THE BUILDER MAGAZINE
July 1915
volume 1 - number 7
MASONIC MEMORIALS
BY BRO. GEO. W. BAIRD, P.G.M., D.C.
HISTORY is often
perverted in its memorials, and memorials are the enduring evidences which
impress the minds of generations and generations.
Few people take the
trouble to snake careful inquiry into even current events. Most of us read the
head-lines in the daily papers, and form hasty conclusions. Life is too short,
we say, to delve into details of much that is passing. The head-lines are often
ambiguous, and sometimes are contradicted in the text below them.
A monument or statue
to memorialize a man usually invites attention to his most important act, and
this is never lost sight of either by its projectors or by the artist.
In the Capital of the
Nation there are, in the Parks and Streets, more than 50 memorials of heroes,
idols, and events besides those under cover in the Public Buildings. Though more
than half of these memorialize men who were Masons, there is no Masonic emblem
nor word to indicate it, with one exception.
Enthusiasts are making
history. It has been said there is nothing true in history excepting the dates:
but it still continues.
The first statue
erected in Washington was that of Columbus, sculpted by the great Persico,
situated on the buttress on the east side of the Capitol. It shows Columbus in
the armor and the uniform he wore, as a discoverer, and the memorial is called
Discovery. The bust is a replique of one in Madrid, modeled during the life of
Columbus, and believed to be a good por trait. But, not satisfied with this, the
Knights of Columbus, Ancient Order of Hibernians et al. secured al appropriation
from Congress of $150,000 to erect an other statue of Columbus which is shown in
a cloak such as is worn by Monks, and even the portraiture is not at all like
that of Persico's statue. This is all the more remarkable since it has been
pretty well prover that Columbus was a Spanish Jew. Certainly he never wrote
excepting in the Spanish Language.
But our essay is upon
the effigies in the Parks of Washington, which memorialize Freemasons, though
that quality may be incidental.
So many of these
memorials are of military men that the stranger at once gets the idea that we
are a terribly war-like people, while we claim to be peace lovers.
Some of these
memorials are dual: there are two of Washington, two of Lincoln, and two of
Columbus.
The first and greatest
is that of Washington. An obelisk, square, upright and perfect, plain on the
outside, white and smooth; but on the inside there are sculptured memorial
stones, presented by States, Grand Lodges, Foreign Governments, Societies and
individuals. The site was selected by Washington himself, and is on the exact
meridian of Washington City, a mile due east of the Capitol, and is due south of
the Executive Mansion (now called White House.)
It was intended to
build it by subscription, and to make it 600 feet high; the highest structure in
the world: but the subscriptions ceased before the Civil War came on, when the
obelisk was but 54 feet high, and work ceased. The corner stone was laid by the
Grand Lodge of the District of Columbia on the 4th of July, 1848, and it was
dedicated by the Grand Lodge in 1885.
In 1882 Congress made
an appropriation to finish the Monument, and it then passed into Government
possession. It was determined that the foundation was not strong enough, and
Col. Thos. L. Casey, of the U. S. Engineers, was accorded high honor for the
masterly manner in which he accomplished the difficult work of underpinning and
strengthening the foundation, which he did before adding a single course of
stone. The shaft is 55 feet square at the base and 555 feet high. Its weight is
estimated at 81,120 tons. The walls, at the base, are 15 feet thick. There is
now an elevator in the monument, so its ascent is not hard. There is a spiral
stair case reaching nearly to the top from which stairs the many memorial stones
may be examined.
Among the first
contributions were beautiful stones from Masonic Lodges, from the States, many
cities, Societies, etc.
The memorial stones,
up to the present, number 151, but the Secretary of War has recently refused the
Grand Lodge of Louisiana the privilege of placing a stone, and has said he will
permit none others excepting from States.
From Individuals there
are 6 memorial stones.
From Militia Companies 6
From Fire Companies 8
From States, 7 Cities 50
From Labor Unions 8
From Benevolent Societies 1
From Masonic Bodies 24 memorial stones.
From the Red Men 2
From the Odd Fellows 10
Temperance Societies 4
Sons of America 1
S. of T.R.I. 1
Schools and Colleges 9
Whig Party 1
Washington Light Infantry 1
Dramatists 1
Ancient Order of Hibernians 1
Oldest Inhabitants 1
Sunday Schools and Churches 3
Medical Society 1
Cherokee Indians 1
Switzerland 1
Greece 1
Siam 1
Brazil 1
Turkey 1
China 1
Japan 1
Wales 1
Egypt 1
Newspapers 2
Masonic Memorial Stones are from the Grand Lodges of
District of Columbia, Ohio, Kentucky, New York, Maryland, Illinois, Alabama,
Pennsylvania, Virginia; and from Mt. Lebanon Lodge of Pa.; La Fayette Lodge of
N. Y.; Washington Lodge of Roxbury, Mass.; and Naval Lodge of D. C.
There were, at that
time, only 30 States in the Union, but, it will be seen, not all of the Grand
Lodges in those States presented Stones.
Many of the stones are
beautifully sculptured and lettered and bear the names and rank of the Grand
Officers. Some have patriotic and endearing inscriptions appropriate to the
subject.
----o----
THE MASONIC SIGN.
What fact more
conspicuous in modern history than the creation of a gentleman? Chivalry is
that, and loyalty is that. The word gentleman must hereafter characterize the
present and a few preceding centuries, by the importance attached to it, is a
homage to personal and incommunicable qualities. An element which unites persons
of every country; makes them intelligible and agreeable to each other; and is
somewhat so precise that it is at once felt if an individual lack the Masonic
sign, cannot be any casual product. It is made of the spirit, more than of the
talent of men, and is a compound result, into which every great force enters as
an ingredient, namely, virtue, wit, beauty, nobility, power.
- Emerson.
----o----
CHINESE WISDOM.
He who has no ambition
is like an ax without edge.
When you know yourself
thoroughly, you know every one else.
The last step must be
as steady as the first in climbing a hill.
Youth jumps and slips;
age picks its steps and crosses safely.
Be as cross to
yourself as you are to others; as sweet to others as to self.
If you insist on
everyone being like you, look in the mirror.
With learning, as with
weeds, get at the root.
Prejudice is the thief
of persuasion.
- J.S. Thomson. China Revolutionized.
THE MEMORIAL TO WASHINGTON
Address Delivered Before the George Washington Masonic
National Memorial Association
BY BRO. J. CLAUDE KEIPER, P.G.M., DISTRICT OF COLUMBIA
I am bidden by the
Worshipful Master of Alexandria-Washington Lodge to speak of the work of the
Washington Memorial Association, whose avowed purpose it is that here in
Virginia, not greatly distant from the place of his birth, nigh to the home he
loved and cherished, the hallowed spot where his ashes repose; here in
Alexandria, the community in which his Masonic virtues were best known and best
regarded, and where he presided as Master over the labors of his brethren, here,
even in the shadow of the church in which he worshiped, there shall rise a
memorial to the only man in all our history who was at the one time Master of
his Masonic Lodge and President of the United States, a national memorial to
Washington the Mason, a Craftsman who in no respect was ever unworthy of his
work.
It is not my purpose
to present to you statistical abstracts of the progress of the movement, the
number of grand jurisdictions which have approved it, nor the amount of the fund
so far collected for the purpose of the Memorial. These matters, important
though they best may well be left to the consideration of the devoted men who
constitute the Association and who are giving freely of their time and their
talents in what is to them a labor of love.
