light, and had found as much of it as answered their purposes;
for they reaped a rich harvest from seed sown in darkness -- nor did my old friend, the Dutch
Lawyer, have reason to regret the happy union, in which he long travelled with them in the
delightful paths of brotherly love and successful speculation!
I now come to a point, at which I should pause, were it not that I have calmly reviewed
my past life; and am fully prepared both to acknowledge and renounce, any or all of the errors
I have ever committed; the greatest of which, I am certain, was that of joining the masonic
fraternity, and taking the obligations, which it imposes.
It was by my brother Yankey, the Paper Stainer, who soon became, if it be not irreverent, as well
as paradoxical to say so, "a burning and a shining light in the dens of darkness! -- It was by this
Grand High Priest, and afterwards I believe Grand King, that I was led to obtain a glimpse
of the glories that beam with such sublime effulgence within the four walls of a Lodge, and the
reach of a "cable-tow!"
I need not tell you, my young countrymen, that I never thanked him for leading me into the
mysterious lore of the fraternity; especially when. I inform you, as a solemn fact, as well as
a solemn
71
warning, that when I was weak enough to spend my time and money, in going through four
degrees of the "Divine Science," the High Priest of the Proud Order, who date their charters, and
their puerile records, from the year of Lights in-stead of the year of our Lord -- actually catechised
me, in the sublime mysteries, from the pages of that masterpiece of masonic wit and wisdom, of which
you have lately heard a good deal, entitled -- "Jachin and Boaz" -- Yes, and what man of common
sense, who is not a mason, will not be astonished to hear it -- and what man of common honesty
will not feel indignant at the vile Impostors -- I was taught three degrees of the "sublime science"
...put of that contemptible essay -- an essay, for the ...sublication of which, contemptible and
worthless as it is, the author was murdered by the fraternity in London, and the first re-publisher in
this country shared the same awful fate! And yet it is another solemn fact, that during the last
winter certain Royal Arch Masons, of the city of Albany, procured the publication of from five to
ten thousand copies of that silly book, which they caused to be peddled through the western
parts of this state, and elsewhere, by a young man, whose name is Morgan; and by which
means a two-fold imposition (well worthy of Free Masonry) was to be accomplished; first,
to pass off the book as that of the ill-fated, murdered Morgan; and secondly, to lead the public
to believe, that he was alive and peddling his own work! If this be not the climax of rascality,
fraud, and villainy, I know not what is; and yet it was practised by Royal Arch Masons of Albany --
and what was ludicrous indeed, one of their own messengers, sent expressly to Troy to play
72
off this pitiful imposition, got caught in one of their own traps -- for a stout Noodle of the mystic
tie, not being aware of the trick, committed an assault and battery upon the pedlar for retailing
masonic secrets, and the poor fellow was glad to escape with some hard remembrances on his
seat of honour! But let me not lose sight of my Yankey friend, the Paper Stainer. He was a
bookseller, as well as a bookbinder; and could, in fact, so well was he gifted with ingenuity, turn
his hand to almost any thing, in the way of getting along through life. Whether he was privy
to it, or not, the reader may determine; but certain it is, that before my admission I had a hint
from a worthy brother, that by obtaining Jachin and Boaz, I should get along the better with the
sublimities of the craft, and was told at the same time, on the five points, where to procure it:
And I actually bought it (the transaction being a wonderful sly one on both sides) of
an honest Quaker bookseller (well known to many persons yet living in this city) who was
the partner in trade of my Yankey friend and masonic preceptor! It was about these days, as our
honest Almanack makers say, that the unfortunate Smith, of Vermont, was morganised for
publishing that same hook -- and not many years after, poor Murdock, of Rensselaerville, shared
the same fate, because his wife had learned it by rote, and repeated it among the gossips of
the village; the unfortunate woman not dreaming, that she was, by the propagation of such
light and learnings to bring herself to a state of widowhood, and her children to that of orphanage!
It was, perhaps, fortunate for me, that my wife
73
(I had been married a year only when I joined the sons of Light!) was a very prudent woman;
for a sad accident happened shortly after my initiation -- and that memorable event took place
in the evening of April Fool's Day, 1795! -- ah accident, the bare recollection of which might
bring tears into my eyes, if I were not a laughing, instead of a crying Philosopher: But "you
that have tears prepare to shed them now !'' I took the grand text book, the alpha and omega
of the first three degrees of Free Masonry (I mean the masonic master-piece, Jachin and Boaz)
home to study -- if it be not a gross perversion of the term, thus to use it, with my present
experience. So very careful was I of this precious revelation -- this magazine of masonic mysteries --
and so fearful that my good wife would find it -- that I sought a hiding place for it as carefully
as a dog does when he hides away a bone -- and after a most profound cogitation, I concluded to
lay it away very slyly on the canopy of my bed-curtains, which came so nearly in contact with
the ceiling, that I could not but congratulate myself on "the wisdom of Solomon," for I really
thought the sublime Sibylline as safe as it would have been in the Sanctum Sanctorum of the Order,
in brother *******'s garret! But my unlucky stars prevailed about this time, as they often
have since; and as I had very properly, though not intentionally commenced my masonic career
on ...Ml Fool's Day, it seemed as though the continuance of it was to be in good keeping with
the commencement; for without giving me the least warning my wife had declared war against
certain intruders that had disturbed our sweet slumbers now and then; and having called to
74
her aid an Amazon well qualified for the battle that was to be fought, both the bed-stead and
the curtains were suddenly and completely discomposed, turned topsy turvy! The awful
...cour consequence was, that Jachin and Boaz were hurled upon the floor by the rude hand of a
pot-wrestler: --
** Oh ! what a fall was there my countrymen"
My long-ear'd brethren of the mystic tie!
V Then you and /, and all of us fell down^"
Whilst Betty Bouncer ^* flourished over us."
E'en now, methinks I see her brawny arm,
Sun-burnt and freckled, soil'd by soot and grease,
Alofl extending to the curtain-top,
• With rude hand hurling frorf Hi sly retreat^
The hidden JcajcZ of the holy craft,
The great masonic master-piece of wit,
And wisdom, such as Nincompoops have claim'd
As all their own, and proudly hid from all,
Since Babel's contrariety of tongue:
For then it was, our worthy craft began --
And well it might -- for Folly then had rais'd
Its brazen crest among the clam'rous crowd,
And beat down wisdom; and with madness iired,
Dared e'en attempt to scale the throne of heaven!
Oh ! Betty Bouncer ^ Betty Bouncer^ Oh!
Didst thou mistake great Boaz for a bug 1
And Jachin for an earwig, or a flea!
If not, why didst thou rudely thus disturb
Their sly repose, and drag them forth to light?
Weep, brethren, weep, unlucky was the day,
And full of wo! (Oh! blot it ever out,
Ye that make Almanacks, and planets trace.
Through all their orbits in the realms of light,)
When a mean chambermaid was seen to grasp
75
The Sibylline, so rare, that Tommy Thumb,
With thimble-fall of sconce might compass it:
And yet, since Babel's bold, abortive scheme,
How many dumpling heads have conn'd it hard,
And thought themselves the wiser for its lore!
Without the aid of pungent Maccaba,
Or onion juice, what sapient son of light,
What Lamb-skin Knight or High Priest of the Sun,
Would not have wept -- had he been there to hear.
