Manual of the Freemasonry Lodge. Albert Gallatin Mackey

his life.

      THE LESSON OF CHARITY.

      Although Freemasonry is indebted for its origin to its religious and philosophic character, yet charity, in the ordinary adaptation of relief of the distressed, becomes, although incidentally, a prominent feature in its teachings. And hence it has been well said, that there is no institution whose laws more strongly enforce, or whose precepts more earnestly inculcate, the virtue of charity. In allusion to the ceremony now under consideration, Tannehill remarks that "it is among the first lessons we are taught, when we pass the threshold of the mystic temple."