to support: yet you are allowed, when proper and convenient, to visit the neighbouring Lodges, so that you conform to their laws and customs, but you are not to interfere in their particular business; nor. is it well to enter into any discourse but what materially concerns the manifest interests of the society at large, or the general welfare of your brethren, to which you must be constantly and particularly attentive.

So far as you can do it, without injury to yourselves or families, you are bound to study your brethren's interests as your own; and to relieve and assist them in all their difficulties and distresses; to pay a due regard to their merits, and to maintain a tender concern for their failings. But do not suppose that Masonry con fines your good offices to the fraternity only, or absolves you from your duty to the rest of mankind. Far from it; it inculcates universal benevolence, and extends its benign influence to the whole world. It is a moral association, but not a partial confederacy. For surely, whilst I love my brother from moral principles as a man; I may, without injury to any part of society, be allowed to distinguish him as a Mason.

AND this leads me to recommend to you a particular care and circumspection, that you betray not our distinguishing marks and characteristics to any stranger; not to your nearest and dearest relation, nor most intimate and confidential friend.It will be prudent in you, at least for some time, not to exhibit them even to a brother, except in a Lodge, or where you well know your company. Time and patience will fully evince to you the importance of this precaution,

You will keep a strict guard over your discourse, looks, and gestures; so that the most piercing eye, the quickest ear, or the most penetrating observations, may not possibly discover what ought to be concealed; and if you meet with prying inquisitive people, endeavour to turn and divert the discourse; but beware of manifesting any offence or discomposure.

WHATEVER passes in the Lodge ought to be kept inviolably secret; and though some things may appear more trivial than others, you are not to make of the any transactions there the subject of your discourse amongst your family or friends. Nor will it generally answer any good purpose to be perpetually talking of them to your brethren.

So far as you have opportunity, cultivate an esteem for, and a knowledge of the liberal arts and sciences; beside their use and importance in every part of life, they improve the understanding, enlarge and adorn the mind, render your friendship important, and your conversation solid and entertaining.

GEOMETRY is particularly recommended to the attention of Masons. By geometry, I mean not only a study of the properties of lines, superficies, and solids; but the geometrical method of reason and deduction in the investigation of truth. In this light, geometry may very properly be considered as a natural logic; for, as truth is ever consistent, invariable, and uniform, all truths may be, and ought to be, investigated in the same manner. Moral and religious definitions, axioms,

and propositions, have as regular and certain a dependance upon each other as any in physics or mathematics. For instance, the moral relations of husband and wife, parent and child, king and subject, physician and patient, tradesman and customer, are equally certain and demonstrable as between square and triangle, cube and pyramid, or cone and sphere.

IN our future lectures and instructions, you will find that all our emblems, allegories, and peculiar characteristics have a beautiful and lively tendency to that point.And almost every branch of science is so applied and so moralized, as to become at once useful and instructive.

FROM the attention with which you have now honoured me, I hope you will seriously determine to pursue such knowledge, and cultivate such dispositions as will secure to you the brotherly respect of this society; the honour of your farther advancement in it; your peace, comfort, and satisfaction in this life, and your eternal felicity in the next.

AN ADDRESS

MADE TO A BODY OF FREE AND ACCEPTED
MASONS.

THE chief pleasures of society, viz. good conver sation, and the consequent improvements, are rightly presumed, brethren, to be the principal motive of our first entering into, and then of propagating our craft ; wherein those advantages, I am bold to say, may be better met with, than in any society now in being; provided we are not wanting to ourselves, and will but consider, that the basis of our order is indissoluble friendship, and the cement of it unanimity and brotherly love.

THAT these may always subsist in this society, is the sincere desire of every worthy brother; and that they may do so in full perfection here, give me leave to lay before you a few observations, wherein are pointed out those things, which are the most likely to discompose the harmony of conversation, especially when it turns upon controverted poins. It is, brethren, a very delicate thing to interest one's self in a dispute, and yet preserve the decorum due to the occasion. To assist us a little in this matter, is the subject of what I have at present to offer to your consideration; and, I doubt not, but the bare mention of what may be disagreeable in any kind of debate, will be heedfully avoided by a body of men, united by the bonds of brotherhood, and under the strictest ties of mutual love and forbearance.

By the outward demeanor it is that the inward

civility of the mind is generally expressed; the manner and circumstance of which, being much governed and influenced by the fashion and usage of the place where we live, must, in the rule and practice of it, be learned by observation, and the carriage of those who are allowed to be polite and well-bred. But the more

essential part of civility lies deeper than the outside, and is that general good-will, that decent regard, and personal esteem, for every man, which makes us cautious of shewing, in our carriage towards him, any contempt, disrepect, or neglect. It is a disposition that makes us ready on all occasions to express, according to the usual way and fashion of address, a respect, a value, and esteem for him, suitable to his rank, quality, and condition in life. It is, in a word, a disposition of the mind visible in the carriage, whereby a man endeavours to shun making another uneasy in his company.

For the better avoiding of which, in these our conventions, suffer me, brethren, to point out to you four things, directly contrary to this the most proper ' and most acceptable conveyance of the social virtues ; from some one of which incivility will generally be found to have its rise; and of consequence that discord and want of harmony in conversation, too frequently to be observed.

THE first of these is a NATURAL ROUGHNESS, which makes a man uncomplaisant to others; so that he retains no deference, nor has any regard to the inclinations, temper, or condition of those he converses with. It is the certain mark of a clown, not to mind what either pleases or offends those he is engaged with.