THE MAJESTY OF MANHOOD
The American Freemason - May
1912
Four centuries ago a Spanish patriot having yielded
after long and hopeless fight against oppression, was doomed to
death. While waiting the hour of execution he thus wrote his
wife: If your grief did not affect me more than my death,
I should now deem myself happy. For the end of life being
certain to all men, the Almighty confers a mark of
distinguishing favor upon that person for whom He appoints such
manner of death as mine, which though lamented by many, is
nevertheless acceptable and well to be borne by him. Don
John Padilla indulged in no heroics. The stresses and the crises
of his life and death were the real tests of his
heroism. As these lines are written the echoes of a great
tragedy are still to be heard, thrown back and forth between the
continents. Even morbid curiosity has been sated with the
details of unprecedented disaster that have come to us from
the engulfing seas. Here is no place, nor is mine the pen, to
repeat aught of the awful story. The elements have again
asserted their mastery over man, and have again made cruel
mockery of his strife against their strength. This is the hour
that comes, now and then to the generations - the hour of
humiliation and defeat, that so men may not in pride and
boastfulness forget their mortality, nor the frailty of their
handiwork. Yet though the elements may have dealt their
heaviest stroke, still is man the victor. For there as been thus
proven anew, in a time when perhaps new proof was needed, that
courage has not weakened, nor has the moral fiber of manhood
decayed. Peace and luxury and the worship of Mammon have, after
all, but hidden and disfigured with a false and thin veneer the
enduring qualities of courage and devotion and supreme
self-sacrifice. Again we know that in the moment of crisis men
can look with steady and level eyes into the very face of death,
and meet whatever be the blow of Fate with hearts unafraid. In
the image of God was man created, and the god-likeness has ever
shown clearest in moments of utmost peril. The story of
the Titanic disaster will live long in the consciousness of the
race. It will pass into the splendid record of the soul's
nobility, and will serve far in the future as incentive and
example. Among the tenderest, most cherished memories of the
nations will be preserved the picture of those gallant men,
holding back every show of grief while they parted from the ones
they loved, lest in the imminent moment these should lose all
heart and hope. Is Nelson's famous signal at Trafalgar more
worthy of remembrance by the English-speaking peoples than the
plain sea-captain's words, "Men, remember that you are
British!" These words had the inspiration of a bugle-call, and
common, un-named men, hearing the simple sentence, felt the
old pride of race, and were ready for any sacrifice. It is well
for the world," despite all croakings of pessimists, when among
such as these it can be shown that stamina and endurance and the
well-knitted texture of soul have not weakened, and that the
toiler can rise on call of occasion from the sordidness of life
to the full majesty of death. To the memory of the dead men of
that crew - the men of the engine-room, and the deeper places of
the fires, and those of the upper decks - there is needed no
monument. Because they died thus nobly, quietly, in the way of
duty, others of their kind and race will in times of peril yet
to be gain heart of courage. Never before, perhaps, in
the history of the world had sudden disaster applied the same
and highest test to men widely separated as the poles in thought
and manner of life - in all that life can mean. And never before
to such a test has the response given like exemplification of
the Brotherhood of Man. I can imagine in those last awful
moments that the millionaire, the man of letters, the soldier,
the seaman and the laborer drew nearer to each other, giving and
receiving courage. Each one stood fast in his place, or shrank
away, as he was endowed with or lacked the elemental qualities
of real manhood. Not as meek martyrs went those to death;
not as saints, with ecstatic vision fixed on Heaven, and
heedless of mortality. For most of them the future was filled
with promise and hope and love. Yet who can say for them a
nobler, more meaningful word than that they went to their
deep-sea grave as MEN. Out beyond the sinking ship were
the boats filled with agonized women and children. On the tilted
decks were those about to die, waiting with firm-set lips the
final plunge of that great palace of the sea. And on the still
night air rose the notes of the universal hymn, heard ever in
hours of trial or of helplessness or of sorrow, "Nearer My God,
to Thee!" To what more appropriate sentiment, or with what truer
stimulus to courage than is in the familiar cadences could
these men have died? The wild-eyed mob may be incited to
carnage and destruction by the fierce chant of the
"Internationale;" the soldier rush to the "imminent breach"
carried on by the battle-song of his race. But the man who
with stern-set face looks on the sudden-shown front of
death, will turn instinctively to that faith which has
ineradicable roots in every human heart. There were
Masons among those who thus died. Let us hope they were of those
who died well, manfully, and with quiet faith. How many of our
brothers perished I do not know. One of them I met a few months
ago in the Lodge room - the quiet, self-contained man, with all
the courtesy and high-bearing of a soldier. The survivors tell
us of his place in the last picture - of this brother leaning
out to the departing boats, the hat raised in instinctive
courtesy, speaking words of kindliness and cheer, and with a
smile upon his lips. I can best catch the spirit of that
leave-taking in these lines:
Whether we shall meet again,
I know not,
Therefore our everlasting farewell take; -
Forever and forever, farewell, Cassius!
If we do meet again,
why we shall smile, If not, why then this parting was well
made.
No carpet knight was this, but a prince among men; in
every way worthy to die in such gallant, goodly company. God's
benison be upon their souls! They were all our brothers -
ALL WERE MEN! back to top
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