Freemasonry attracts our attention as a great social institution. Laying aside for the time those artificial distinctions of rank and wealth, which, however, are necessary in the world to the regular progression of society, its members meet in their Lodges on one common level of brotherhood and equality. There virtue and talent alone claim and receive pre-eminence, and the great object of all is to see who can best work and best agree. There friendship and fraternal affection are strenuously inculcated and assiduously cultivated, and that great mystic tie is established which peculiarly distinguishes the society. Hence is it that Washington has declared that the benevolent purpose of the Masonic Institution is to enlarge the sphere of social happiness, and its grand object to promote the happiness of the human race.
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This page is adapted from the Glossary at Phoenixmasonry — Used with permission.
