Instead of criticizing Masonry, let us than God for one alter where no man is asked to surrender his liberty of thought and become an indistinguishable atom on a mass of sectarian agglomeration.
Joseph Fort NewtonMasonry was not made to divide men, but to unite them, leaving each man free to think his own thoughts and fashion his own system of ultimate truth. All its emphasis rests upon two extremely simple and profound principles, love of God and love of man.
Joseph Fort NewtonThe real question, after all, is not the quantity of life, but its quality, its depth, its purity, its fortitude, its fineness of spirit and gesture of soul.
Joseph Fort NewtonMore than an institution, more than a tradition, more than a society, Masonry is one of the forms of Divine life upon earth.
Joseph Fort NewtonGod works for man through man and seldom, if at all, in any other way. He asks for our voices to speak His truth, for our hands to do His work here below, sweet voices and clean hands to make liberty and love prevail over injustice and hate.
Joseph Fort NewtonMasonry is too great an institution to have been made in a day, much less by a few men, but was a slow evolution through long time, unfolding its beauty as it grew. Indeed, it was like one of its own cathedrals which one generation of builders wrought and vanished, and another followed, until, amidst vicissitudes of time and change, of decline and revival, the order itself became a temple of Freedom and Fraternity.
Joseph Fort Newton