How Betty, with an arch, sardonic smile,
Called on her mistress to behold the fall
Of Jachin and of Boaz -- mighty props
Of mean deception, fraud and quackery!
Dear twins, sweet twins; of mystic mother born.
Who tread the midnight maze where Noodles meet --
And knaves that fleece the noodles; calling them,
While they fleece *em, tender names, as -- brothers!
Sweet brothers! -- kind, faithful, loving, brothers! --
"Ye Gods! it doth amaze me," Betty cried --
That men -- since women could not" -- should be found
So simple, to be made the dupes of knaves,
Coxcombs, charlatans, and vile pretenders!
Why I myself -- that here am doom'd to war --
Ignoble strife -- with cob-webs, bed-bugs, fleas!
Rude, ign'rant, uncouth in speech and manners;
Who never had the benefit of conning
So much as A -- B -- C -- in any school.
But trained from infancy, by cruel fate,
To handle mopsticks, spits and frying-pans.
Wash-tubs and water-pails, and pots and kettles
And ply the greasy art of cookery:
Yet would I scorn to wear "a cable-tow,"
For all masonic Noodles ever know!
No sooner did my wife discover what it was that had called forth the eloquence of the
76
chambermaid, than... she started back, as though she had encountered a rat, or an apparition;
but being possessed of good Irish spunk, she soon mustered courage to pick-up the Sibylline;
and in less than the twinkling of an eye came running into my office, where I was quietly at
work among the types, not dreaming of the 'tod... mishap, that had upset the curtains, and exposed
the "divine mysteries" to the profane eye, and the vulgar curiosity, of honest Betty -- In she came, I
say, ... her eyes sparkling with the mingled scintillations... of half-stifled anger, and full-flowing pity,
if not a little contempt; exclaiming, as she entered, that she had found me out! -- that she
well knew where I had been on ...^U Fool's night, as well as some other nights! -- and that there
was the evidence of it! -- throwing the book upon the table, and asking me, if I was not a very wise
young man to have been led by that cunning red-coated Yankey -- (red-coats had just gone out of
fashion in New-England, but one of them still lingered on the back of my brother and preceptor) --
to spend my time and my money in that way! Here was something a little more alarming than
"a tempest in a tea-pot;" but what could I say to this ill-timed discovery, as I, then thought it?
What I did say, I cannot now recollect. But though "the wisdom of Solomon" had failed, I am
proud to say, that my wife, on a little reflection, behaved like a sensible, prudent woman; and not
long after I, for once in my life, at least, behaved like a prudent man: For I determined to throw
off for ever the undue influence which my royal arch Yankey brother had acquired over me:
accordingly, after taking the fourth degree, of which more hereafter, I told him frankly that I
could never go a step further in Free Masonry.
77
He pretended to be very much surprised ...^-*i* but I could clearly see it was sheer affectation
and began the old story of something worth knowing, which was yet behind the curtain.
Stop, my dear sir, said I, and I will give you briefly what I believe to be the history of all
your science and your secrets.
Well, said he, what is it?
You have heard, sir, I replied, of one of our Yankey brethren, who advertised, as a rare
show, a wonderful horse, which exhibited the ...queerest freak in nature imaginable; for the tail
of the beast was precisely where his head ought to have been! The virtuoso of the vicinity, read
the advertisement, and were all exceedingly puzzled to account/or so rare a phenomenon! The
village attorney had found no precedent of the kind in that magazine of wonders, called Every
Man his own Lawyer -- the Knight of the Pill and the Pestle, had searched Buchan's Family
Physictan, and Aristotle's Master-Piece, in vain, for any likeness of such a ...lusm naiurce -- the honest
Parson, who did not happen to be a Boanerges, declared, that he had never heard of such a wonder, since
the Beast with seven heads and ten horns, but these were all at the right end -- the village matron, I
may as well speak out plainly -- the shrewd midwife -- well knew that a child might be born with
two heads, or a horse with two tails! She had seen the one, and had heard of the other from
the Farrier Man, and was therefore quite ...sortin it might be so -- but even she had never, in all her
born days, heard of any creature coming into the universe with its head at the tail end! While
these sage speculations occupied the minds of the village philosophers, the people were crowding
78
round the ...stable-door, and clamouring for admittance. The cunning show-man, like my
Masonic Monitor, knew full well that by taking in one at a time, the game would last the longer.
The first that entered, came out, after a while, apparently well pleased -- and to the question.
Is his tail where his head ought to be? readily answered in the affirmative: others, equally
prudent, and resolved not to expose their own credulity, followed his example: at length a clown
among the crowd, pushed his way in, and behind the curtain; but he soon came out again, and
with honest simplicity cried out -- damnation seize the .../e/fer; he's tied the tail to the hay-rack, and
let the head poke out the ...other end of the stall! I need not add, the effect which this disclosure
had on the gaping multitude at the barn-door; nor that which my relation of it produced on
the countenance of my sage friend and preceptor in the occult and sublime science of
masonry: but of one thing, you may rest assured, that in every masonic lodge, from that of the
pin-feathered Boaz, or Apprentice, to the full-fledged Ineffable, you will find the horse with his head where
his tail ought to be! And if any of you wish to be made asses of, you have only to pay him a visit,
and the length of your ears will soon equal the extent of your wishes!
As to myself, I have often sincerely rejoiced at the fall of the curtain, which probably saved
me from being led into that vice of which the Glasgow Professor, before alluded to, so truly
says, the masonic lodges are "the genuine academies;" and by means of which so many of the
sons of light are led prematurely to the dark ...awnfiions of the grave.
79
As I have stated already, I did not take leave of the Institution, until after I had taken the
fourth degree; but previous to mounting that step in the ladder, I had become pretty well
disgusted with the mummery and quackery of the lodge-room; and I have preserved to this
day, and shall here insert, a brief, epigrammatic correspondence, which actually took place
between the "cunning red-coated Yankey" as my wife styled him, and myself. He was, however, a
good-hearted man; and excepting his rage for speculating in Free Masonry, possessed amiable
qualities, and enviable talents. The following squibs were passed and re-passed, in good
humour at the time. He was presiding in the Old Union, one night, and I stood at the Secretary's
desk, and wrote, and handed to him, as follows:
In a garret in Court-street, there mingles a set
Of sharpers, and asses, and noodles well met --
Who pretend to a secret -- all folly and fudge --
He that pays for admittance his money will grudge
When he finds to his sorrow his business fail,
And he feels like a fox with a trap at his tail --
For the way to bankruptcy and ruin is clear,
To the flats that come hither for secrets and beer,
Old Jamaica^ gin, brandy, and frolic and fun.
Silly dupes of delusion, their race is soon run.
When their cash, and their credit, and fame are no more.
Then in vain will they knock at Free Masonry's door --
They are no longer worthy to meet on the square,
To relieve them, the Lodge has no money to spare:
Let them go to the Poor House each dear brother cries
Eor in that they may learn to be sober and wise!
For my own part I've seen full enough of your joke,
B(fty I never again *' buy a pig in a poke."
80
I shall bid you farewell for a parcel of geese,
And I hope …rm the last Yankey booby yoa'Q fleece;
S.
This produced, from him, the following impromptu: --
Be quiet -- I know it -- say never a word --
Oar craft is to blind and bamboozle the herd!
