Freemasonry, we appeal neither to Paley nor Burlemaque, to Vattel nor Puffendorf, but to the conscience of Christians, who fear God; to the hearts of freemen, who love their country; and to the common sense of men, who have understanding. We might lose the reader's attention in an argument drawn from the books of civilians and moralists, books he may never have read. We prefer to draw our argument from the common sense of mankind, that we may carry with us the convictions of every heart, and stand in the conscience of every just man, disenthralled from our obligations to Freemasonry, as we are from that obligation to an impostor, which would interfere with bringing him to a righteous condemnation ; from that oath to a swindler, which would prevent our warning the public against his practices; from that penalty to a traitor conspiring against the liberties of our citizens, which would frighten us from sounding alarm, and from proclaiming the danger to our countrymen.

"Is this Freemasonry! It cannot be."

We say, this is our vindication for the use of some things with which we make free, and our reply upon the adversary, who will attempt in his defence to plead what any impostor would plead under like circumstances, viz. these men are solemnly sworn to me; they despise their oath; their word is not to be taken."

And, now, the judgment of wise men confirming our own, and unanimously assenting to the soundness of the argument, and to the righteousness of our conclusions, we are ready to treat the oaths of Freemasonry, as a man has a right, both by human and divine law, to treat the marriage oath in case of adultery. No man would hesitate instantly to repudiate a wife, whose life was stained with transgressions against purity. Because he took solemn vows of fidelity to her before the throne of God, believing her to be pure and chaste, is he held to his marriage vow, after he knows that she is an adulteress? It is not possible. Freemasonry we wedded as the truth of God; we repudiate it as the falsehood of the devil.

"Thou mayest hold a serpent by the tongue,

A caged lion by the mortal paw,

A fasting tiger safer by the tooth,

Than keep in peace the hand which thou dost hold."

We were taught to believe Freemasonry has virgin pu rity; but we find it is corrupt: we were taught to believe thas it was founded and patronized at least three thousand years ago, by men acknowledged to be of God in the holy scriptures; but we find it was founded in the era of the South Sea Company, by men whose names are no warrant for truth or righteousness: we were taught to believe that Freemasonry is the handmaid of religion; but we find that it is very far from aiding the doctrines of the cross of Christ; and, in an extensive and thorough, a protracted and patient examination of the subject, we have found Freemasonry, by its own showing, carefully collated from its approved writers, and books of constitutions, to be the synagogue of Satan.

We have sworn to it in the belief which was taught us; we abjure it in the convictions which careful investigation has produced. We gave it the pledge of our right hand, believing it to be a blessing from the Lord, fraught with heavenly mercies; we withdraw that pledge, upon finding Freemasonry to be the work of the father of lies, fraught with hidden mischief. We received it as sanctioned by the best of names, both ancient and modern, patriarchs and prophets, statesmen and divines; we renounce it as the angel of light, so cunningly attired that he deceives even the elect.

As our forefathers broke the yoke of foreign bondage, so we break the yoke of internal tyranny; as they performed their duty to God, to their posterity, and to their country, by renouncing their allegiance to George III. and to the British constitution; so we, in the fear of God, in the service of our country, and posterity, and with a view to a day of final retribution, renounce and make void our allegiance to Freemasonry.

ON THE PRINCIPLES AND PRACTICE OF THE MASONIC

INSTITUTION.

Extract of a letter addressed to the Committee of the Worcester County Convention by Pliny Merrick, Esq.

WHY it has been, that so many men of distinguished attainments, should, in different generations, have devoted their time and lent their reputation in support of speculative Freemasonry, I cannot now comprehend. The sense of shame that they voluntarily submitted to the practices of masonic ceremonials, after they had been found to be "trifles light as air," may have prevailed with some; others may perhaps have been unwilling to destroy those anticipations, resulting from the mutual pledges of fraternal assistance which is one of the great characteristics of the craft, of personal advantage in the prosecution of their schemes of business or projects of ambition. Some may have felt themselves restrained by respect for the venerated individuals whom they have known to have given the sanction of their membership to the institution; others, influenced by a long line of examples, may have tacitly yielded without a struggle to its vaunted pretensions to great antiquity, and to a lofty character for science, benevolence and morality. It is probable that a still greater class has entertained a vague and undefined, but gloomy and shuddering belief, that the obligations of Freemasonry are binding upon the conscience-that its penalties have power over the body, and its oaths over the soul; and have felt as if it would be sacrilege, and known that it would be dangerous, to break the seal of its profound and cherished mysteries. Whatever may have been the cause, the fact is unquestionable, that multitudes have been subdued to a heavy and lamentable thraldom. A wide and almost universal despotism has prevailed; and while its dominion has constantly kept in view those appalling imprecations which every mason has invoked upon his own disregard of the mystic tie," it is not strange that a corresponding feeling should have been infused into many minds, that punishment for its violation would be sure, and its infliction meritorious―The better lights of our own times have vastly weakened, and to a great extent overcome, those

