Introduction
Freemasonry (also known as Masonry) is the world’s oldest fraternal organization, tracing its origins to the ancient fraternities of stonemasons, which from the end of the fourteenth century regulated the qualifications of masons, including their ability to travel freely across kingdoms, empires and countries, and their interactions with authorities and clients.
Today, Freemasonry is many things. It is kindness in the home; honesty in business; courtesy in society; and fairness in action. Freemasonry also teaches love for one another as well as reverence for and love of God.
Freemasonry is rich in symbolism, because through symbols we are better enabled to illustrate the principles which Masons espouse. For example, the Trowel is an instrument we are taught to use for the purpose of spreading the cement of brotherly love and affection.
By the exercise of brotherly love, Freemasons (also known as Masons) are taught to regard the whole human species as one family — the high and the low, the rich and the poor, who, as created by one almighty parent and inhabitants of the same planet, are to aid, support and protect each other. On this principle, Masonry unites men of every country, sect and opinion, and causes true friendship to exist among those who might otherwise have remained at a perpetual distance.
The goals of Masonry today are simple: we seek to make good men better, and to make the world a better place in which to live. You might ask yourself “but what can I, an average man and Mason, do?” President and Freemason Theodore Roosevelt had an answer: “I am only an average man, but, by George, I work harder at it than the average man.”
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