The world is a goose, and pray, where is the man,
Who'll not pluck a feather whenever he can!
You may go -- but remember, the fate of the fool
Will be yours, if you dare to tell tales out of school!
To which I rejoined:
W.
I shall go -- ^but to talk of the tinsel and trick,
The arts, that are taught in this school of Old Nick,
Would be idle, indeed; for the world would cry -- BOO!
To the goose, that was pluck'd by such sharpers as you.
S.
Be assured, my young countrymen, that I have here briefly illustrated the history of our masonic
lodges; sure... I am, that every honest and sensible man, whose knowledge is founded on
experience, will agree, that with some slight variations, the account I have given of their origin,
wherever they have raised their gorgon heads among us, will seriously and truly apply.
As to the Origin of the Order, it is not material to point it out to you, even if it were an
easy task to do so: but it is not: no one has yet succeeded in lifting the veil that conceals
it. There is no reason to believe, however, that like the towering and sublime works of
creation it hides its head in the heavens; but that it rather resembles a turbid stream, whose source
is hidden in some swamp or morass, the physical
81
representative of that moral darkness... And quackery, almost peculiar to the Order. I have
pored over half a dozen of its best professed historians, to very little purpose on this point.
The Editors of the Encyclopedia Britannica, who have given an elaborate compilation of its
history, and the best, because the most sober one, finally acknowledge, that though ancient,
there is no authentic account of its origin... What they give of it proves nothing in its
favor as it now stands. Whilst …connned to operative science, and in the hands of such
men as Christopher Wren, and other real and ingenious architects, it may have had its uses.
Preston says -- "Ever since symmetry... hegaUy and harmony displayed her charms, our Order.
has had a being,... and it is astonishing, that the learned authors of the Encyclopedia could
suffer such nonsense to pass, as they have done, without criticism, or censure: it can only be
accounted for on the supposition that they were Free Masons, and blindly prejudiced: for as
symmetry began, and harmony displayed her charms, in the works of God, before this
creation; nay, as symmetry existed coeval with God himself, in his own person; it follows,
from this rhapsody, that the Order is not merely as old as the creation, but existed eternally
in Heaven, in and with the Supreme Being! What superlative nonsense! what infamous
blasphemy! to be handed down in, and stain the pages of a work of science! Operative
Masonry, we all know, must be as old as the first workers in mortar, brick and stone,
whoever they were. Speculative Masonry, which we are now combating, is much younger: ...some
82
ftver,... that the higher orders have been instituted or invented within three centuries past.
Thomas Paine asserts, that it had its origin in the religion, as it was long concealed
in the caves, of the British Druids. In his posthumous works, we find the secrets of the
Order, so far as relates to the first three degrees; but not 60 full a disclosure, as was
made, and sworn to, before the Lord Mayor of London, by Samuel Pritchard, in 1730; nor
equal, in point of importance, to that which the unfortunate Morgan thought it his duty to
make. No man should fail to read Morgan's book, and to put it into the hands of his
children; for although it be not intrinsically worth any thing; yet as a beacon to warn youth
against being led to destruction, in pursuit of an ignis fatuus, which the longer they follow
the farther it is off, the value of the work is inestimable. By murdering the author, as they
have done, "our Order" have established the truth of that work beyond all doubt or
contradiction; the man must he worse than an idiot who does not perceive this: but there is
another book, which deserves to be placed in the hands of every old, as well as young, man in
the Union. I allude to the work of Stearns, a learned and pious Elder of the Baptist church.
Mr. Stearns has gone further into the subject, than I have time at present to do; my
principal aim being to warn you, my young countrymen, against fraud and deception; and at the
same time to leave on record, in this form, my compliments to "our Order," in return for some
very generous, noble, brave, and magnanimous attentions I have received at their hands,
83
or those of their minions, especially in rushing with such modest haste, and fraternal fury, to
the printing-office of The National Observer, to erase their names from the list of its patrons;
and that, too, for no other reason but because I would not, like a vile scoundrel, and a traitor
to my country, suppress the truth in relation to the abduction of Morgan, and of Miller, and
the outrages connected with those daring violations of law and liberty; thus waving their
black banner over my gray head, to intimidate ...me into a base and cowardly surrender of the
liberty of the Press, sooner than yield a jot or tittle of which, if I know my own heart, I would
a thousand times, if possible, suffer the fate of Morgan.
But to return for a moment, from this digression, to the origin of "our Order," I think, it
may be fairly graced to the Persian worshippers of the sun, if no further back; and, if I
mistake not, there are several indications in holy writ of its mingling with the Jewish rites
and ceremonies, especially when the Jews were enslaved, or given up to idolatry, magic and
corruption. -- Its inflated orators, and rhapsodical historians, as you may see by what that
moon-calf, Mr. Preston, has said, give us wonderful account, of its antiquity. If they are
to be believed, we sublunarians can have only a minor branch of it; for there never was, it
seems, room enough in this little narrow world of ours, for the birth, much less the growth, of
such a prodigy! It is, indeed, to be wondered at, that when this monstrous, mighty birth took
place, it did not over-reach the bounds of terra firma, at both ends, and, by its tremendous
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weight at the extremities break off in the middle, and each part fly like a comet, into the
boundless regions of space; whilst all creation trembled to the centre by means of the
unparalleled shock! Who knows, but this was the case; and that the universal deluge was
occasioned (were not the Bible history in the way,) by the ponderosity of the Infant, when she first
saw the light, and burst upon the world in all her glory!
I am perfectly willing, however, that the Noodles of "our Order" may believe, if they
please, with Preston, that creation must step behind it in the lapse of time; that the earth
did not vegetate, that rivers did not run, nor oceans roll, till "our Order" set them all in
motion; nay, that Sun, Moon and Stars, did not yield a particle of their light, till they had
borrowed it from our three little brazen candle-sticks! And that, finally, if it had not been
for Free Masonry, or "our Order," chaos would long since have come again! And whilst
...r permit the Noodles to believe all this; they must permit me to believe, if I take it into my
head to be only half so extravagant as they are, that; Satan, and not Solomon of Israel, is the
legitimate father of the institution; that he laid its foundations, when he rebelled in Heaven;
and performed his first labours, on earth, as Grand King, or ...Grand High Priest, when
he seduced Eve. I read in some silly oration, or panegyric, on the craft lately -- but I cannot
recollect exactly when and where, or by whom, it was written or spoken -- that Free Masonry
had its walks in Paradise: and if so, I am no doubt right in presuming that it walked in the
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shape of the Old Serpent; and that Cain was duly initiated by him, and soon evinced his
proficiency by morganizing his brother Abel! This may be extravagant: granted, but it is
much more likely to be the origin of "our ^Order'' than Preston's assertion is to be correct,
that it commenced before "symmetry began, and harmony displayed her charms!" But as the
longer we flounder in this "Serbonian bog," in quest of the origin of "our Order," the further
we are from coming at the dark hole, in which it was brought forth; let us leave it to the
Orators, who wallow in the same mire, or soar into the equally dark regions of fog and fiction, at
every anniversary of their pretended Patron Saint, to settle the question in the best way
they can. It is well for them, that so long as it shall remain unsettled, they will have one
theme at least upon which to declaim, to the amazement of their simple brethren, who really
believe that "our Order" is something more than mere moonshine: that they will never
develope its origin, is certain, for the best of reasons -- that it is either entirely lost in the
rubbish of antiquity, or else that it sprang from some disgraceful source, like the cavern of a
bandit, the cell of an ancient magician, or the woody covert of some gipsy gang, which shame
(if the authors and the justifiers of Morgan's murder, and Miller's abduction, can feel shame)
will never permit them to avow!
