Note: This text has been automatically extracted via Optical Character Recognition (OCR) software.
Oitr ^
would not be parodied in Masonic rehearsals ; but a most salutary movement , for the advancement of Masonrv would be carried out as
it should be . We are not sorry to mention this subject , because it is one which most Masons are tender of referring to . Zealous Masons are afraid if they repress the practices they do not like to be un ^^ abandon the bodges of Instruction in disgust . Thus several evils are
produced , resulting in a great amount of mischief By men of better social position stopping away , they remain less proficient in ritual instruction ^ and feeling their own want of practice , - take less interest in the Graftj while of those who remain , many of the least educated become well drilled , and in the Lodges acquire an undue
preemineiice . Better able by their own poverty of intellectual resources to learn a few stibjects by rote , they get up every part of the rituals , and can deliver long charges , although they do no the sense , and cannot grapple with the grammatical construction ; and thus a set of men are brought into notice and influence to the disgust of their better educated Brethren . In their ignorance and their zeal they preserve everything ; and those portions of a change , or lectures on a tracing boardy which a man of more
discrimination or greater scholarship would suppress as involving anachronisms or as wanting a just historical or philosophical basis , they unerringly deliver , to the wonder of the neophyte , who is made sceptical when he most wants . conviction—and to the bitter regret of the old Mason , who is condemned to hear the noblest institutions
degraded by ignorant and unworthy pretenders . It is pretty well known that many of the preceptors of the Craft are not its best instructed members , and it may further be said that they are among the causes which tend to depress its moral condition . To raise the character of the Lodges of Instruction , by correcting their abuses and putting them on a better footing , is a great step .
Many of them are now destitute of proper furniture , which they might obtain in their own buildings \ and those which continue to be held in taverns need not mix up the exercises of the Craft with unseemly frivolity . Decent refreshment before the Lodge opens , at stated times , or a supper afterwards , will meet the requirements of the landlords ( who , so far as we have seen , never wish to encourage the
introduction of refreshment at improper times , many of them being excellent working and most zealous Masons ) , and enable those who want to refresh themselves to do so to their taste , without annoying others : and it need scarcely be said that if a Brother goes home to
the society of ladies , bearing about him any evidence of excess , he is not likely to convince them that lie has attended a Masonic Lodgefor as so many gentlemen are known to ladies to be Masons , so they cannot conceive under an aspect which is degrading an institution which in . its semblance has the attributes of the noblest qualities of the human mind .
Note: This text has been automatically extracted via Optical Character Recognition (OCR) software.
Oitr ^
would not be parodied in Masonic rehearsals ; but a most salutary movement , for the advancement of Masonrv would be carried out as
it should be . We are not sorry to mention this subject , because it is one which most Masons are tender of referring to . Zealous Masons are afraid if they repress the practices they do not like to be un ^^ abandon the bodges of Instruction in disgust . Thus several evils are
produced , resulting in a great amount of mischief By men of better social position stopping away , they remain less proficient in ritual instruction ^ and feeling their own want of practice , - take less interest in the Graftj while of those who remain , many of the least educated become well drilled , and in the Lodges acquire an undue
preemineiice . Better able by their own poverty of intellectual resources to learn a few stibjects by rote , they get up every part of the rituals , and can deliver long charges , although they do no the sense , and cannot grapple with the grammatical construction ; and thus a set of men are brought into notice and influence to the disgust of their better educated Brethren . In their ignorance and their zeal they preserve everything ; and those portions of a change , or lectures on a tracing boardy which a man of more
discrimination or greater scholarship would suppress as involving anachronisms or as wanting a just historical or philosophical basis , they unerringly deliver , to the wonder of the neophyte , who is made sceptical when he most wants . conviction—and to the bitter regret of the old Mason , who is condemned to hear the noblest institutions
degraded by ignorant and unworthy pretenders . It is pretty well known that many of the preceptors of the Craft are not its best instructed members , and it may further be said that they are among the causes which tend to depress its moral condition . To raise the character of the Lodges of Instruction , by correcting their abuses and putting them on a better footing , is a great step .
Many of them are now destitute of proper furniture , which they might obtain in their own buildings \ and those which continue to be held in taverns need not mix up the exercises of the Craft with unseemly frivolity . Decent refreshment before the Lodge opens , at stated times , or a supper afterwards , will meet the requirements of the landlords ( who , so far as we have seen , never wish to encourage the
introduction of refreshment at improper times , many of them being excellent working and most zealous Masons ) , and enable those who want to refresh themselves to do so to their taste , without annoying others : and it need scarcely be said that if a Brother goes home to
the society of ladies , bearing about him any evidence of excess , he is not likely to convince them that lie has attended a Masonic Lodgefor as so many gentlemen are known to ladies to be Masons , so they cannot conceive under an aspect which is degrading an institution which in . its semblance has the attributes of the noblest qualities of the human mind .