Monuments
commemorative of the patriotism of Washington, his valor and prowess as a
military leader, memorials designed to perpetuate his wisdom and virtue as a
statesman have been erected throughout all our land by a loving and grateful
people, but nowhere, so far as I know, save in the hearts of his appreciative
brethren, has there been erected a memorial of the character contemplated by
this Association.
Need I say more to
justify the work in which it is engaged? It is true that Masonic memorials to
individual brethren are comparatively rare and this is not because our
Fraternity has been influenced by a desire to conceal from public knowledge who
among the Nation's great have wrought greatly for the upbuilding of the Craft. I
take it that it is rather because Masonry has recognized the truth that
idealized conceptions in bronze and marble, however beautiful in themselves, can
avail little to add to the luster of a name or embellish an achievement, and
further that as an ancient and honorable institution it would be inconsistent
with its dignity to be boastful of the connection with it of any man, however
distinguished his career or exalted his station. It is our boast that in Masonry
all are on the one plane of perfect equality, and a remarkable illustration of
this is found in the life of Washington himself, concerning whom there was
published a few weeks ago in one of the Boston papers an incident telling how
he, the General of the American Army, was one day observed seated in the tent of
an Army Lodge as a mere member while a corporal presided therein as Master,
exemplifying thereby the basic principle of our Fraternity to which I have
alluded, a principle announced with undying emphasis by that other great
Virginian when he wrote into the Declaration of Independence, the assertion that
all men are created equal.
Therefore it is that
the Association for which I speak does not approach the erection of this
Memorial with the primary purpose of gratifying a vainglorious spirit. It is
true that one of the results of its work will be the proclamation to all the
world of Washington's connection with Masonry. But there are other and higher
aims and there will be other and higher results. One of them will be wholly
utilitarian, for within the memorial building will be provided a place of safe
deposit for the priceless relics that now adorn the Lodge room of the local
Masonic bodies. And what a splendidly personal interest in him do they inspire
in us as we reverently gaze upon them! More than that. How strong will be their
appeal, how profound their impression upon the brethren from the East and from
the West, from the North and from the South, as they gather in after years at
what I hope and believe will be the shrine of Freemasonry in the United States,
the Mecca toward which will be set the feet of Craftsmen in ever-increasing
thousands.
To present properly
another result let me go back to that time, now more than 150 years gone, when,
as a young man just attaining his majority, Washington first learned of Masonry
and its truths. Can any one doubt that its beneficent teachings exerted a
powerful influence upon a mind and character already predisposed toward them by
inherent morality and integrity ? An influence that was strongly felt and
plainly manifested in the formation, upon allied principles, of a government in
whose making there were associated with him so many Masons. Therefore it is that
this Memorial will symbolize more than his connection with our fraternity, proud
of it as we are and may rightfully be; therefore it is that over and above all
mere personal considerations it will stand a living monument to the benign
influence of Masonic teachings in the formation of a great government, under
which millions of free people have found happiness, obtained justice and through
which, under the providence of God, they and their posterity shall long enjoy
the blessings of untrammeled liberty.
My friends, seated
here tonight on the natal day of our revered brother and gathered for its
appropriate commemoration, I beg you to indulge me a moment further as I ask you
to go back with me in imagination to a similar occasion, exactly 90 years ago,
when Alexandria-Washington Lodge, on February 21,1825, entertained one of
Washington's best loved associates in the War for Independence, General La
Fayette. You are familiar with the details. Picture for yourselves that devoted
friend of Liberty entering the Lodge room clothed in the Masonic habiliments of
Washington. Picture the subsequent assembly around the banquet table and listen
to the toasts proposed. First, as a matter of course, was one to Washington,
extolled as First in cabinet, first in the field and first in the principles of
Masonry. Then one to the President of the United States, James Monroe, whose
name will ever be affectionately associated with the doctrine of preserving
American soil for the propagation of the principles of American liberty. And
then one to Our Illustrious Brother and Guest, La Fayette. His brethren take
peculiar pleasure in receiving him in that Lodge over which their beloved
Washington was pleased to preside. And now hearken to the response. Note that
it might well have been a prophecy of our present undertaking as he says, The
Masonic Temple of Alexandria, and the illustrious, venerated name under which it
has been consecrated. Surely in closing I can leave with you no higher wish
than that this saying of nearly a century ago may become the animating and
inspiring watchword of our whole Fraternity until its efforts to erect a
national memorial to Washington the Mason shall be crowned with complete
success.
THE MYSTIC LADDER
TRANSLATED FROM THE SPANISH BY THE LATE BRO. EDWIN A.
SHERMAN
THE mystic ladder pertains particularly to us as Knights
Kadosh, as the type of our order. It is composed of two ascents or supports that
remind us of the compact which took place between Philip the Fair and Pope
Clement the V, and the strength of that union which was given against our
predecessors. The reunion of the two ascents or supports, and the seven steps of
which it is composed, give an exact idea of the seven conditions which Philip
imposed on Beltian de Goth, when he was Archbishop of Bordeaux, to be seated in
the chair of St. Peter, when he obligated him to participate in the destruction
of the Knights Templars.
And so you likewise complete your obligations and swear
implacable hatred to the enemies of that Order which was the pattern of all the
virtues; and we now have the obligation of employing all our forces for the
total ruin of evil and priestly tyrants, upon whose heads must fall the blood of
Jacques de Molay and his martyred companions.
After the death of Benedict XI, which occurred on the 6th
of July, 1304, the cardinals assembled to elect a new Pope, and were divided
into two bands, one French and one Italian.
Philip the Fair, King of France, had projects which he
could not carry out without the assistance of the Pope who should be elected.
His party fomented the divisions in the conclave to favor his designs. He
ordered search to be made for Beltian de Goth, then Archbishop of Bordeaux, and
in the conference which took place he informed him of his projects and the power
he had to elect him Pope, affirming that an oath would be required of him to
execute seven propositions which would be made known to him excepting the
seventh which he had guarded in reserve until the moment of its execution.
Devoured by the heat of his ambition to be seated on the PONTIFICAL Throne, that
Prelate accepted the bribe and sold himself.
Philip made known to him the first six conditions, which
are foreign to the history of our order: and after having exacted and received
his oath for the execution of the seventh, and holding as hostages the brothers
and nephews of Beltian, the Archbishop arrived in effect to be Pope, and took
the name of Clement V. He established his see at Avignon, in France, where he
put in execution the first six conditions which he had accepted. When the
favorable moment arrived for the execution of the seventh, Philip the Fair
declared that it consisted in the total extermination of the Knights Templars
throughout all Christendom, which was done as far as possible in his power, and
that of the monarchs with whom he was allied.
Clement adopted the following ruse: He first caused a new
crusade to be preached in Europe, and even in Syria; he then sent the following
letter to Palestine to the Grand Master of the Templars and Hospitaliers:
"We inform you, my brethren, that we have been urgently
solicited by the Kings of Aragon and Cyprus for aid to the Holy Land. We order
you to come to France as secretly as possible, to deliberate with us. You will
also be careful to bring with you large sums to equip a numerous army."
