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The excerpt represents the core issue or deciding factor on which you must meditate, and is drawn from The Ancient Regime by Charles Kingsley: impulse first given by Freemasonry, as much as that given by such
heroes as Stein and Scharnhorst, Germany shook off the chains which
had fallen on her in her sleep; and stood once more at Leipsic, were
it but for a moment, a free people alike in body and in soul.
Remembering this, and the solid benefits which Germany owed to
Masonic influences, one shrinks from saying much of the
extravagances in which its Masonry indulged before the French
Revolution. Yet they are so characteristic of the age, so
significant to the student of human nature, that they must be hinted
at, though not detailed.
It is clear that Masonry was at first a movement confined to the
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