The two-fold question may now perhaps, be asked -- how I came to take four degrees, in
such an institution ; and why I did not come out before, in the manner I have done for some
time past, and now do in this work, against it?
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The reader may already have inferred, from what has gone before, my answer to this question --
but I shall nevertheless answer it ...nece, truly and frankly, though it may involve the
repetition, virtually, of some things before stated in a different way.
The four degrees which I took, I do not hesitate to say, are worse than worthless, in point
of useful or ornamental science; and I hold that man's opinion, whoever he may be, in
utter contempt, who can pretend to think otherwise: I will add further, my firm belief that
the whole system is equally worthless. *
If any man, as indeed any man can, obtain the science and the secrets of Free Masonry,
at the rate of Five Dollars for each step, or degree -- and there are at least forty-two degrees,
thirty-seven, or more, of which, have grown out of the invention of modern speculators -- he will
spend, besides his precious time, and other contingencies. Two Hundred Dollars, before he
reaches the top of the ladder: And it is my honest conviction, that when he has reached it,
if he meet with a Jack-Ass (I mean, in good earnest, a beast with four legs, switch tail and
long ears) staring him full in the face, he cannot deny Jack, so far as there is any real
science in the craft, to be his legitimate brother!...
When I took the first degree, principally by the aid of Jachin and Boaz, although young,
and very destitute of experience in the ways of the world, I felt no small degree of shame -- but
hoped, nevertheless, that the next step would prove more worthy of a rational being. I tried
the next, and felt quite as sheepish, at least, as
__________
* See Appendix. Note 16.
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before, I appeal for the truth of, this, to the ...reperaJble Elisha Dorr,... of this city, who was
present, and who certainly looked, and I believe felt, as small as I did myself. It would be a
gross insult to his native good sense, to suppose that he did not. As a Christian, and I
am happy to believe, that Mr. Dorr is truly such, he cannot and will not deny what I state.
He has long since, and having introduced his name, I owe it to him, as an act of justice, to
say so, forsaken the temple of Infidelity, for ...one of higher origin and nobler aim. But to
return -- I was led to another trial, and still found the Lodge a fit place for a simpleton to learn
that there were other simpletons as well as himself: And yet, after all these disappointments,
of highly excited expectations, such is the indefinable and the ardent curiosity of youth,
and especially the youth of New-England; that I was tempted to take another leap, entirely in
the dark. What finally influenced me in this step was, that as I had been instructed out of
Jachin and Boaz in the former steps, excepting the lectures from the Most ...FFarsAtg/wi, which
were of mere common place ...nK>raIity and composition; and the sublime light of that
revelation (Jachin and Boaz) unveiling no more than what belongs to the first three steps; this
afforded my brother, the Paper Stainer, a fair opportunity to make one more, and the last
experiment on my credulity. In the conversation, which took place on this occasion, I reminded
him of the line, in his answer to my rhymes at the desk, viz.: --
Our craft, is to blind, and bamboozle the herd.
"That," said he, "was a mere joke, as you well
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know." "I am not so certain of that," was my reply, but all in good humour: and finally, he
did persuade me, that I had only to climb one more step to have something like a glimpse of
the glories of the masonic Pisgah! I did so -- when, lo! the Ass stared me so full in the face,
and stood so fairly confessed, long ears and all, in the countenance of every brother, (Mr. Dorr
was there,) that I turned with disgust and indignation from the Asinine... Conclave: And
never afterwards seriously exercised my mind upon it, until the abduction of Morgan and
Miller -- the murder of the former -- and the setting fire to the printing-office of the latter,
connected, in my mind, with the systematic attempt to put down The National Observer
and to destroy my character, by representing me as insane and intemperate * -- roused me to a
serious view of its unlawful, immoral, blasphemous and horrid obligations, and its dangerous
and destructive influence on the liberties of the land. From the night I left the Lodge, thirty
years ago at least, to the period of these events, if I ever thought of it at all, in a scientific point
of view, it was merely as a piece of contemptible and disgraceful quackery, far, very far,
beneath the notice of a rational being: It is true, that I was not without suspicions, that it might,
as a SECRET ASSOCIATION, become a dangerous political engine in the hands of
ambitious and unprincipled men: It had not, to my knowledge, however, committed any overt
act; and I did not, therefore, consider myself specially called upon, more than any other
citizen, or editor, to express my opinion of its ...merits
----
* See Appendix Note 17.
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or demerits. It would indeed have been madness, or at least the very height of imprudence,
in me, or any one else, to have attacked the Institution; considering the veil of antiquity
which sanctioned, and commanded the respect of mankind' for it; the pretended moral and
scientific sublimity and grandeur of its mysteries, and avowed principles; the benevolent objects
it professed to have in view; and above all, the want of positive, or powerful presumptive proof
against it: But since the atrocious outrages, commenced at Batavia, and consummated at or
near Fort Niagara, by the murder of Morgan, in strict conformity both to the letter and spirit
of its laws and obligations; I have sought, industriously and perseveringly, for light on its
past history, its rise, progress, pretensions and practices; and! have come to the rational, firm,
and irrevocable conclusion, that if ought to be abandoned by every honest man -- that the
purity and stability of our republican civil and political constitutions, depend upon its total
annihilation.
Though not set forth in my Prospectus of this work; yet before I part with you, my young
countrymen, of every condition in life, permit me to call your serious attention to a subject of
the deepest importance; and one which, of all others, deserves to be made the theme of your
studies by day and by night.
Whatever individually maybe your destiny in life, whether gliding on the placid stream of
prosperity, or …tost upon the boisterous billows of adversity; let me earnestly advise you to
study diligently the Evidences of Christianity -- of that religion, which I have finally been led
to embrace as the only sure and unfailing source
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of peace in this world, and hope in that which is to come: Let me conjure you to seek the
conviction, and never for a moment lose sight of it, that without piety to God, man, with all
the graces and dignity of his person, all the splendour and depth of his intellect, and all the
endearing ties that bind him to earth, is but a desolate and miserable being. Love, friendship,
consanguinity, and affection, those grand ties of social existence, serve but to embitter our
minds in the hour of calamity, if we cannot look to God, as the Eternal source of all our hopes,
to soothe our agonies, and to calm our fears. While, therefore, the impious man, has no
resting-place to sustain him against the shock of misfortune, and the flood of wo; with what
confidence and consolation, can he who cherishes piety as the sheet-anchor of the soul, appeal to.
his everlasting Father, when smarting under the rod of affliction. Though, says the Psalmist,
I walk in the midst of trouble, thou wilt revive me; thou shalt stretch forth thy hand
against the wrath of my enemies, and thy right hand shall save me.