Jacques de Molay, Grand Master of Templars, obeyed the
injunctions of the HOLY FATHERS; but Foulques de Villeret, the Grand Master of
the Hospitalliers, occupied with the siege of Rhodes, could not quit his army,
and thus delayed the ruin of his Order. The unfortunate De Molay sailed for
France, and by a trap, fell into the hands of his enemies. The Pope had agreed
that the Knights of the Temple should be arrested at the same time, in different
Christian Kingdoms, and that they should be handed over to the Inquisitors as
suspected of heresy: that their property should be seized in the name of the
church and that they should be put to death at the stake and upon the scaffolds,
after having been put to the torture to make them avow to imaginary crimes.
The execution of this frightful plot was not deferred: the
Pope informed the King of Aragon, Castile and of Portugal to annihilate the
Templars, and on the day appointed they were all arrested and plunged into the
dungeons of the Inquisition. The iniquity of the Judges was such that they
pardoned a murderer named Squin de Florian, who had been confined with a Knight
Templar, because he deposed that his companion had revealed to him the crimes
and impurities at the reception of Templars. Squin de Florian, the robber and
assassin was received at a public audience by Philip the Fair and Pope Clement
the V, laden with presents and glorified for his religious zeal.
After such encouragement to informers, thousands of them
arose on all sides and the duties of the Inquisitors became easier.
They were also sufficiently encouraged by Philip the Fair
and Clement the V who presided over an auto da fe. In Italy, Austria, Spain, and
particularly in France, a prodigious number of scaffolds were erected, which
consumed the unfortunate victims of the cupidity of a Pope and the avarice of a
King.
So perished the gallant De Molay, the last Grand Master of
the Templars, and his brave companions in arms, betrayed, imprisoned, tortured
and cruelly slaughtered by order of the Head of the Church and the Kings of the
realms.
These bloody executions having terminated the two execrable
tyrants divided between themselves the riches of the Templars. Philip kept the
land and Clement took all the ornaments of gold and silver, and the coined
money, which enabled him to reward the infamous panderings of his nephew and the
Countess de Foix.
But God had at last marked the end of the term of this
criminal existence. Whilst the Pontiff was being transported to Bordeaux his
malady increased; they were obliged to stop his litter at Roquemare on the
Rhone, in the Diocese of Nimes, where Clement died on the 20th day of April,
1314.
As soon as Clement the V had closed his eyes, his treasures
were pillaged. The cardinals seized on enormous sums of coined money. Bernard,
Count de Lornogne, nephew and minion of the dead Pope, carried off chalices and
ornaments worth more than a hundred thousand gold florins ($5,347,000.) The
Countess de Foix stole as her share all the jewels of the HOLY FATHER, and there
were no minions nor mistresses of the Cardinals who were not enriched by the
spoils of the Sovereign Pontiff.
Jean Villani says that "in the midst of this disorder in
which every one was so desirous of pillage, they only left an old traveling
mantle to cover the dead body of Clement, and that was in part consumed by a
candle falling on the bed where it lay."
For two whole years the Christian World was surrendered to
the most deplorable anarchy. Philip the Fair followed Clement to the grave and
the summons to them by De Molay at the stake "to meet him at the Bar of God
within one year" had been fulfilled. (Philip IV, the Fair, was born at
Fontainebleu, France, in 1268. He came to the throne in 1285. Crowned at Rheims
Jan. 6th, 1286. Died Nov. 29th, 1314, from an accident while hunting.) In 1316
James de Ossa (or "Jimmy Bones" as he was called) was elected Pope, by himself
placing the tiara on his own head, proclaiming himself Pope, by the name of
"John the twenty-second," on the 21st of September of that year. He established
the infamous "Apostolic Chancery" with a scale of prices for indulgences for
every sort of crime which by its extortion and greed prepared the way for the
light and dawn of the Great Reformation in the 16th century, until the sun of
Liberty burst forth at last over the world, creating new Nations on the
Continent of America, which free men and Freemasonry, amidst blood and tears,
have consecrated as their own and our own beloved Scottish Rite, from the birth
and organization of the American Republic and Nation, the United States of
America, which can never be dissolved. Cato Perpatria.
HOW TO STUDY FREEMASONRY
BY BRO. R. I. CLEGG, OHIO
(In the Symposium on this subject, the final installment of
which was published in our last issue, the writers dwelt, at our suggestion,
particularly upon the manner in which groups of students might enter upon the
many phases of Masonic study to best advantage. Herewith Brother Clegg brings
us, out of his wealth of Masonic experience, much that the individual student
may do for himself, and by himself. We know from our correspondence that his
article answers a question which from the beginning has been uppermost in the
minds of many of our members, and answers it in a most practical way. As to
method, Brother Clegg's presentation of the subject is simple and easily
followed, whether one has fellow-workers near at hand or not. The material for
study, as outlined, is as authentic as it is interesting, and therefore of great
importance. Also, he shows what needs to be kept in mind, that those
hard-working, practical men who do so much to strengthen and perfect the
organization of Masonry, though they may not be learned in books, are Masonic
students and builders.--The Editor. )
No easy task is it to give an answer that will fit all
cases. Everything depends upon the Freemason who is to do the studying of
Freemasonry and upon the particular angle of Freemasonry that appeals to him.
For that matter, how many of us would think alike as to what was most
interesting and most important? Even as to definitions of Freemasonry itself our
ideas will not uniformly run on parallel tracks.
So right here we may for convenience sake just as well say
that for the purpose of what I am about to set down at this time I will take
Freemasonry to be anything that has especial relationship to Freemasons. He that
knows himself to be a Freemason (and any member of the Craft fully knows how to
apply the needful tests) will also be aware that when Freemasonry is mentioned
here by me it relates specifically to him and to such as he and to none other.
Having already mentioned in these columns the very real
difficulty of preparing a narrow and precise definition of Freemasonry that will
meet the attacks of the most critical, I shall now as in the foregoing attempt
make it broad enough to include all possible points of interest to the brethren.
Just as we have seen the awkwardness of meeting everybody's
requirements as to the subject matter, so too we find that there is variety
galore in the students themselves. There are those Freemasons whose ideas about
the study of Freemasonry are singularly restricted. They associate study with
textbooks. To their view the studious Freemason is necessarily a bookworm. The
fact is that some most studious Freemasons are not book lovers.
Many of what I may term the executive class of Freemasons
are devoted students of the Craft and of every branch thereof. Of this
office-holding class filling all sorts of ritualistic positions and
responsibilities there is included a countless array caring little and heeding
less the historical accounts of the genesis of the various governing bodies. To
them the present and the future are of paramount importance. Engrossed as they
are in their personal affairs of business and the steady flood of labor in
initiations and in allied services, they have no time to spare for literary
enjoyment or for actual bookish research even if by any possibility they could
create in themselves a taste for it.
Research to a large extent they may pursue and yet not be
aware of it as such. Circumscribed as they are by the devotion of their energies
to the consideration of the fraternity's progress as bounded by their own career
and their own affiliations, these men oft write with no uncertain pen records of
lofty worth. Look you! What a wealth of study is woven into the construction and
the financing of the Masonic buildings myriadly dotted over this broad land of
ours! What eloquent histories are imperishably graven into these monumental
memorials! Every stone therein is an eternal tribute to the zeal of the few or
many students banded in the brotherhood of Freemasonry and whose joy it was to
house their ceremonies in a fitting home.
Furthermore, every man holding office in our mystic circle,
or expecting to at some time have an office and meantime preparing himself to
fill the place he anticipates, is to that extent a student and very often an
ardent student of Freemasonry.
