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other 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 polluted engine of treachery, tyranny and oppression; the pander of Pandemonium! Oh! how degraded, how fallen from its lofty eminence, from what it was, when like the pillar of fire in sacred history, it guided the footsteps of our fathers, and inspired them with that noble flame of patriotism, which urged them to the heights of Bunker Hill and of Saratoga, to the frozen plains of Abraham, and the burning sands of Monmouth, to bleed and to die for the redemption of their country, and the freedom and happiness of their posterity!* Could the shade of FRANKLIN, he who preferred poverty and want, as an Editor, with truth, honor and independence, as the guides of his pen-to wealth and luxury, with sycophancy, survility, falsehood and corruption, as the inmates of his soul! Could his immortal shade look down from its sainted circle of the spirits of just men made perfect," and behold the press of his country, which in his hands was the vestal flame of freedom, and the consuming fire to tyrants, thus abandoned, degraded, perverted and prostituted, the bliss of Heaven would become to him the torment of Hell! Nor could herest there, without wishing to return to earth, to re-kindle the flame of yirtue in the breasts, of his lost and degenerate Sée Appendix, Note 6./

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!-he 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 of their Creator and RedeemerTHOU 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 "in 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 unparalled importance and magnitude of the subject. It is a theme, of all oth

ers, most worthy of the patriot, the sage, the hero and the christian-a theme, which it would require more than the combined genius, and ta lents and acquirements of a DEMOSTHENES, 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 requi site to pourtray, in all their horrors, and in all their ruinous and destructive bearings on out constitutional liberties, the abduction and mur. der 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 Isaiahhe alone could give it the appropriate colouring, the appalling light, 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 selfrespect, 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, submits necessarily to the vilest 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-who, indeed, possessing such worth, 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 asonry, 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 noviciate-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 "auful 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, 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 ed 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!" when Milton's "darkness visible," and worse than Bedlam's folly ineffable, are all that you have seen, or are likely to see, in the science of the forms and ceremonies of the assinine conclave by whom you are sur rounded; 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, I 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 ør dagger run into you!* And when these impostors, and ignoramussus, who thus sport with your person and your feelings," have subjected

* See Appendix, Note 7.