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Article TWO WELL-KNOWN* MASONS; ← Page 7 of 8 →
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Two Well-Known* Masons;
enlarged , as above mentioned , witnessed by your Wardens , and signed by the Secretary ; for which favours this Lodge doubts not of being able to behave as not to be thought ungrateful . "We are , Right Worshipful Grand Master , and most Worthy Brethren , your affectionate Brethren and obliged humble servants . "Signed , at the request of the Lodge ,
" B . FRANKLIN , G . M . " It will be observed that this gives Franklin ' s official position " G . M ., " Grand Master . Singular , indeed , when we see him asking in the same letter for authority to hold a Grand Lodge . But this is only one evidence among a thousand that our brethren of the last century were very imperfectly instructed in the Masonic system of government .
A few years later than this we find a letter from Franklin to his father , which contains the following ^ of ^^ w : — " PHILAnELPHIA , ^ WZ 13 ^ 1738 . " A . s to the Freemasons , I know of no way of giving my mother a better account of them than she seems to have at present , since it is not allowed that women should be admitted into that secret society .
She has , I must confess , on that account , sotne reason to be displeased -with it ; but for anything else , I must entreat her to suspend her judgment till she is better informed , unless she will believe me when I assure her that they are , in general , a very harmless sort of people , and have no principles or practices that are inconsistent w ith religion and good manners . "
In a Masonic paper , published in 1823 ( Mas . Mir . vol . iii ., p . 393 ) , w e have some details in relation to Franklin which , we must confess , need confirmation : " It appears , from the minutes of the Order , that
during thirty years and upward , while he was Deputy Grand Master of Philadelphia , he was never absent from a single meeting . " In his admiration at this , the writer very properly adds : " For one whose industry and multiplicity of pursuits have become so much the wonder and praise of the world , it might be expected that 33 r . Franklin would have had reason to excuse himself from Masonic
duties if any person ever had . Situated as he was , in the largest city in America-- —driven to exertion both by his own personal business and the affairs of that public which believed that no plan would prosper without him at the head of it , besides the correspondence that his philosophical investigations obliged him to keep up—one would believe that he might suffer his seat amongst his Masonic Brethren , sometimes at least , if not the greater part of the time , to be left vacant . "
We conclude our article with another quotation , applicable no more to Franklin and Washington than to any other good man who enters and abides in our mystic temple : — " This fact ( of Franklin's attachment to Masonry ) admonishes i > 2
Note: This text has been automatically extracted via Optical Character Recognition (OCR) software.
Two Well-Known* Masons;
enlarged , as above mentioned , witnessed by your Wardens , and signed by the Secretary ; for which favours this Lodge doubts not of being able to behave as not to be thought ungrateful . "We are , Right Worshipful Grand Master , and most Worthy Brethren , your affectionate Brethren and obliged humble servants . "Signed , at the request of the Lodge ,
" B . FRANKLIN , G . M . " It will be observed that this gives Franklin ' s official position " G . M ., " Grand Master . Singular , indeed , when we see him asking in the same letter for authority to hold a Grand Lodge . But this is only one evidence among a thousand that our brethren of the last century were very imperfectly instructed in the Masonic system of government .
A few years later than this we find a letter from Franklin to his father , which contains the following ^ of ^^ w : — " PHILAnELPHIA , ^ WZ 13 ^ 1738 . " A . s to the Freemasons , I know of no way of giving my mother a better account of them than she seems to have at present , since it is not allowed that women should be admitted into that secret society .
She has , I must confess , on that account , sotne reason to be displeased -with it ; but for anything else , I must entreat her to suspend her judgment till she is better informed , unless she will believe me when I assure her that they are , in general , a very harmless sort of people , and have no principles or practices that are inconsistent w ith religion and good manners . "
In a Masonic paper , published in 1823 ( Mas . Mir . vol . iii ., p . 393 ) , w e have some details in relation to Franklin which , we must confess , need confirmation : " It appears , from the minutes of the Order , that
during thirty years and upward , while he was Deputy Grand Master of Philadelphia , he was never absent from a single meeting . " In his admiration at this , the writer very properly adds : " For one whose industry and multiplicity of pursuits have become so much the wonder and praise of the world , it might be expected that 33 r . Franklin would have had reason to excuse himself from Masonic
duties if any person ever had . Situated as he was , in the largest city in America-- —driven to exertion both by his own personal business and the affairs of that public which believed that no plan would prosper without him at the head of it , besides the correspondence that his philosophical investigations obliged him to keep up—one would believe that he might suffer his seat amongst his Masonic Brethren , sometimes at least , if not the greater part of the time , to be left vacant . "
We conclude our article with another quotation , applicable no more to Franklin and Washington than to any other good man who enters and abides in our mystic temple : — " This fact ( of Franklin's attachment to Masonry ) admonishes i > 2