It will thus be seen that there are various grades of
Masonic students. We have those whose chief concern is with the immediate
present and the near future, and then again we have those who look further
afield. How then shall we prepare a course of instruction that meets all the
requirements of the worthy brethren already mentioned and that will also serve
for those who seek to plumb other and deeper depths ? And that is not all the
difficulty. How shall we take due care of the many who have little to spend on
books and who must therefore make the most of a very limited outlay. Neither can
we overlook those of the unselfishly ambitious whose thoughts run lavishly
toward the founding of a library to be an appropriate adjunct to some Masonic
edifice of highest quality and purpose.
Begin at the beginning. Let us first assume you have no
books.
1. Get a Bible. It is easily first of all books in or about
Freemasonry. Preferably select one that opens out flat at any page. Very many
inexpensive Bibles are freely supplied with maps and other helps to the better
understanding of the text. A good Concordance is an excellent handbook to the
convenient study of the Bible. The Concordance is very useful in locating a text
of which you may not be able to remember more than one or two significant words.
You will find Biblical references to Solomon's Temple particularly interesting
in Chronicles and Kings, and on careful study you will probably agree with me
that a second Hiram, doubtless a relative of the first, was on account of some
mishap to his predecessor called in to finish the work.
2. Get the Masonic Codes published by the Grand Lodge and
the other Masonic bodies in which you hold membership. Many a time there arises
a knotty little question that provided you have the information at home will
enable you promptly to satisfy yourself as to the law. Very many of the
references will be found to throw a flood of light upon the development of our
jurisprudence. But whatever Codes you collect, omit not the one of your own
Grand Lodge. That is the fundamental Masonic law next to the moral code of the
Scriptures.
3. Get the Standard Monitor of your State. Some Monitors
are much more extended and elaborate than others. Especially do I admire the one
prepared by P. G. M. Wm. M. Shaver, of Topeka, for the Grand Lodge of Kansas. On
the Apron Lecture it is unusually valuable. But be sure and possess the one
approved by the Grand Lodge of your own State if you desire the one only.
4. Get the Concise History of Freemasonry written by
Brother R. F. Gould.
5. Get the Concise Cyclopedia of Freemasonry compiled by
the late Brother Hawkins.
Both of the above books are inexpensive and splendid
possessions. Gould's larger History and Mackey's really comprehensive
Encyclopedia are highly desirable additions to the above list but they are high
in price, though fully worth all they cost. The History of Freemasonry and
Concordant Orders is delightfully written and is a scholarly work. Mackey and
Singleton's History is in the same category. Gould's Concise History will fill
all the student's wants for some time.
So far I have paid attention to the larger class. I have
weighed the possibilities open to the brother whose desire runs easily ahead of
his modest pocketbook. We have contemplated something less than a ten-dollar
expenditure. Let us now deal briefly with those whose means are more ample.
(a) Write to the Secretary, Brother A. G. Pitts, Equity
Building, Detroit, Mich., for a copy, it costs only ten cents, of the Masonic
Curriculum reprinted by Palestine Lodge. This is the work of the late George
Speth of Quatuor Coronati Lodge, the justly celebrated research body of Masonic
students. If you can obtain all the books cited by Brother Speth you cannot but
possess a very useful working library.
(b) Write to Brother Frank Marquis, President of the
Masonic Library Association at Mansfield, Ohio, for a list of the volumes
collected by that enthusiastic body. The catalogue contains most useful
notations to many of the books and the list forms an example and a guide.
Please note that to secure all the foregoing works would
demand much time and about two thousand dollars for books.
(c) A subscription to the Quatuor Coronati Lodge, 2076, of
London, will bring a lot of information every year. Many of the Masonic bodies
on the membership list published by the Quatuor Coronati Lodge issue
publications of their own that are of decided importance. These are such
treasures as the works printed under the auspices of the German Union of
Freemasons, the Lodges of Research at Manchester and at Leicester, England; the
several Lodges of Installed Masters at Leeds and elsewhere in England; the
Masters and Wardens Lodge at Christchurch, New Zealand; the Masonic Bureau at
Neuchatel, Suisse (Switzerland); the Masonic Library Association at Cincinnati,
Ohio, and so on.
(d) President Scott Bonham of the latter organization
prepared some years ago a little handbook containing suggestions on the buying
and the reading of Masonic works, and he has also in the same treatise a very
good compilation of Masonic words that are frequently mispronounced.
(e) Let me not overlook a series of three cards devised by
Robert H. Corey, Registry Division, Post Office, Cincinnati, Ohio. These cards
list the topics that are of greatest pertinence to the young Freemason and they
may even be profitably handed to him one by one as he receives the lodge
degrees. These lists are admirable. As was to be expected, they give references
to such books as are easily obtained from the local Masonic library.
A good Masonic friend of mine once told me of having
invested some twenty-five dollars in books on Freemasonry and yet he could never
get up interest enough to read them. Evidently something else was wanted that he
did not buy with the books. Books are only a part of the thing. A taste must be
cultivated for the information.
My friend, himself, had out of his long experience a fund
of Masonic data that was and is very interesting to me. Undoubtedly there were
angles of Freemasonry that would have been entertaining and instructive to him.
What then was the fault with the books that he bought? They
did not fit. His purchase was no more appetizing to him than you would expect
any job lot of books to be to him or anyone else. Thus it is obvious that the
peculiar tendencies of the individual brother must be taken into consideration
or the road to learning will be dry as dust.
Therefore take notice that a worker in the Royal Arch
cannot but be keenly interested in the pamphlet on the Chapter Degrees prepared
by Dr. Wm. F. Kuhn of Kansas City. There is much charm in the books by Addison
and Porter for the Knight Templar. Robertson's Cryptic Rite is exceedingly
attractive to the devotee of the Council. Brockaway's History of Aurora Grata
has Scottish Rite importance far beyond the membership of that century-old
landmark among Eastern Masonic keepers of the faith. Ravenscroft's book upon the
Comacines is in all too small compass the effort of a Freemason of standing
among antiquarians to dig out of the remote past historical truths of
consequence to all of us. The many essays of George W. Warvelle of Chicago on
the Council and the Chapter and the Red Cross of Constantine are unique and ever
to be treasured by the fortunate to whom they travel. In the same class are the
productions of Librarian J. F. Sachse of the Grand Lodge Library at
Philadelphia. Of the several productions of General Albert Pike they are all to
be coveted, especially by the Scottish Rite Mason. These are but specimens of
what may profitably be added to the possessions of the brother whose peculiar
interests and connections require special information.
And finally, my brethren, let me not overlook in closing
the "Builders," by Brother Joseph F. Newton. It is charmingly written and
enumerates many references to further sources of Masonic light. Of general
appeal to all Freemasons it may well be deemed one the first selected for the
founding of a home library.
ON THE NATIONAL MASONIC RESEARCH SOCIETY
BY BRO. ROBERT TIPTON, IOWA
THE day in which we
live is presenting for Masonry an unequaled opportunity for service. By reason
of the many problems we are facing, Masonry can serve the common good as never
before. The riches of her Holy of Holies she can bring as a benign gift for the
uplift of man. Her truths can be told on highway and byway and her transcendent
hope for the abolition of human strife which in this latter day is measured so
much in blood and tears is not too far away to be realized. Her task indeed is
gigantic, but are her resources not mighty? And truth and justice are eternally
on her side. The establishing of the gracious world-wide brotherhood must no
longer be conceived of as a far off divine event. Masonic idealism with its
triune basic principle of freedom, toleration, and justice incorporated in the
economy of states, nations and empires, alone furnishes the foundation upon
which friendship, morality and brotherly love can become possible.
