A
Charge for the Closing of a Lodge
You are now about
to quit the sacred retreat of friendship and virtue, to mix again with
the
world.
Amidst its
concerns and
employments, forget not the duties you have heard so frequently
inculcated and
forcibly recommended within this lodge.
Be, therefore, diligent, prudent, temperate, discreet.
And remember,
also, that around this Altar you have solemnly and repeatedly promised
to
befriend and relieve,
with unhesitating cordiality, so far as shall be
in your
power, every Brother who shall need your assistance;
that you have
promised to
remind him, in the most tender manner, of his failings, and aid his
reformation;
to vindicate his character when wrongfully traduced; and
to
suggest in his behalf the most candid, favorable,
and palliating
circumstances,
even when his conduct is justly reprehensible.
If you faithfully observe these duties,
the world will
observe how
Freemasons love one another, in obedience to the will of God.
Remember always,
Brethren that these solemn rites, of which you have been partakers, and
your
parts in them,
are as binding on your consciences out of the lodge as
within
it. They are links
in that chain made
in life, for eternity.
And these generous
principles are to extend farther.
Every
human being has a claim upon your kind offices.
So that we enjoin it upon you.
Do good unto all, while we recommend it more especially to
those who are
of
the household of the faithful.