The Old Charges | Publishers of The Ancient Craft

Masonry was founded in those dark and remote ages when men and civilization were yet in their infancy and the arts and sciences had shed but few and imperfect rays. Mutual wants and necessities impelled our primeval brethren to seek for mutual aid and assistance; diversity of talent, inclinations and pursuits, rendered each one dependent upon the other; thus society was formed and as a natural consequence, men of the same habits and pursuits were associated more intimately together not only with a view of mutual improvement and advantage, but from that natural impulse which is felt by congenial minds. In this manner societies were formed and as civilization began to extend through the world and the minds of men became enlarged by the contemplation of the works of nature, the arts and sciences were cultivated by the most ingenious of the people. The contemplation of the planetary system, as the works of an Almighty Artist and the attributes of their God, gave rise to the ceremonies of religion and the science of astronomy; the measurement of land and the division and marking of their property gave rise to geometry and these sciences to the institution into whose mysteries you now desire to be received.

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