To create that human
and divine enthusiasm that will bring a mutual understanding of the rights of
men and nations stands then as the pre-eminent mission of Masonry today. We
rejoice in the knowledge of the part that Masons have played in great movements
of enlightenment in history. It is with sadness that we mark how the noblest and
bravest of our order have had to suffer for their conviction, how they were
stoned, starved and crucified. They lived when it required an unusual degree of
physical as well as moral courage to be a Mason. Let us hope that their glorious
example of heroism and their deathless passion for truth has not been in vain,
and may we, inspired by their zeal and love, be as true to our visions and
ideals, ready if needs be, to lay down our lives for them. Happily it is rare
that our modern prophets and teachers of truth are muzzled, but there stalks
throughout the land a mighty spirit that is opposed to the truth as Masons see
it, and history grimly warns us of the fanaticism of bigotry and its cruelties
and persecutions, so to awaken and teach and tell the truth that the world might
be better, because of its having lived, I conceive to be the great purpose of
the National Research Society.
II
We can all then expect
much, and heartily welcome the new society with its brilliant coterie of
leaders. In the spirit of scholarship, on the lofty plane of reason governed by
the spirit of charity, fairness and common sense can we alone hope to convince
the world of the rightness of Philosophy and Religion and Government as Masonry
declares it. I prophesy today that the new society will prove to be, in Masonry,
the most powerful agency of any for the realization of the universal ideal, if
our loyal and generous support is graciously and unselfishly given.
The fundamental appeal
of the new society is for the education - the higher education, if you please -
of Masons in all that pertains to Masonry. To insure an efficient understanding
of the place of the order in modern life through a studious research into the
traditions and work of the order, is its first great care. As I view its mission
the task assumes religious proportions. Can that indeed be called anything else
but religion, which enjoins us to govern our life and work by that of which the
Holy Bible, square and compasses are the symbols. The society then is assuming a
most serious and solemn engagement for the good of the order.
III
I presume it to be a
common experience among members of the Craft to find frequently among the
brethren a regrettably limited conception of the nature of Masonry. And no doubt
there frequently is to be found an unpardonable ignorance. Masonry. I feel, has
become popular and cheap and some of its glory has become shadowed by pins and
badges. Quantity has come to obsess quality. What if we had today to face the
sore trials of our Masonic forebears, think you that you would find among the
Craft, those whose physical and moral courage you question? It is a weighty tie
that binds us and such a one that demands the highest human excellence. Masonic
culture demands an intellectual morality, and this presumes capacity and desire
for learning on the part of the Masonic aspirant. Are we then asking the
unreasonable when we insist that our brother should know something of the
traditions, history and influences of the order. The wilful ignorance of the
mission of the order, especially when we find it among professors and ministers
and others who should manifest the scholarly instinct, is unpardonable. I
confess it often provokes me to question why they ever joined the order. Equally
sad to me is that enthusiastic Mason who sees nothing in the order but its lip
service, and who, having acquired such literal proficiency in the lodge ritual,
tries to convey the impression that the first, midmost and last of Masonry rests
in the possession of a good memory and a fair measure of dramatic instinct.
IV
It seems that a subtle
form of Pharisaism has crept into our midst - which makes much of pots and pans
and loud exclamations to the disparagement and neglect of the more abiding
things, the fruits of the spirit of our noble order. It becomes pathetic when we
view the unstability of our Pharisaism. Some one has said that the use of common
Masonic terms - hoary with age - frequently are void of meaning to these much
lauded proficient Masons. What, it is asked, is the meaning of Cowan and Cable
tow, and before the question those who have been solemnly instructed to
inculcate the principles of learning stand open mouthed in amazement, and it is
surely quaintly humorous if not ludicrous to often listen, as some of us
patiently do, to the sepulchral voices of many reverent Master Masons solemnly
speaking the words they have not the slightest knowledge of their meaning. It is
worse than the pious nonsensical chanting in the Latin of an ignorant priest. I
for one shall be happy to welcome the movement that will strive to banish the
antiquated terminology and render our ritual into easy unambiguous English.
This, however, is but a minor feature after all but it serves to indicate the
predominant feature of our order to so many Masons. To a multitude of initiates
I often fear the Craft is nothing but a big club, something from which to
acquire prestige, a sort of a mutual aid society without the usual
embellishments of commercialism - good enough as a religion since its
observances are on a religious plane, yet not religion. O, I tell you the
absurdities of conception born of ignorance is appalling. Let us wake up and
rudely shock the Craft into the sobriety of thought that will make every man
understand how serious and holy a thing it is to be a Mason, and how necessary a
knowledge and love of Masonry is to the need of the world.
The National Research
Society is heralding a new day and Masonry is to be congratulated on the
response of her sons - her scholar sons - whose great hope and supreme desire is
to make scholars of all Masons - for in character the New Society is a
University, and it, leaders for the most part are University bred men whose
single passion is the good of the order, and more, even convincing the world by
its words and deeds that Masonry is for the world. I have no desire to be
iconoclastic and it may seem that I have been so, in arraigning the deficiencies
I see in our midst. I plead to but one ambition, even the laying on Masonic
hearts the fact that we are too indifferent to the deeper nature of our Order,
and that the work of the new Society necessitates the loyal support of every man
in our midst. In this alone appears to me to be possible the invigorating of our
organic life so that we may vindicate before the world our claim to being the
greatest benefactor of the race.
----o----
CONTENTMENT.
Let us learn to be
content with what we have. Let us get rid of false estimates, set all the higher
ideals - a quiet home; vines of our own planting; a few books full of the
inspiration of genius; a few friends worthy of being loved, and able to love us
in return; a hundred innocent pleasures that bring no pain or remorse; a
devotion to the right that will not swerve; a simple religion empty of all
bigotry, full of trust and hope and love - and to such a philosophy this world
will yield all the joy it has.
- David Swing.
A MASONIC LESSON FROM A RAINDROP
BY CHARLES N. MIKELS, P. G. M. OF INDIANA
The Sun was created a long time before it was even
partially understood. Those who were blind thought that its purpose was to
"dispense light." Much was said about light. Somebody learned that Sahara was a
desert and yet had an ocean of light. The desert lacked something practical.
Then people conceived the idea that maybe the Sun had more
than one purpose; that it made heat and power; that heat and power were
necessary to make light serviceable; that heat made raindrops and raindrops made
power.
Unintelligent observation nearly spoiled the reputation of
the Sun. He seemed to many, to peep over the horizon simply to flirt with the
wavelets of the sea. He stimulated them until they were ready to fly to pieces.
He called them pet names in vibrations so rapid that human ear could not
register them. The wavelets wanted something genuinely hot. They wanted to get
near something which had a burning heart. Finally the sea submitted to a change
of form and part became something better. The sea vaporized and the vapor
aspired to the Sun.
This Maker of Light caused a never-ending modification of
conventional water. The vapor climbed on steps of air until it obscured the
light of the Sun itself. Then it received "a new name" and was called a Cloud.
