tted, its value must be weighed with the
most scrupulous caution.

Such are the rules that the wisdom of successive generations of men,
learned in the law, have adopted for the establishment of the competency
or incompetency of witnesses. There is nothing in them which conflicts
with the principles of justice, or with the Constitutions of Freemasonry;
and hence they may, very properly, be considered as a part of our own
code. In determining, therefore, the rule for the admission of witnesses
in masonic trials, we are to be governed by the simple proposition that
has been enunciated by Mr. Justice Lawrence in the following language:

"I find no rule less comprehensive than this, that all persons are
admissible witnesses who have the use of their reason, and such religious
belief as to feel the obligation of an oath, who have not been convicted
of any infamous crime, and who are not influenced by interest."

The peculiar, isolated character of our institution, here suggests as an
important question, whether it is admissible to take the testimony of a
profane, or person who is not a Freemason, in the trial of a Mason before
his lodge.

To this question I feel compelled to reply, that such testimony is
generally admissible; but, as there are special cases in which it is not,
it seems proper to qualify that reply by a brief inquiry into the grounds
and reasons of this admissibility, and the mode and manner in which such
testimony is to be taken.

The great object of every trial, in Masonry, as elsewhere, is to elicit
truth; and, in the spirit of truth, to administer justice. From whatever
source, therefore, this truth can be obtained, it is not only competent
there to seek it, but it is obligatory on us so to do. This is the
principle of law as well as of common sense. Mr. Phillips, in the
beginning of his great "Treatise on the Law of Evidence," says: "In
inquiries upon this subject, the great end and object ought always to be,
the ascertaining of the most convenient and surest means for the
attainment of truth; the rules laid down are the means used for the
attainment of that end."

Now, if A, who is a Freemason, shall have committed an offense, of which B
and C alone were cognizant as witnesses, shall it be said that A must be
acquitted for want of proof, because B and C are not members of the Order?
We apprehend that in this instance the ends of justice would be defeated,
rather than subserved. If the veracity and