If on this subject I am earnest, believe me, it is because I feel deeply its importance to your
temporal and eternal happiness: And I do, I assure you seriously, feel it the more deeply,
because, when in early life, and destitute of experience, I was led into a Masonic Lodge,
the many who led me there, led me, at the same time, to embrace… those principles of infidelity,
which I now consider the bane of my life; and of which, therefore, I feel anxious to preserve
you from becoming the dupes and the victims. To that day I had cherished the principles; so
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far as I could understand them, and the feelings, to their full extent, of a Christian. My revered
parents had infused into my young mind the spirit of religion, and piety which animated
theirs; and the eloquence of a ...Maxcy, one of the most amiable land exalted of his species, had
riveted my religious affections to the Baptist Society. The happiest hours of my life had
been spent in worshipping my Creator at the, humble and modest, but truly devotional altars...
of that worthy and pious people, and mingling with them in their religious conferences. It
was a sudden and unexpected departure from my native state, that alone prevented me from
becoming a communicant of that church. But when I came to Albany, I had been, excepting
a short interval, traversing the ocean for several years, in the humble capacity of a common
seaman; and here I found no Baptist Society, with whom to renew my former religious
communion. I became acquainted with my masonic preceptor -- he was well qualified to obtain an
influence over a young man, such as I then was ...y and from the moment he did obtain it, he
began to poison my mind with insinuations against the Christian Revelation; nor did he
relax in his efforts until he had the satisfaction of finding me as confirmed an Infidel as himself;
and my belief is that one half, at least, if not more, of the young men who are seduced into
Free Masonry, have their minds imbued at the same time with the poison of Infidelity. Led
on by my evil genius, as I now firmly believe that man to have been, I suffered my mind to become
enslaved by the seductive and pernicious authors of the Infidel school. I sought for and read
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with avidity, Bolingbroke, Shaftsbury, Hume; and several others of the British Infidel leaders;
and with the same zest and eagerness I devoured the works of Frederick the Great, of Prussia,
(if he can be called great, who rejects the purest religion, that ever visited the earth, and
reduces its Divine Author to the level of a Heathen or a Pagan Philosopher) -- Voltaire,
D'AIembert, Boulanger, and other French authors, together with Thomas Paine's Age of
Reason, and Ethan Allen's crude, ill-digested, and flimsy Oracles. For many years, involved
in pleasure, business, and political pursuits, I yielded to the falsehood and sophistry of these
delusive and demoralizing works; and that, too, without ever making the least attempt (excepting
on one occasion, and then without proper effect) to examine the other side of the question.
In the same manner that I never thought seriously of Free Masonry as a great evil, till
she showed her cloven foot so clearly in the murder of Morgan; so I never was led clearly,
and without doubt, to see Christianity as not only a great, but the greatest of all good, till
the occurrence of a singular event in my life, or rather Providential circumstance (as I consider
it) which happened to me in crossing the Schoharie Mountain, which I did several times
between August, 1826, and April, 1827; The circumstance, above alluded to, led me to a
serious and laborious inquiry into the necessity or utility, the truth or falsehood, of Christianity,
in every important point of view.
My first object was, and this was suggested not only by the event which occurred on the
mountain, but by other occurrences that I had
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met with in the course of my several tours, and which need not be detailed here; to enquire
into the capacity of mankind, to preserve free and equal government, or any government at all,
founded on wisdom, justice and equity, without the influence of religion. I was soon satisfied
that no government would last for any length of time, unless fortified in the minds of the people,
by this essential pillar of human society: * to come to this conclusion, it is only necessary to
examine the history, so far as we have it, of those tribes or nations, who, destitute of the gospel,
have been left to the dim light of Nature alone for their guidance ; and to observe the barbarous
rites, the inhuman customs, and the spirit of anarchy and confusion that ever controuls
their destinies, and frequently totally destroys them. Where they are destitute of all religion,
of which there are but one or two known and solitary examples, they are cannibals, and
devour each other; where they have some, crude notions of natural religion, though not cannibals,
they are still barbarous and savage; where Natural Religion has been best understood, it has
still been mingled with superstition, idolatry and corruption; and where the pretended
Heve-kUion... of the Arabian Impostor has prevailed, superstition and corruption have likewise been
its handmaids. It is only where the real ...System of Righteousness, the Christian Revelation,
has shed its beams, that truth is to be found, unmixed with error.
My next step was, to compare, with diligence, the Christian Religion, with the several other
systems that now exist, or have existed in times
__________
* See Appendix. Note 18
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past; and the result was, that I found Christianity towering far above them all in its
sublime morality, and divine …attributes. Whoever will study the religious creed, if it can be called
such, and the maxims of ...Confucius -- the wild and fantastical speculations of Pythagoras ;
the barbarous superstitions in religion, and the crude moral systems of Greece and Rome -- take
even their best productions, such as the works of Socrates and of Plato, of Seneca and of
Cicero -- to say nothing of a score of others, like Epictetus, Marcus Aurelius, and their equals
or inferiors -- and then come down to the Alcoran of Mahomet -- whoever, I say, shall pursue
this course, will be satisfied, that over all these barbarous superstitions, and ill-digested moral
codes, the Gospel of our Redeemer triumphs in all the majesty of truth, and all the dignity and
sublimity of sound moral and theological science. My last step was, to investigate seriously, and
as thoroughly as possible, the truth or falsehood of Christianity as a Revelation: And on this
branch of the subject, I was really surprised, I affirm it with the utmost sincerity, to find a mass
of evidence in its favor, of the existence of which I had never before so much as dreamed.
The result was, that at almost every step of the process, my doubts were shaken; and my
skepticism kept yielding to the force of truth and argument, the irresistible light of conviction,
until I found, when I had finished the course of study, marked out by my own judgment, that all
nor doubts had vanished; and my faith in Jesus, of Nazareth, ...sia the Son of God, and the Divine
Missionary of his Father for the redemption of our fallen race, was fully confirmed.
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I do not mean to be understood, that the particular event which led me into the above-mentioned
enquiry, had in it anything either supernatural or miraculous; but it was one of those remarkable or
Providential occurrences, of which every man of observation, who has lived long and seen much,
must recollect to have met with something like it, in the course of his own life, and which has given
an entirely new turn or direction to his thoughts upon some important subject or other. In the case
alluded to, my mind received a sudden impulse, which led me not only into the first and second train of
inquiry and comparative process, above stated; but to read carefully, in connection with the Bible, and
to compare with their adversaries, whom I had formerly read, the following works, viz.: Prideaux's
Connections of Sacred and Profane History -- the Chevalier Ramsay's inimitable work on Natural and
Revealed Religion -- Butler's Analogy of Religion, Natural and Revealed, to the Constitution and Course
of Nature -- Michaelis's invaluable Commentaries on the Laws of Moses -- Leland's View of the
Deistical Writers -- Berkeley's Minute Philosopher -- Forbes's Thoughts Concerning Religion; his
Letter to a Bishop, and his Reflections on Incredulity -- Watson's Apology for Christianity -- (in which
he so completely refuted, and humbled one of the great Apostles of the Infidel School, the ingenious
and eloquent Gibbon, so much so that Mr. Gibbon fairly fled from the controversy) -- Campbell's Reply
to Hume's Essay on Miracles -- (I had read the Essay twice nearly thirty years ago, without ever, till the
last year, taking the pains to read the reply) --
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...The History of the Cosmogony of the Creation; and Biographical and Historical Sketches of
Moses, David and Jesus Christ, scattered in the 1st, 4th, and 10th volumes of The Universal
History, written mostly by that once eccentric, always profound, and finally pious and
irreproachable Psalmanazer -- the articles in the Encyclopedia Britannica, relating to the
subject of Theology, and more especially to Christ and his Divine System -- Campbell's Four
Gospels with Preliminary Dissertations, and Notes Critical and Explanatory -- Addison's brief
work, entitled Of the Christian Religion -- Paley's Natural Theology, and his Evidences of
Christianity -- Chalmers's Evidence and Authority of the Christian Revelation -- Nine Essays on
several of the most important topics of Christianity, which are scattered in the 1st, 3d, and 4th
volumes of a London Periodical work, entitled. The Observer, and last, though not least, in
point of importance and ability, Sherlock's Trial of the Witnesses of the Resurrection of
Jesus. *
In this course of reading, there are several small works, which I am surprised are not published by
our tract societies, instead of many weak and inefficient essays which they distribute, I do not mean to
insinuate a want of judgment on their part, but merely a participation in a common error; for it has been
too long an axiom with statesmen, politicians, and all manner of teachers and preachers, that the
multitude require to be fed with the pap-spoons of religion, literature and science: but those
who so judge, confound inanity or imbecility of
__________
*See Appendix. Note 19.
