The primary purpose of Masonry is often stated in this way:

Masonry takes good men and makes them better.

The major task of Masonry is to provide a setting and context in which men can seek their own spiritual development. Masons engage in a program for personal growth. A person usually joins Masonry because he feels that there is "something more" in life that he is missing. Masonry stresses a process of self-control and self-discovery. The rituals are used to teach the basic lessons of human duty and responsibility, including duty to one's faith, one's country, one's community, one's family and oneself.

But Masonry also has objectives in the world. We know the great truth in the line, "No man is an island." No person of integrity can be truly happy when those around him are in sorrow and suffering. No one can rest comfortably when he knows that want and need surround him.

Thus Masonry works to improve the world by improving the lot of the world's people. Masons give to help children see and read and learn and run and play. Masons give to help the elderly live lives of comfort and security. Masons work to make communities better and cleaner and happier.

Masonry tells its members that the growth they experience must be shared, for it is our objective that all men and women shall someday have the same freedom of thought and action which are taught in the Lodge.

Masonry supports the Constitutional separation of Church and State because we know that in nations in which the two are combined, either the one or the other becomes subservient and weakened.

Masonry has a purpose. The liberation of all people from fear, from hatred, from poverty and from tyranny.

It makes its changes one Mason at a time, but each Mason influences the lives of those around him. Like a pebble cast into a pool, Masonry reaches out to touch the lives of the world.