Even the clouds are misunderstood. They drift and drift
until they strike against a cold and fruitless mountain top. The immovable
mountain could not understand a change. The cloud meant to softly caress the
mountain and moisten its dry brow, but there was no welcome. The clouds were
chilled. This drifting dust of the sea shrank and crowded together in
sensitiveness; centralized in sympathy; had no real helpfulness until it did
centralize. A raindrop fell as a result.
The cloud died in giving birth to a raindrop. While it
fell, a sunbeam from the heart of the Sun, shot into the raindrop, ran around
its walls, saw that it was an improvement over the sea and came out a rainbow of
Hope with a message of Change. It seems odd that God cannot be satisfied with
things as they are but must put on a policy of change. Even a rainbow changed
sunbeam.
Crazy with disappointment, the raindrop started down the
mountainside, homesick for the sea. It traveled in foreign countries. It dodged
around boulders which hindered its progress. No immovable "forms" could stop it.
It saw other homesick raindrops and "joined" them in a common purpose. Enough of
them form a tricklet, a streamlet, a rivulet, a river, yet a river is nothing
but a few million heart-sick raindrops sprinting for their cradle in the sea.
A raindrop has a "rough and rugged road to travel from the
mountain top of yesterday to the sea of tomorrow. It is little but it is mighty.
It is slow, but is persistent. Harness a raindrop to the horns of Gravitation
and it will dig a canyon. But what use has the world for a canyon, a big gash in
the bosom of earth, which has to be bridged or stop travel? A canyon is a
purposeless, brainless, heartless monument to waste energy until you make
another change.
Fraternalize a raindrop, a grain of sand and a changed sea
shell and you can dam a canyon which is an unused opportunity. Then you can turn
the canyon's liquid energies into heat and light and power. You have to add head
and heart and hand to do it. You put the hoe of purpose into the hands of
intelligent method under the direction of common-sense and imagination, to get a
new result out of old forces in a new way.
Twin raindrops as alike as two peas, did two things. One
acted conventionally and caused waste. The other sprung an innovation and warmed
the world.
There is a lodge room on the banks of the Niagara River, in
which to learn many mysteries. Its covering is a clouded canopy or starry-decked
Heaven. Many have paid an initiation fee in car fare and hotel bills to visit
it. A few people "work" there. A few return. The great majority of initiates
never come back. All wear an indistinct memory as a badge of membership.
The Falls are one of the mysteries of God. Many have
admired its age. Some have been awed with its tireless voice of Omnipotence.
Others marvelled at its unmastered might. Generally people had no practical
purpose when they went there and had none when they left. The river was nothing
but raindrops and the Falls were nothing but a jump of raindrops which could not
wait.
After the centuries had grown weary with waiting for God to
tell some man what is the great mystery of the Falls, an innovator stood on the
same spot and saw the same sights. The waste challenged his wit and opened his
heart. God whispered to him that the Falls were meant to be used, and not looked
at merely. Wonderful, age-old mystery! Practice, and not theory!
This spectator talked about changing the situation. Every
sightseer who had no ideas, called him crazy. This particular spectator decided
that God created Niagara River and Niagara Falls for a practical purpose; that
the purpose had never been seen or had been forgotten; that God never meant
waste of time or opportunity or power.
In his sincere simplicity this unconventional,
unsophisticated soul had heard of people who said often and far and wide, that
the thing they most desired was "light," "more light," "further light." He
thought that they meant it, but they didn't; they merely wanted to talk about
wanting it. There it was running away, enough to answer their wildest dreams and
not a soul would permit the answer to their own wishes because it came in a new
way. They did not see the end from the beginning. They had no imagination. They
did not know how. The idea was too big for them to grasp easily and at once.
This sightseer was obsessed by the thought that he had had
a wireless message from God; that he alone understood the situation. He
suggested that some of these Niagara raindrops be diverted to practical uses
instead of stereopticon views.
What a storm of indignation broke upon his head! Change is
never practical in prospect. An established change is a habit. The Falls were
perfect as they were. Let well enough alone. They are as they were yesterday.
That is good enough for tomorrow. He was laughed at but the laugh did not take.
He fought first to get the world used to the idea. It did get used to his
thought. Nothing can head off, permanently, the reign of a sound idea.
This fellow, who was of no official importance, argued that
a practical engineer should dream out the details of a practical plan to cause
raindrops to manufacture and deliver light and to deliver heat and power with
light. He argued for a constructive instead of a "stand pat" policy. He argued
that men with burning hearts should replace men who sit on the brakes of
progress. He argued for a central light plant instead of the raindrop system.
Everybody said that there could be none, because there had been none. But there
was.
What difference did it make to this innovator that the
President, Senators, Congressmen, Governors, Legislatures, all the officiary of
habit, were against him! What difference did it make because those who want
ideas digested and fed to them as if they were young mental robins, insisted on
sleeping in comparative darkness, on the brink of a good thing! It was his
business to wake them. He was talking about the purposes of God. God wanted the
world to actually and really have more light, heat and power.
The world did not care what God wanted. People wanted that
to which they were accustomed. The bottomless canyon of habit intervened.
Niagara Falls had always been "an ancient landmark" of waste, and waste is a
virtue when it is old enough.
People of petrified purposes fought him, doubted him,
hindered him. The dynamic heart of this custodian of God's purposes of
helpfulness, hammered the idea into the heads of men for their own good. He
literally hammered, repeated, reiterated until he forged the key of attention
which opened the door to their brain cells so that an idea could walk in. He
aroused interest; study followed; purpose ripened; judgment acquiesced; some
assisted. Everybody knows what happened. The right was permitted to prove that
it was right. The right prevailed. The logic of efficiency conquered. The
raindrops were commanded to turn aside. They co-ordinated for the benefit of
man. These sovereign, independent raindrops were organized and directed by a
combination of masterful intelligences possessed of a combined purpose.
More light and heat and power followed. Everybody is used
to the idea today, hence it is safe. Men of those days shied at this practical
idea of helpfulness just as western broncos shy at a stray page from the Bible.
The bronco does not understand the Bible. He never tried. If he knew anything he
knew that the usual place for a page of the Bible is in a property room of a
Church, home or Lodge. An active page from the Bible in a strange place has to
be explained to men even.
God has plenty of time to wait and he has plenty of
patience. Man has but three score and ten years so he has to be in a hurry to
see ideas bud, blossom and bear fruit. The persistence of this dreamer of
innovations, made him a pest to all whose heads were asleep.
And yet all but this dreamer were mistaken. It did not hurt
the world nor mar Niagara Falls to change its purpose and plans. There was less
light when these raindrops had no leadership. Light is applied theory. It is
intelligent practice. Heat is not frenzied fancy. It is useful every day and not
merely on Saturday night on or before full moon. Power is not fiction. It is
fact, helpful fact. It is sane to secure more light, to secure aggressive heat,
to increase power by change.
With the potential power of a river of God's, Masonry has
rambled and twisted through the bed of two speculative centuries without the
direction of organized premeditation. To change the figure, it has plowed a
great furrow in history. But it never had a headplowman who knew anything about
intensive farming.
Masonry has stood pat in the face of God's manifest policy
of evolution, and has prided herself on the fact. It even glories in repeating
words, phrases, paragraphs, degrees which have lost their fitness like the
Fellow Craft's degree.