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mind, which is not ...coiximon, with ignorance; or want of information, which unfortunately is too
common. I have found in the most benighted common sailor ; in the rudest and most illiterate
German of Schoharie, and in the most vulgar and ignorant Yankee of Otsego; native intellect equal to
that of a Rittenhouse, or a Franklin; and such instances are far more numerous, than is imagined by
those, who, secluded in colleges, academies, and otherwise, converse mostly with books, and mingle
but little, if any, with the mass of mankind. On the other hand, inanity or imbecility of mind, is not often
met with. The truth is, if we would make good and useful men of children, we should treat them as
rational and immortal beings from the moment they begin to lisp a syllable: banishing all frivolous prattle
and nonsense from our intercourse with them, and all brutal force, such as scourging and beating -- for
in his recommendation of the rod, I cannot agree with my ancient namesake, great as he was -- we
should use only sound reason, truth, and mild persuasion. I hardly know in which respect our Saviour
appears the most amiable and interesting; whether when he says -- Suffer little children to come unto
me -- or when he invites all who labour and are heavy laden ...to find rest to their souls in the consolations
of his divine mission: If, then, we should thus desll... with children; so, on the other hand, to make
wise or, well-informed men, of ignorant ones, we should follow the same rational and manly course, and
furnish them with important facts, and conclusive arguments, instead of simple histories, whether fictions
or not, of pious dairy
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...maids, and penitent Magdalenes: it was not thus that Paul accosted the benighted and the ignorant,
to whom he carried the glad tidings of salvation; on the contrary all he said, was serious, sensible, bold,
energetic. Quintilian, ... often quoted as having said, that the unpolished human mind is like marble in
the quarry; but he forgot, in making the comparison, that there is soft as well as hard marble, and whilst
the latter will bear polishing, the former will not. The darkness of the human intellect may be illumined,
but its weakness cannot be strengthened. Imbecility, therefore, will ever remain imbecility. "The Ethiop
cannot change his. skin, nor the Leopard his spots:" but the mind of the one, if not like the soft marble,
may be polished and improved; and so may the fierceness of the other be tamed, at least so far as to
know the hand that feeds it. With such works as Watson's Apology for Christianity -- his Apology for the
Bible -- the small work of Chalmers -- and that of Sherlock, in their hands -- I should not, in the least, fear
to risk the controversy between Christianity and Infidelity, on the effect of these works alone upon the native
good sense of our countrymen in general; and that, too, without going back to the pages of Tacitus, an
opponent, to prove the existence -- or to those of the early and orthodox Fathers, like Barnabas and
Clement, for testimony nearly collateral -- or to the writings of the Evangelists themselves for intrinsic
evidence -- of Christ, and of whence he came, and of what he performed for the glory of his Eternal
Father, and the benefit and the gratitude of the human race. The work of Chalmers is, of itself conclusive --
and well it may be -- for
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although he commenced it with his mind clouded by skepticism; yet so sure is truth to
prevail, when it does come fairly in contact with minds capable of receiving it, that before he
finished his work, the light burst upon him in all its divine splendor, and with such irresistible
force, that his mind, his heart, all his nobler thoughts, feelings and affections, became firmly
riveted in the faith and the love of the Lord Jesus. No wonder, then, that the conviction
which struck so deeply into his own mind, he imparts to the mind of his reader with equally
irresistible power; for it is when mind meets mind, and heart meets heart, upon any subject,
that the triumph of truth is as sure and unfailing, as the everlasting streams that fructify the
earth, and sustain the animal powers of creation. I am well aware, that my old infidel friends
may sneer at all this; and that my old and inveterate political, as well as new and malignant
masonic enemies, with no doubt join them. The mean and dastardly persecution, slander and
abuse, that I have been, for many years, subjected to from old political foes, as well as some
old, pretended and insidious friends; together with the disappointment, which my quondam
brethren, in infidelity, will experience, on reading this work; all concur to admonish me of
what I may, and most probably shall, have to encounter: but neither their sneers, nor their
jeers, will affect me in the least, in any other way than to give me real pleasure. Fortified,
as I am, in my own conscience -- standing, as I know that I do, in this work, and as I mean to
do in all cases, on the one hand upon the ark of virtue, and of constitutional freedom; and on
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the other upon the Rock of Ages -- the more enemies I may have, the more shall I rejoice; for
the more good shall I know, by this sign alone, that I am doing. If in this cause of civil liberty,
and celestial religion, my humble talents shall be instrumental in saving from the grasp of a
dark and secret combination, the constitutions of my country, and of turning her youth, or any
portion of them, from the paths of vice and of ...oily, to those of wisdom and of virtue; then shall
I exult, as did good old Simeon, in the day of our Lord; and shall thus receive more than a
hundred fold compensation for the venomous and malignant hostility and abuse of ten
thousand enemies: For, show me a man without numerous enemies, and I will show you one, who
whatever may be the amiable traits of his character, never did any great, or lasting and
permanent good to society or mankind. So long as a man glides smoothly and silently along, in
the corrupted currents of the world; and if he do not in mind and in heart mingle with them;
neither does he attempt to check their course, or turn them into purer channels; so long will
he be permitted to remain without being made a mark to be shot at by the arrows of calumny and
detraction: nay more, he will be called "a ...nice man," "a wonderful clever man," by all the
Noodles, male and female, in society; tipplers will toast him in bar-rooms; gossips will mingle
his praises with their ...hyson, or ...souchong beverage; misers will applaud his economy, because
it resembles their own; fools will cry up his wisdom for the same reason; and if a candidate
for office, they will flock to the polls and vote for him; whilst at home his trembling slaves ...and
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his... looking-glass, will make him believe, that he is the ...factotum of the town or state, the very
deity of the day! and all this, too, when, in all probability, he never performed a solitary noble,
generous or charitable act in his life, and is wholly incapable of performing one: On the other
hand, no man ever yet boldly and honestly wielded his pen, or raised his voice, against error, crime,
and corruption, without being reviled and persecuted by the mean, the envious and the unprincipled --
for an honest, manly and magnanimous foe will never stoop to any of these means.
