to draw into one harmonious fraternity men of all nations and all opinions. Who can remain unmoved and cold at the idea of the manifold good that may and will be effected by fuch an institution! What generous citizen will hesitate at making it his duty and joy to contribute what he can to the accomplishment of fuch delightful hopes !

LET us all join in the fervent wish for fuccefs to all fuch motives as enforce, and all fuch focieties as encourage philanthropy and virtue. And may the whole brotherhood of mankind be united in the harmony of love, and bleffed with the tranquillity of peace!

FIRST DEGREE.

Entered Apprentices, at their making, are charged that they should travel bonefly, love their fellows as themselves, and be faithful to the Lodge." Antient MS. in the reign of Edw. III.

ADDRESS to a BROTHER at his reception.

BROTHER.

I SALUTE you cheerily and affectionately by this endearing appellation. The communications made on our part, and the engagements entered into on your's, are mutual pledges of confidential trust and agreement, and tokens of an attachment facred and inviolable.

:

FROM this moment we shall feel a special claim upon your friendship, and a special intereft in your welfare and we hope you will cultivate a warm attachment to that family of love into which you are now adopted; the pleasures and advantages of

which you are beginning to realize. And we are certain that the better you understand, the more you will admire our principles and practices.

OUR good opinion of you induced us to receive with pleasure your application; and vote, unanimoufly, to admit you into our fociety. We have always wished to bring into our alliance the wife and the good; that, while we attach them to us, by the light we convey, we may borrow luftre for our inftitution from their talents and their virtues. Let our expectations of you be all accomplished. Retain, we entreat you, that goodness of heart, that fair fame, that purity of intention, and love of virtue, of which we believe you now poffeffed; and of which the Spotless veftment wherewith you are now girded, is at once the emblem, the badge, and the reward.

BE juft to yourself and to us, to your profeffion and engagements; and it will be apparent to all that, in becoming a Mason, you become a better man.

Now look around you! Thofe, whose eyes, fparkling with joy, and countenances, dreffed in fmiles, are directed towards you, are your BRETHREN. Ready to discharge all the of fices of that intimate relation, they now bid you welcome to their number and fellowship, to their affections and affiftance, to their privileges and joys: and through me they promise to protect you by their influence and authority, to advise you by their abilities and skill, to affift you in exigence by their liberality and bounty, and to cheer you at all times with their kindness and love. you will have the happiness of experiencing the truth of this antient remark that " Masons being brethren, there exift no invidious diftinctions among them: "* and that they "love each other mightily, as hath been faid; which indeed may not otherwife be, for good men and true, knowing each other to be fuch, do always love the more as they be the more good."+

And

THIS, BROTHER, is the beginning of our art. How fuccessful is its progress, and how happy

Antient Masonic MS.

+ See the Bodlean MS. with the notes and explanations of the celebrated JOHN Locke, Efq.

is its end, you may fully know if you are but attentive, faithful and wife. Your diligence and activity in work, your skill in acquiring the instructions, of your degree, and your zeal in the cause of Free Masonry, will lead you forwards to higher grades, to clearer views, and to nobler privileges.*

"Masonry is a progressive science, and not to be attained in any degree of perfection but by time, patience, and a confiderable degree of application and industry; for no one is admitted to the profoundest fecrets, or the highest honors of this fraternity, till by time we are affured he has learned fecrecy and morality."

See a fermon entitled “Masonry founded on Scripture," by the Rev. W. WILLIAMS. 1752.