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THE
GREAT SECRET OF FREEMASONRY
Recently I called at the home of a
friend and found his wife reading a Masonic Paper. Since
she and her people had long been a bitter anti-Masonic
family, I asked her the reason for her change in reading
material. She replied she had discovered the grand secret
of Masonry; and related to
me as follows:-
“Soon after you were here last, I
learned to my mortification, my husband had become a Mason.
I felt it was because of you and I need not say how I felt
toward either of you. I at once decided that my domestic
happiness had come to an end. Some time later a
circumstance occurred that for the first time gave me reason
to doubt his integrity. Late on one of the coldest nights
last winter my husband came in and asked, “Margaret, can you
do without your blanket shawl?” I answered yes and he asked
me to get it, also a bed comforter. I handed them to him
and he left the house to join a friend who was waiting for
him with a very large basket. My husband returned shortly
with no explanation, either then or later for his actions.
I decided to watch for my shawl, for if I once caught sight
of it I could unravel this whole mystery. Soon afterward a
female whisked past me on the street wearing my shawl.
“The good for nothing huzzy, I
thought; and excitedly started in pursuit. I followed
closely from street to street and into the fourth story of a
bindery. As she sat down to work I immediately set about
locating her residence to get a clue to my husband’s
perfidy. On arriving at her home I saw that I was not
mistaken for I found my comforter there.
“The who secret flashed on my mind at
once, as clearly as if it had been written with a sunbeam
from heaven. There I found a widowed mother in the last
stages of consumption, and three children dependent upon the
scanty pittance earned by the elder sister, whom I had
followed. I learned from the dying woman a lesson, that in
all my philosophy I had never dreamed of—such a tale of
sorrow as I had never before listened to—and when she had
related the deed of charity that had been the cause of all
my unhappiness, I felt there was not room in my bosom to
appreciate the disinterested benevolence of my husband. She
said, “I do not know how we should have lived, but for the
kindness of two persons who came here late one night, and
left a basket filled with provisions, some bedclothes, a
shawl and five dollars. They just opened the door and set
in the basket, saying, “Accept this and ask no questions”;
and left before I had time to inquire their names. I do not
know who they were, and I have some doubts from where these
things came. But I never forget in earnest prayers to Him,
Who opened His hand and filleth the poor with bread, to ask,
if these were men, He will keep them and theirs from the
sorrows and afflictions with which I am visited. I left the
house a better woman than when I entered it.”
“But the grand secret of Masonry,”
said I, “I thought you were to tell me what it is.”
She replied, “It is this—to do good
and not tell of it.” |