But be ...all this as it may -- as a patriot, and a real friend to the republican constitutions and
liberties of my country, much less as a disciple of Christ, I should be a poor creature, a miserable
tool indeed, if my mind were to be disturbed, for a moment, by the sneers or the jeers, the
clamours or the calumnies, of my personal enemies, or those of the sacred cause in which I
am engaged: on the contrary, I pity their weakness -- detest their meanness -- defy their malice --
and laugh at their calumny. I boldly challenge them to fix on my character, by the shadow
of proof, by any other than gossip, tattle and malignant slander, a single willfully base or
dishonourable act, in the whole course of my life; since if I have been an Infidel, I have never
condescended to degrade my mind, or my person, in habitual vicious pursuits of any kind; for it
must be recollected, that honest Infidels have their Socratic and Platonic, their Ciceronian
and Aurelian, if not their Evangelical Piety: let my enemies, then, do their worst: I fear not but
there will come a day, when I shall triumph
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over them all, in the eye of him, whose favor and good will are alone worth seeking, and
without which, all else may be deemed as dross, dregs, and everlasting damnation. As to my
old infidel friends, with many of whom I have long corresponded in various parts of the state
and the union, I know some of them to possess sound heads and honest hearts; and all I ask
of these, or any of them, is to sit down, and seriously and deliberately to go through the course
of study, which I have pointed out and pursued, adding to it only ...Larrfwe/^ profound and
extensive enquiry into the credibility of the gospels, and preserving their minds, at the same time,
unshackled, uninfluenced by former prejudices. They owe this to themselves, as well as to the
cause of truth; for it is, I am satisfied from my extensive acquaintance with infidels, not so
much from the rottenness of their hearts, or the weakness of their heads, as from a total neglect
to examine both sides of the question, that they reject revelation. I know very many indeed of
them, who have never taken the trouble to examine the Bible seriously; and much less to
study any of its able commentators and vindicators; but they have read Bolingbroke, and
Hume, and Voltaire, and swallowed their misrepresentations and sophistry; relying, as I once
did myself, with implicit confidence upon their premises, and conclusions, when the first are
often false, and the latter invariably so, or at, best not fairly ...following from the former.
Campbell has exposed and refuted Hume in a masterful manner, shewing him to be, though cool
and subtle; yet contradictory, inconsistent, and unsulrstflmbal : r>.... fact, with dl the cool subtlety
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and profundity of Hume, he cannot conceal the cloven-foot of the sophist; and this, on a late
reading, I clearly perceived; although when quite young, I swallowed ail he says with the
avidity of a gourmand: these are the contrary effects that flow from reading with our feelings
and prejudices in favour of our author, or, on the contrary, with our judgment in full command of
our feelings and prejudices, and prepared to decide correctly. As to Bolingbroke, he is full of
declamation, without argument -- and Voltaire, from the beginning to the end of all that he has
written on the subject, is scarcely anything more than a continued series of wit and sarcasm,
sparkling and pungent; but in every sense of the word, a perversion of his text, and of the truth.
"A little philosophy," says Lord Bacon, "inclines us to Atheism, and a great deal of philosophy
carries us back to religion." The former clause of this proposition applies with full force to the
infidel writers above mentioned; as the latter does to their able opponents: All, therefore, I repeat it,
that is necessary to the triumph of Christianity over Infidelity, in the mind of any sensible man,
who is seriously and earnestly seeking for the truth, is to pursue the same investigation that I have
pursued, uninfluenced and unshackled by prejudice. When I sat down to it, I endeavored to
divest myself of every bias; and to commence the work as though I had just fallen from the
clouds, and had never heard of the subject, or mingled in the tumults and perplexities, or the
selfish and sensual currents of the world: in this pursuit, and in this spirit, I spent at least
few of the last fourteen months: And let my
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honest old friends in the walks of Infidelity, A0 ...this; and I fear not the complete triumph, in
their minds, of the pure, divine, and heart-felt doctrines of Jesus of Nazareth, over the corrupt,
earthly, cold and heartless speculations of that Infidel School, to which I have been by far too
long attached, and which has done so much to unhinge the moral order of the world, and to
plunge it into confusion and destruction.
The Infidel, my young countrymen, will tell you of the arts of Priestcraft. and the abuses to
which Christianity has been subjected by the frailty of human passions and human reason: but
let not such insinuations, such sophistry, deter you from a thorough examination for yourselves.
If liable to be punished hereafter for your infidelity, and its immoral or sinful consequences in
your practice; you cannot plead, before your Eternal Judge, that you violated his holy laws,
and rejected his holy name, because you had seen or heard of such a thing as Priestcraft:
Nor can you get off with the plea, that because bad men, in bad times, whether Princes, Priests,
...or common Laymen, abused and perverted a system, which in itself is not only of Divine
Origin, but of unmixed, and unsullied, and divine purity; you, therefore, imbibed false opinions,
without taking the trouble to examine for yourselves, whether the abuses were in and not of the
system. In this work, I have proved, that the murder of Morgan flowed not from the abuse of
Free Masonry, but from the actual laws... and obligations, imposed by the system; hence it is,
that the system is so dangerous and destructive to liberty and religion: Not so with the abuses
of Christianity, of which infidels make a handle: I fearlessly
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challenge the whole lot... of them, to show a precept, a rule, or law of Christianity, which
does not carry on its face the mark of purity and of truth, the stamp of Divinity. Recollect, that
Priests, as clergymen are denominated in common parlance, are but men of like passions and
infirmities with yourselves; and although chosen to administer the word, do not always live up to
the WORD: but this should be no stumbling-block in the way of your faith or your practice; your
own reason must be your guide; and in no law, human or divine, without destroying all law,
can the faults or crimes of one delinquent, ...be plead in mitigation, much less in justification,
by another. Rely upon it, that as the clerical character cannot be plead either in justification or
mitigation of clerical delinquency; much less can it shield your default in the day of judgment:
on the contrary, the clergyman who violates his duty, is a two-fold transgressor, and exposed, if
possible, to double damnation. I cannot conceive of a fiend in hell more wicked, than the
man who takes upon himself the sacred duties of the altar, under the impression -- without which
he has no business there -- that he is called to the work by Divine Providence; and still willfully
pollutes his heart and his hands in the vanities, crimes and corruptions of the world. Be
assured, then, that in this case, the most important and awful that we can, any of us, ever be
involved in, every soul must stand or fall on its own merits or demerits; and as it shall have
found, or lost, an interest in the atoning merit and mediation of the Redeemer.
Commence this investigation, then, I beseech you, without pinning your faith upon any man's ...
