ing
subsisted from time immemorial; and honorable it must be acknowledged
to be, as by natural tendency it conduces to make those so who are
obedient to its precepts. To so high an eminence has its credit been
advanced that in every age Monarchs themselves have been promoters of
the art, have not thought it derogatory from their dignity to exchange
the scepter for the trowel, have patronized our mysteries and joined
in our Assemblies."

While that eulogy is more than justified by sober facts, it does not
tell us what Masonry is, much less its mission and ministry to
mankind. If now we turn to the old, oft-quoted definition, we learn
that Masonry is "a system of morality veiled in allegory and
illustrated by symbols." That is, in so far, true enough, but it is
obviously inadequate, the more so when it uses the word "peculiar" as
describing the morality of Masonry; and it gives no hint of a
world-encircling fellowship and its far-ramifying influence. Another
definition has it that Masonry is "a science which is engaged in the
search after divine truth;"[163] but that is vague, indefinite, and
unsatisfactory, lacking any sense of the uniqueness of the Order, and
as applicable to one science as to another. For surely all science, of
whatever kind, is a search after divine truth, and a physical fact, as
Agassiz said, is as sacred as a moral truth--every fact being the
presence of God.

Still another writer defines Masonry as "Friendship, Love, and
Integrity--Friendship which rises superior to the fictitious
distinctions of society, the prejudices of religion, and the pecuniary
conditions of life; Love which knows no limit, nor inequality, nor
decay; Integrity which binds man to the eternal law of duty."[164]
Such is indeed the very essence and spirit of Masonry, but Masonry has
no monopoly of that spirit, and its uniqueness consists, rather, in
the form in which it seeks to embody and express the gracious and
benign spirit which is the genius of all the higher life of humanity.
Masonry is not everything; it is a thing as distinctly featured as a
statue by Phidias or a painting by Angelo. Definitions, like delays,
may be dangerous, but perhaps we can do no better than to adopt the
words of the German _Handbuch_[165] as the best description of it so
far given:

/#[4,66]
_Masonry is the activity of closely united men who, employing
symbolical forms borrowed principally from the mason's trade
and from architect