Secracy

I would first like to give credit to the Grand Lodge of New York and the Robert Livingston Library and the reading course they provide.

In reading “The Masonic Ladder” by John Sherer, he writes,

We have secrets among us. They compose a language sometimes mute and sometimes very eloquent, to be communicated at the greatest distance, and to know our brethren by, let their country or their lanuage be what it may. what has scarcely happened to say other society has happened to us. Our lodge have been established in and are now spread over all polite nations, and yet among so great a multitude of men, no brother has ever yet betrayed our secrets. Dispositions the most volatile, the most indiscreet, and the least trianed up to secrecy, learn this great science as soon as they enter among us. So great an empire over the mind has this idea of brotherly union! This inviolable secrecy powerfully contribution to link together and render mutual between them the communication of benefits.

We have many examples in the annals of our order of brethren traveling into foreign parts, and finding themselves distressed, have made themselves known to our lodges and received all needful assistance. We are connected by solemn promises: if any one should fail in the solemn promise that connects us. there is no greater punishment then the remores of conscience, the infany of perfidy, and expliusion from our society.

To prevent the abuse that befell the fraternities of Greece and Egypt, women are excluded from our Order. It is not that we do not pay a natural and due regard to that most beauteous part of the creation, or that we are unjust enough to look upon them as incapable of secrecy., but because tier presence might insensibly alter the purity of our maxims and our manners. We are afraid that love would enter with them, and draw us to his flowery, tempting paths, where jealousy would diffuse his venom thruogh our hearts, and from affectionate brethren transform us into implacable rivals.