Martinsburg Gazette And Public Advertiser

MASONRY "in the tented field"

While a popular stream is running strong against Masonry in one of the largest States in the Union, and some adjuring communion with the institution, it may be pleasant to the faithful to read an occurrence which evinces its generous spirit, in the midst of the tumult of war. In one of the memorable events of our revolutionary war, the Constitution of a British Military Lodge fell into the hands of the American army; the generosity of a patriot and a mason instantly restored it, accompanied by a letter of the following import: "When the ambition of monarchs, or the jarring interest of contending States, call forth their subjects to war as masons, we were disarmed of that resentment, which stimulates to undistinguished desolation; and however our political sentiments may impel us in the public dispute, we are still brethren, and our professional duty part ought to promote the happiness, and advance the weal of each other.—Accept, therefore, at the hands of a brother, the Constitution of the Lodge Unity, No. 18, held in the seventeenth British regiment, which your late misfortune have put in my power to restore to you."