PREFACE.
There may be such a thing as conferring on folly a sort of dignity—
nay, even a dangerous importance, by treating it too seriously. There
may also be such a thing as pursuing vice and crime so far with one
unvaried cry of denunciation as to give them a temporary advantage
by the more easily eluding the pursuit, or by adroitly crying, “martyr,”
“persecution,” &c., so far to enlist the sympathies of the spectator, who
has thus seen but one of the aspects of “the frightful mien,” as to
induce him to say, “forbear — enough!”
If the following pages shall succeed in presenting the various and
motley features of Freemasonry in their proper light—show where it
is most effectual to laugh, where to censure and denounce, and where
to (not praise—that word would be a white sheep in such fellowship,)
where to let it alone—the aims of the author will have been accomplished.
His views of that extraordinary, strangely compounded and
certainly very powerful institution, are not dissimilar to those of many
others at the present day; but he may differ from them in the manner
in which he believes it most expedient and politic to serve up for the
public many of the materials of which it is composed.