Four or five times in these centuries, some incarnation of
Fortitude, has dared to challenge the perfection of Masonry just as Preston did.
He was an innovator. He was a Masonic heretic demanding the light of education.
He made a change, a radical change, a helpful change. We are used to his change
now, so we forgive him, we applaud him. New styles in thoughts, ideas, practice
and purposes are no more popular than new shoes. Maybe the shoes will not fit.
When soles wear out, you have to get new ones or go to bed and sleep.
Preston jarred the brain cells of his co-temporaries. He
compelled them to think. He compelled them to think when they did not wish to
think, of things with regard to which they did not wish to think. So did Krause,
Oliver and Pike. They should have been expelled as disturbers of the age-old
peace. Why in the world, did they not let well enough alone? Wasn't Masonry
growing in numbers fast enough; collecting initiation fees enough, wearing
badges enough, building enough Temples ? What more could you want ! Practical
purposes of the heart are less easily understood than practical purposes of
dollars.
Your National Masonic Research Society isn't an innovation.
No one need to be afraid. You have simply jumped back one hundred and fifty
years to get a little of the purposes of Preston. You have resurrected a part of
a dead purpose. He talked of education in general. You talk of Masonic education
in particular. This purpose is narrow enough to be safe. Certainly you are safe.
God is probably applauding you while we fear lest you let the logic of Truth
guide you fearlessly, no matter where it takes you. You might find out what God
meant Masonry to do and be and how.
You cannot prevent our learning at least one thing from
Preston, Krause, Oliver and Pike. They slipped the straight jacket of habit from
their minds and hearts. They proved that there is a mental peace which is
stagnation.
Masonry has an unpremeditated and unspeakable
responsibility because it has permitted nearly 2,000,000 men in this country
alone, to pass its ritualistic doors. If Masonic Truth is being eagerly,
frequently, heartily, personally incorporated in the lives of 90 per cent of
these members, under the direction of Grand Masters, Past Grand Masters and
Grand Lodge Officers, Masonry is a practical, vitally effective fraternal order
and these officers should be crowned with "Well done."
If you have to drum up quorums, apologize for lack of
attendance and interest when degree work is done, if scarcely 10 per cent of the
2,000,000 members get under the influence of Masonry at all, there is a lack of
heat and power at least.
Sovereign raindrops running independently through a channel
of habit, without real purpose, without practical plans, without power, without
head, call for another of God's inspired changes.
Runaway raindrops are an emblem of waste. Waste is
inefficiency. Masonry is a progressive science if there is progress. Does it fit
the modern heart or is there a lot of lost motion? Is Masonry efficient? Could
it be made better? Can you make it better? Will you make it better? How?
The first thing to do is to get your Masonic bearings.
Understand it as it is. Is Masonry efficient?
----o----
THE MYSTERY OF WORDS WELL SAID.
There is a mystery of words well said,
And many labor in that craft; but few
Avail to win the worship which is due
The Master, of his work accredited.
To some the days their own fulfillment bear,
Night healeth all their languors, and content
Sweetly attends their task's accomplishment--
A measured portion, and an equal care.
But these are not the Master--not the priest
Of those high mysteries of words well said;
But lesser workmen, toiling in his stead:
For evermore his travail is increased
Until that he shall frame that greater Word
Whereat, sublime and perfect, walks the Man;
As once where Pison and Euphrates ran
Eastward from Eden, garden of the Lord.
--John Edmund Barss.
----o----
THE INNER LAW.
For the commandment is not hidden from thee; neither is it
far off. It is not in heaven that thou shouldst say, Who shall go over the sea
for us, and bring it to us, that we may hear it, and do it? But the word is very
nigh unto thee, in thy mouth, and in thy heart, that thou mayest do it.
--Deuteronomy XXX.
----o----
THE POWER OF LOVE.
Alexander, Caesar, Charlemagne, and myself have formulated
empires. But upon what did we rest the creations of our genius? Upon Force.
Jesus Christ alone founded his empire upon Love, and at this moment millions of
men will die for Him.
--Napoleon.
----o----
FOUNDATION STONES
BY BRO. FRANK L. HAYCOCK
ANOTHER year has ended: another year has commenced. If the
old year has had its lessons for us, let us hope the new will have even more.
And though we may not hope to make Masonry different, or more than what it is,
and has been, we may still strive to come in closer contact with its principles
and precepts, and seek its secrets still deeper, that we may have a better
understanding of its hidden meaning.
For there is a hidden meaning yet. Let no brother presume
to have grasped the meaning of all of our ceremonies: let no one think that the
lectures so far as they go in our three degrees of symbolic Masonry are even
intended to convey the true meaning of our initiatory ceremonies.
In Masonry, as in the arts and sciences, "there is no Royal
road to learning." What we learn we must seek for: what is buried we must
uncover.
But as was the case with our traditional sprig of Acacia,
the place is marked, the way is pointed out, the line is drawn that we may or
must follow. If we lose the road it is our own fault. If the real secrets
persist in remaining heled, we must dig if we would find them. Rubbish must be
cleared away. Our highest reasoning powers must be invoked; and the best that is
in our intellect be brought to bear.
As I went over in my own mind what I might have to offer to
the brethren on this occasion, I was minded to give it the title "Foundation
Stones"; and later I was reminded of a little verse from our Great Light; and
the thought struck me that any discourse pertinent to Masonry, must of
necessity, partake somewhat, if not fully, of a moral or at least of an ethical
nature; and I wondered if a text would be out of place. If not, then the text I
would take, or rather the text I would in my humble way endeavor to enlarge
upon, is in Proverbs, and reads, "In all thy ways acknowledge Him, and He shall
direct thy paths." And in Proverbs also by the way, there is another verse that
is applicable, which says, alluding to wisdom and understanding:-- "Her ways are
ways of pleasantness and all her paths are peace." This verse is a poetic gem by
itself, but the thought in it is far grander than all the poetry that was ever
written.
To those whom I fail to impress with what I am about to
say, I would recommend a reading of that beautiful book of Proverbs, especially
the 2nd, 3rd and 4th chapters.
When we leave the Apprentice degree behind, with its
teachings of Morality and Virtue, and arrive symbolically at the foot of the
winding stairs, many things are pointed out to us that demand our close
attention if we would improve our opportunities. Unfortunately, it seems, there
is so large a scope covered within a short time dealing with the different arts
and sciences, that even with the closest concentration, most of us are unable
when we hear it, for even many times, to retain or grasp its connection with
Masonic principles.
This is confirmed in my mind by an incident that occurred
in this very Lodge many years ago, when. I heard one of the principal officers
of our Grand Lodge remark, speaking of this degree, that, he "could write a
better degree himself."
But when within the middle chamber, the meaning of the
letter "G" is explained to us, we should then begin to conceive the true import
of the meaning of various things. I shall always contend, that while the lodge
may be as its members make it, Masonry itself is founded so firmly, and rooted
so deeply in enduring verities, that if all of one lodge, or of many lodges
should depart almost wholly from everything Masonic, but its forms and
ceremonies, yet no one could justly say that Masonry is as Masons make it. It is
the fact of its "Foundation Stones" that I seek to show - the fact that it has
endured so long conclusively proving their existence.
All through this degree the attempt is made to link
together, operative and speculative Masonry; and we are told near the end,
speaking of geometry and architecture, "Geometry, the first and noblest of
sciences is the basis upon which the superstructure of Masonry is erected."