debasing feelings. But there are still those who do not hesitate to denounce a separation from Freemasonry as a crime; and even since our late convention in Worcester, it has been said, that it will not do for a seceder from that Institution to brave the indignation of the two thousand active men, now its members in the County of Wor

cester.

It has been the custom of the fraternity to speak of the venerable age of their Institution; and to boast that through the long lapse of ages, it has sustained its character, its identity, and its principles, without change or modification. Recent investigations have denied and disproved its claims to antiquity; but without discussing the question of its age, it may be remarked, that those claims, if they could be substantiated, would afford no proof of its fitness or of its adaptation to the present times. Whatever is the work of man is susceptible of improvement. The inarch of mind, like that of time, is onward; and it would be as wise in the present generation to give up the steam engine and the mariner's compass, by which the elements are conquered and oceans traversed in safety, for the shore-bound oar boats of the ancients, as to adopt with thoughtless and debasing credulity their formal and cumbrous institutions.

It is, however, altogether unnecessary to speak of the age, or the origin, of Speculative Freemasonry.-For whatever purpose it was contrived, or at whatever period its cumbrous formalities were imposed on the world, it ought to be enough to insure its rejection, that it possesses neither precept nor principles, peculiar to itself, which are now either necessary or useful.-Whatever is valuable in any of the abstract truths which it has contrived to incorporate with its system, and with which it has hitherto too successfully concealed the clumsy machinery of its mysteries, is equally well known and much better taught, without the pale of the institution. Of itself, strictly speaking, it possesses neither the means of affording gratification, or of imparting knowledge.

Of its sources of agreeable entertainment, it is perhaps almost too trifling to speak. It possesses indeed small power in this particular. Of the hours which are spent when, in its own technical language, the craft are called

from labor to refreshment, there is nothing peculiarly inviting, unless it may be supposed, that the uncommon dulness of the preceding work may have created an unusual zest for the excitements of the flagon. Social intercourse surely cannot be the more agreeable, because the ligature of companionship is an oath of fidelity, instead of that cordial sympathy which springs from common pursuits, and kindred feelings, and refined sensibilities. The pageantry, which throws its attractive drapery around the proceedings of a lodge, is as idle, as it is fictitious; and its lofty pretensions to grandeur, its gaudy display of rank and titles, ought to afford but little satisfaction to the plain simplicity of a republican people. Quite as little entitled to regard is there in the actual occupations of the fraternity in their secret sessions. The unvaried and unmeaning forms of opening and closing the lodge are cold and heartless. Its initiations mingle the ridiculous with the painful. A half dressed novitiate is led round with mock solemnity, to exhibit his grotesque appearance to those who have gone before him, sometimes the object of their speculation, but oftener the sport of levity; and a weak and vain and boisterous gratification is often extracted from the awkward surprise and miserable disappointment, which are I believe uniformly exhibited by the blindfolded candidate, when he is brought to light, and discovers the matchless vanity of the bubble, to which so much formidable preparation and pomp of ceremony has introduced him.

But Freemasonry assumes higher claims; it arrogates to itself extraordinary wisdom; and affirms that it is of itself a science, and that its secret and inviolable signs have become an universal language. No proposition can be more utterly without foundation. The members of

the fraternity, who travel in our own country only, find it difficult to make themselves intelligible to their brethren in its different parts on account of the variations in the forms and ceremonies which different lodges have adopted. And it is worthy of remark, that itinerant lecturers have, at different times, been commissioned by the several grand lodges to pass through the country, to give such instructions as would enable the fraternity to observe something like uniformity in the practice of the