Pride Is Not The Heritage Of Man;

There Are Great Truths At The Foundation Of Freemasonry, Truths Which It Is Its Mission To Teach And Which Is Constituting The Very Essence Of, That Sublime System Which Gives The Venerable Institution Its Peculiar Identity As A Science Of Morality, And It Behooves Every Disciple Diligently To Ponder And Inwardly Digest.

We Live Our Little Life; But Heaven Is Above Us And All Around And Close To Us; And Eternity Is Before Us And Behind Us; And Suns And Stars Are Silent Witnesses And Watchers Over Us. We Are Enfolded By Infinity.

If The Soul Sees, After Death , What Passes On This Earth , And Watches Over The Welfare Of Those It Loves, Then Must Its Greatest Happiness Consist In Seeing The Current Of Its Beneficent Influences Widening Out From Age To Age, As Rivulets Widen Into Rivers, And Aiding To Shape The Destinies Of Individuals, Families, States, The World; And Its Bitterest Punishment, In Seeing Its Evil Influences Causing Mischief And Misery , And Cursing And Afflicting Men, Long After The Frame It Dwelt In Has Become Dust, And When Both Name And Memory Are Forgotten.

Nothing Excites Men's Curiosity So Much As Mystery, Concealing Things Which They Desire To Know; And Nothing So Much Increases Curiosity As Obstacles That Interpose To Prevent Them From Indulging In The Gratification Of Their Desires. Of This The Legislators And Hierophants Took Advantage, To Attract The People To Their Sanctuaries, And To Induce Them To Seek To Obtain Lessons From Which They Would Perhaps Have Turned Away With Indifference If They Had Been Pressed Upon Them.

Toleration, Holding That Every Other Man Has The Same Right To His Opinion And Faith That We Have To Ours; And Liberality, Holding That As No Human Being Can With Certainty Say, In The Clash And Conflict Of Hostile Faiths And Creeds, What Is Truth, Or That He Is Surely In Possession Of It, So Everyone Should Feel That It Is Quite Possible That Another Equally Honest And Sincere With Himself, And Yet Holding The Contrary Opinion, May Himself Be In Possession Of The Truth.