To my mind, that does not mean just what it says. The
superstructure of Masonry was never erected upon a simple science; but, the
application of geometry to the science of astronomy did, by determining the fact
of a regular and systematic order in the movements of the heavenly bodies,
inspire in men's minds a greater, firmer, and a larger respect for a supreme
governing power whom we sometimes term the Grand Artificer of the Universe.
Later we are told:--"A survey of Nature and the observation
of her beautiful proportions, first, &c--
This idea of a foundation is something that all men have
inherently considered. We have always sought to know what was at the bottom of
things. It is natural for man to turn to the acquisition of wisdom when purely
animal wants and desires are satisfied. In this one thing more than in anything
else, man differs from the rest of the animal kingdom. And, as one generation
thrives upon the gathered knowledge and accumulated wisdom of those who have
been before, we pay our debt to humanity by adding a little bit more and passing
it to posterity.
The first architect, what of him? His first structures were
made with the idea of stability and security, if we are to believe the tales
told of the cave-men. Then probably came rude huts with growing trees used as
corner posts, poles from one to the other, and other poles on them, a covering
of wild grass or skins for roof, brush woven together for walls. As architecture
advanced, men were not satisfied with what was purely for utility in dwellings
and structures, and the idea of ornamentation crept in; and this at times in the
past has been carried to such an extreme, that the cheap and gaudy
embellishments of certain periods would seem ridiculous in a building of today.
Some of our plainest structures, that follow symmetrical lines, we now consider
the most pleasing to the eye.
But even in our towering buildings with their noble spring
of arch, piercing of sky-line, heavy cornice, and symmetrical ornaments, do we,
in admiring their general pleasing effect to the eye, consider what the
architect was forced to consider! namely, the solid foundation on which it must
rest, and the strength so cunningly hidden, to form the support of its towering
superstructure? A tall, beautiful building, shorn of what goes to make up its
general finished appearance, has about as much beauty as a hay rack. The extreme
height of some of the structures of today, demand extremes in foundations, and
these go deeper and yet deeper, and the builder is but following natural laws in
his plans and provisions.
And here is the lesson that architecture teaches to
Masons--that we should embellish and adorn our minds with useful knowledge; but
that our principles should conform to the laws of God, as the architect's plans
conform to the laws of nature and of physics. The Masonic edifice is founded on
firmest supports, else we could not build thereon. We cannot build without
starting squarely over and upon these underlying truths and fundamental
principles.
As it is with Masons, so with all society and the State as
a whole; for what is good for Masons is good for all. Masonry may be big enough
some day to embrace all mankind. I have no doubt but what it will when mankind
shows itself worthy. I believe that Masonry in its inception, (that is, modern
Masonry) was intended to be helpful to society, to improve the social state,
through inspiring in men's minds, the necessity of considering the existence of
a supreme Being who was all wise--who had prescribed laws for all human acts-
-who, to discourage men from attempting to rear an artificial state, had so
arranged things that men might not with impunity ignore the least of his laws--
that any infringement, any departure from what the "great intelligence" had said
should be, would result only in confusion and suffering.
As one writer has put it, "the core and essence of our
belief is, that there is in social relations, as in physical relations, a law,
an order, a law which everywhere coincides with the divine law, an order which
shows intelligence and beneficence."
As society grows and becomes more complex, we, who
superintend the building must, if we are true Masons and real builders, go more
and more to the bottom of things--seek further and further for the governing
laws which we are taught exist--endeavor with all the intelligence at our
command to interpret the true meaning of the search for the "Master's word."
The higher we go in the scale of civilization, the deeper
we must delve into the question of what supports it, just as, the higher the
architect goes up with his structure, the deeper he must go down with
foundation.
I consider it a privilege and an honor to be placed with a
society whose fortune it is to make men wiser, better, and consequently happier.
It should be a noble work, and to do it and do it well, the "foundation stones"
should be sought out and securely placed.
If our acts, either as an individual or as a Lodge, or in
the State and the community as a whole, will bear the supreme test of having
"acknowledged Him" let us not think it strange that the result is misery and
suffering, and poverty with all its attendant ills.
We are but children of one Father, Brotherhood and
interdependence are but facts in Nature. Our simplest reasoning powers,
following the lines of least resistance, are our surest guide, and lead us into
safest paths. One writer has truly said "No consecrated absurdity could have
stood its ground in this world, if the man had not silenced the objections of
child."
Vanity makes fools of us all. Who are we anyway, that we
should do aught but be guided by our Creator in all our ways? Does any man come
into this lodge, subscribing to his belief in the existence of, and
acknowledging that he puts his trust in a Supreme being, imagine that he has any
powers whatever, except those with which he is endowed by God? All that man is
existed before he ever saw the light. The very elements that compose his
physical being were tangible matter long ago; and may have been used by other
earthly inhabitants, and may be so used again and yet again.
If man has power independent of what he draws from nature,
or if his inner intellect is other than a part of God, then indeed we all are
gods. But such is not the case, "As a swallow darting through thy hall, such, O!
King is the life of man."
In this world we live in, nothing escapes, nothing
elementary is ever, or has ever been, waste or, destroyed.
We do not change the form, location, and shape of things.
In this short life of ours we either do, or do not, add to the sum of human
knowledge; and what more laudable than to study who we are, where we came from,
why we are here, and what it is intended that we should do? How may we better
pay our debt to those who were before us, than to bequeath to those to come, a
larger store of understanding, something to assist them in the problems that
will constantly confront them?
If we build upon the sands, or if we use not "foundation
stones" true and tested, then our lives have been for naught, our work of no
avail. We not only have done nothing, we have made accomplishment more difficult
for those who follow us, as they must first wreck what we have built and lay the
foundations true and solid, in order that the fabric of that temple, erected to
God, and dedicated to the holy Saints John, may rise true and plumb, and endure
forever in the Kingdom of God.
EDITORIAL
(The Builder is an open forum for free and fraternal
discussion. Each of its contributors writes under his own name, and is
responsible for his own opinions. Believing that a unity of spirit is better
than a uniformity of opinion, the Research Society, as such, does not champion
any one school of Masonic thought as over against another; but offers to all
alike a medium for fellowship and instruction, leaving each to stand or fall by
its own merits.)
THE TRESTLE BOARD.
AFTER six months
service as Editor of the journal of this Society, it may not be amiss to look
back for a moment and see how far we have come and what has been done, keeping
in mind the original designs on the Trestle Board. Detailed report of the
activities of the Society has been made by its Secretary, and what we give here
are some impressions which have come to us in the course of our labors. Editors
have their troubles, so we infer from the preface to the Masonic Calendar of the
Province of Buckinghamshire, England, in which the Editor of that volume says:
They say a reasonable
amount of fleas is good for a dog - keeps him from brooding over being a dog,
maybe. And so I suppose a reasonable amount of worries is good for an Editor -
keeps him from brooding over being an Editor, maybe. With some Secretaries gone
to the war and others gone to the dogs, with some of the old ones that are left
gone out of their senses and some of the new ones never having had any senses to
go out of, the compilation of the Calendar for 1915 will stand out forever it my
memory as one of those rugged hilltops, like measles and matrimony and first
cigars, which one does not want to have to climb more than once during life's
weary pilgrimage.
Happily we have met no
such fate, albeit our exper | 