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sleeve, or without attempting, in the first place to establish any sectarian principle. Having
satisfied myself of the abstract truth, as it is in ...Jesus, I am now engaged in studying the
principles of the various sects; and have begun with ...Calvin's Institutes. I should have preferred
to have commenced with the Fathers, and later champions of the Catholic church, could I have
procured them here conveniently: I shall, however, procure them -- and I shall, with steady
labor, and an unbiased mind, pursue the subject, until I become thoroughly conversant with
the several creeds, which have prevailed, or are now prevalent, and the shades of difference
which distinguish them; finally testing the whole, with all the judgment I can bring to the task, by
the writings of the Evangelists: and I shall, if my life be spared, leave, as a legacy to my
children, in the hope that they may profit by it, the result of the investigation, connected with the
conclusions I have already formed. But as to you, my young countrymen, the plain and simple
question to be solved, in the first place, is -- Do the Gospels contain a faithful history of the lives
and acts of Christ and his Apostles? Satisfy your minds upon this all-important point, and your
hearts, as well as your heads, will finally do the rest. Sectarian cavils, and the sophistical
commentaries of infidel writers, may have blurred the beauty, and impaired the majesty of the
Divine Oracles; but wisdom is nevertheless justified of her children: And whoever will go to
the Bible itself, and study it in the spirit of candour and integrity, "rightly dividing the word;"
that is, separating, with judgment, the historical and the allegorical, from the poetical and prophetical;
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the legal from the moral; the literal from the metaphorical; and the formal from
the spiritual; making due allowances, at the same time, in the moral, historical, and legal
portions, for the difference, between those times and the present, in education, manners, habits,
ideas of civil and political government and jurisprudence, soil, climate, and population; for all
these things must have been embraced in the Divine Wisdom and Economy, as revealed to
Moses, and the Prophets and Patriarchs; and afterwards, through our Saviour and his
Apostles: Whoever, depend upon it, may do all this understandingly, will rise from the holy labour,
satisfied, that the Bible is not only the word of God; but will, I trust, be made to feel, and to
acknowledge, that it is the power of God unto salvation.
And now, my young countrymen, let me once more, before I close this work, impress upon you
the solemn advice of a man, who has seen much of the world, and knows full well all the snares
and dangers to which you will be exposed. Let me conjure you, then, shunning the paths of
folly, and of guilty pleasure, to embrace Religion early, as the only sure and substantial
foundation, on which to rest all your hopes of temporal and eternal happiness. Shun, I entreat you, the
walks of the Infidel, and be not deluded by hid sophistry, let his wisdom, or his virtues, be what
they may. "Curse on his virtues," said a Roman patriot, speaking of a usurper, "they have undone ...
his country."... The more virtue there is, in a... wrong-headed man, the more mischief may he
do to society. It is the gilded pill that is the easiest and the readiest swallowed. Vain men...
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may deny the Bible, and weak men may follow them; but that sacred volume is the enduring
Fount of Eternal Wisdom. Those who reject it, may pretend to vast profundity of thought,
and to see clearly, that there is no future state of rewards and punishments: but believe me,
such doctrines are not new; they have often been advanced, and as often put down, by the
good sense and virtue of mankind, as well as by the soundest logic, on the part of those sages,
who have victoriously maintained the doctrines of the Cross. If there be any blessing of life,
more than another, for which any man may have especially to thank his God, it must be, that his
mind has become settled upon this all-important subject: that he has been brought to see clearly,
that man is accountable in another world for the deeds done in the body here; that his soul
is immortal.
Deny to man a future state of existence, and ...know much is he degraded! He possesses
faculties that elevate him above all the other animals in the creation. Compared with the reptile, he
of like a God; and with the Lion, the Elephant, or the Mammoth, he still soars an Angel in the
superiority of his powers. But deprived of immortal hope, he is reduced to the level of the
lowest of the animal tribes. He comes into existence with intellectual endowments of the
highest grade; he enters upon a theatre where countless objects present themselves to improve
his faculties, or be improved by their exercise. He enters on the career of improvement. He
finishes some plans, and he commences others, which he does not stay to accomplish. He erects
houses, which he does… not remain to inhabit.
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He builds ships, and leaves them to be navigated by others. He plants trees, that others may
enjoy their fruits. He sows fields, that others may reap their harvest. He quits forever his native
soil, or shores; migrates over mountains, apparently inaccessible, and never before trod
by human footsteps, or across trackless oceans, to distant and dreary climes; clears off the
wilderness, cultivates new fields; builds up new cities; forms new constitutions and laws,
religious, civil and political; and leaves them all for the enjoyment and the government of
after-ages. He forms the strongest and the tenderest of all ties and connexions, which he knows must
be severed in this life: And he conquers science, and climbs the rugged steeps that lead to fame,
but to be conquered himself by death, and be cast down to perish forever!
Such is the condition of man, if the cold speculations of the atheist and the infidel be
founded in truth: but it cannot be! The God of Nature has not endowed him with all his
extraordinary and sublime powers; has not made him so far above all other animals, and so
little below the Angels, that he should perish like a mole, or a caterpillar, and be known no
more among created intelligence. No! -- no ! -- by all the perfections of his animal frame and
faculties -- by all the sensibilities of his heart -- by all the graces of his mind -- by all the fire of
his genius -- by all the sublimity of his conceptions -- by all the benign and glorious fruits of
his intellect, and by all the mighty works of his hands; he was not, he could not have been
created, to perish in everlasting oblivion, and
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be banished forever from the scenes of intellectual enjoyment, and the presence of his God!
I shall now, my young countrymen, take my leave of you, perhaps for ever: And certain it
is, that I can never again address you on subjects of more importance to your happiness, both
here and hereafter, than those which this work embraces. Come what will of me: whether I
am destined to fall by the hand of some vulgar and midnight assassin, as has been threatened; *
or to die on the bed of peace, surrounded by dear connexions and valued friends -- I thank my God,
in the utmost sincerity of my soul, that he has spared me to draw this portrait of a corrupt and
degenerate Order -- an Order -- (if there can for a moment be such a thing as an Order in a
republican government) -- whose schemes areas dark as those of the disciples of Loyola, and
whose discipline is as despotic and dangerous as that of the Inquisition: And solemnly to
warn you, who must at no distant day become the props of your country's existence, the
defenders of her soil, the vindicators of her rights, the authors and conservators of her laws, and
the proud pillars of her glory; to beware, as you would of the most deadly poison, of coming
within the pale of its licentious mysteries, its unhallowed orgies, and its blasphemous rites.
Too long, by far too long, has it already polluted the sacred soil of liberty: too long already
has it darkly controuled the ballot of the unsuspecting freeman, and paralyzed the right of
election, ... -- too long has it stained the purity of the ermine, and defiled the sanctity of the altar --
too long has it corrupted legislation and perverted
----
* See Appendix, Note 20.
** Sec Appendix, Note 21.
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justice -- too long has it made the Jury Box the sink of partiality and favoritism; and the
stand of the witness the source of perjury, and the protection of fraud and villainy -- too long
has it been permitted to redeem felons from the State Prison, before they had half expiated
their crimes; and to rob the gallows and the gibbet of their honest dues: -- MORALITY,
PATRIOTISM, LIBERTY and RELIGION, the holy laws it has violated, and the domestic,
civil and political ties it has severed; the promising young men it has lured to destruction, and
the heart broken parents, whose grey hairs it has brought with sorrow to the grave; the
husbands it has alienated from their wives, and the wives it has robbed of the society and
protection of their husbands; the widows and the orphans it has plunged into misery, and the blood
of the martyrs it has slain; all cry aloud, in
ONE UNITED VOICE, TO THE GOD OF ETERNAL
JUSTICE, FOR ITS TOTAL EXTIRPATION
FROM THE FACE OF THE EARTH!
Albany, Dec. 8th, 1827.
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