COUNTRY LODGE
"It was the funniest thing I ever saw!"
"What was?" asked the Old Tyler of the New Brother.
"That lodge meeting I attended in Hicksville. Listen, and I'll tell
you!"
"I'm listening. Anyone who can find a lodge meeting funny deserves to be
listened to!" answered the Old Tyler.
"The lodge room was funny!" began the New Brother. "Lodge rooms
ought to
have leather-covered furniture and electric lights, a handsome painting in
the east, an organ- be dignified, like ours. This lodge room was over the
post office. There were two stoves in it. And every now and then the Junior
Deacon put coal on! The Lesser Lights were kerosene lamps, and the Altar
looked like an overgrown soap box! The benches were just chairs, and they
didn't have any lantern or slides- just an old chart to point to in the
lecture.
But it wasn't so much the room, it was the way they did their work. You'd
have thought they were legislating for a world, not just having a lodge
meeting. Such preciseness, such slow walking, such making every move and
sign as if it were a drill team. There wasn't a smile cracked the whole
evening and even at refreshment, there wasn't much talking or laughing. I'm
glad to belong to a lodge where people are human!"
"Yes," answered the Old Tyler, "I expect it is."
"Expect what is?"
"Impossible for a New Brother to understand the work of a country
lodge,"
answered the Old Tiler. "What you saw wasn't funny. Listen- it is you who
are funny."
"Me funny? Why, what do..."
"I said for you to listen!" sternly cut in the Old Tyler. "I have
never
been to Hicksville, but I have visited in many country lodges and your
description is accurate. But your interpretation is damnable!
"Masonry is beautiful, truthful, philosophical, strives to draw men closer
to God, to make them love their fellow, to be better men. Is that funny?
The more regard men have for outward symbols, the more apt they are to have
regard for what is within. A man who won't clean his face and hands won't
have a clean heart and mind. A man who is slovenly in dress is apt to be
slovenly in his heart. A lodge which reveres the work probably reveres the
meaning behind the work.
"You criticize the Hicksville Lodge because it is too precise. Would that
our own was more so! The officers who have so deep a regard for appearances
can only have learned it through a thoughtful appreciation of what the
appearances stand for.
"You have been taught that it is not the externals but the internals which
mark a man and Mason. What difference can it make whether a lodge seats it
membership on leather benches or chairs, or the floor, or doesn't seat them
at all? Our ancient brethren, so we are taught, met on hills and in
valleys. Think you that they sat on leather benches, or the grass?
"It's good to have a fine hall to meet in. It's a joy to have an organ and
electric lights and a stereopticon to show handsome slides. But all of
these are merely easy ways of teaching the Masonic lesson. Doubtless
Lincoln would have enjoyed electric lights to study by, instead of
firelight. Doubtless he would have learned a little more in the same time
had he had more books and better facilities. But he learned enough to make
him live forever.
"We teach in a handsome hall, with beautiful accessories. If we teach as
well as the poor country lodge with its chairs for benches, its kerosene
lamps for Lesser Lights, its harmonium for organ, its chart for lantern
slides, we can congratulate ourselves. When we look at the little lodge
with its humble equipment, thank the Great Architect that there is so grand
a system of philosophy, with so universal an appeal, as to make men content
to study and practice it, regardless of external conditions.
"I do not know Hicksville Lodge, but it would be an even bet that they
saved up money to get better lodge furniture and spent it to send some sick
brother South or West, or to provide an education for the orphans of some
brother who couldn't do it for his children. In a country lodge you will
get a sandwich and a cup of coffee after the meeting, in place of the
elaborate banquet you may eat in the city; in the country lodge you will
find few dress suits and not often a fine orator, but you will find a
Masonic spirit, a feeling of genuine brotherly regard, which is too often
absent in the larger, richer, city lodge.
"I find nothing 'funny' in the dignity and the seriousness of our country
brethren. I find nothing of humor in poverty, nor anything but sweet
Masonic service in the Junior Deacon putting coal on the fire. Would that
we had a few brethren as serious, to put coal upon our Masonic fires, to
warm us all."
"You've put coals of fire on my head!" answered the New Brother,
"I
deserved a kicking and got off with a lecture. I'm going back to Hicksville
Lodge next week and tell them what they taught me through you."
"If you won't expect me to laugh, I'll go with you!" answered the Old
Tyler, but his eyes smiled.
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