A Charge at the Closing of a Lodge

Brethren:

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.