organization can legally be made a Mason.  We have occasionally met with men having but one arm or one leg, who in that condition had been made Masons; and on one or two occasions we have found those who were totally blind who had been admitted!  This is so entirely illegal, so utterly at variance with a law which every Mason is bound to obey, that it seems almost incredible, yet it is true.” (P. 152.) It is, hence, seen that Masonry is very exclusive.  No woman can be a member.  This regulation excludes at once one half of mankind from its boasted advantages.  The oppressed slave is excluded; the man born in slavery, though now free, is excluded; the lame man is excluded; the man who has lost an eye is excluded; the man who has lost a hand is excluded; the man who has lost a foot is excluded; the man on whose birth any taint of dishonor rests is excluded; the man who is imperfect in body is excluded.  No matter how good, patriotic, and wise such persons are, still they are excluded; no matter how needy such persons are, still they are excluded; no matter though a man have lost a hand, or foot, or eye in defense of his country and liberty, still he is excluded; no matter though a freedman, exhibiting bravery, and piety, and every virtue, still the “taint of slavery rests on his birth,” he is excluded.  Widows and orphans are excluded.

“If a brother should be a rebel against the state, the loyal brotherhood can not expel him from the lodge, and his relation to it remains indefeasible.” (Moore’s Constitutions, Art. 2.) A Mason may be engaged in a wicked rebellion, and may stain his soul and hands with innocent blood, and still he must be recognized as “a brother” and must continue to enjoy all the boasted rights and advantages of the order; but the patriot soldier who has been disabled for life in defense of his country and liberty is excluded.  The widows and orphans of rebel Masons slain in battle, or righteously executed on the scaffold, must receive “the benefits;” but the widows and orphans of patriot soldiers who did not choose to join the Masons, or were excluded by some bodily imperfection, or by wounds received in battle, are left to the charities of “the ignorant and prejudiced.”  The Jew, the Turk, the Hindoo, the American savage, and the infidel (provided they are not atheists), are eligible to the boasted honors and advantages of Masonry. (Moore’s Constitutions, pp. 119, 123.) But if a man have every intellectual gift and every moral virtue, and have some bodily imperfection, he is excluded.  A man may be as gifted and as learned as Milton, as incorruptible and patriotic as Washington, and as benevolent as Howard, but if he is physically imperfect he is excluded from this association, which claims to be no respecter of persons, but to be the patron of merit, and which professes to act on the principle of the universal brotherhood of men.