The Builders Part 14

II

Recalling the emphasis of the foregoing pages, it need hardly be added that Masonry is in no sense a political party, still less a society organized for social agitation. Indeed, because Masonry stands apart from partisan feud and particular plans of social reform, she has been held up to ridicule equally by the unthinking, the ambitious, and the impatient. Her critics on this side are of two kinds. There are those who hold that the humanitarian ideal is an error, maintaining that human nature has no moral apt.i.tude, and can be saved only by submission to a definite system of dogma. Then there are those who look for salvation solely in political action and social agitation, who live in the delusion that man can be made better by pa.s.sing laws and counting votes, and to whom Masonry has nothing to offer because in its ranks it permits no politics, much less party rancor. Advocates of the first view have fought Masonry from the beginning with the sharpest weapons, while those who hold the second view regard it with contempt, as a thing useless and not worth fighting.[168]

Neither adversary understands Masonry and its cult of the creative love for humanity, and of each man for his fellow, without which no dogma is of any worth; lacking which, the best laid plans of social seers "gang aft aglee." Let us look at things as they are. That we must press forward towards righteousness--that we must hunger and thirst after a social life that is true and pure, just and merciful--all will agree; but they are blind who do not see that the way is long and the process slow. What is it that so tragically delays the march of man toward the better and wiser social order whereof our prophets dream? Our age, like the ages gone before, is full of schemes of every kind for the reform and betterment of mankind. Why do they not succeed? Some fail, perhaps, because they are imprudent and ill-considered, in that they expect too much of human nature and do not take into account the stubborn facts of life. But why does not the wisest and n.o.blest plan do more than half what its advocates hope and pray and labor so heroically to bring about? Because there are not enough men fine enough of soul, large enough of sympathy, sweet enough of spirit, and n.o.ble enough of nature to make the dream come true!

There are no valid arguments against a great-spirited social justice but this--that men will not. Indolence, impurity, greed, injustice, meanness of spirit, the aggressiveness of authority, and above all jealousy--these are the real obstacles that thwart the n.o.bler social aspiration of humanity. There are too many men like _The Master-Builder_ who tried to build higher than any one else, without regard to others, all for his own selfish glory. Ibsen has shown us how _The Pillars of Society_, resting on rotten foundations, came crashing down, wounding the innocent in their wreck. Long ago it was said that "through wisdom is an house builded, and by understanding it is established; and by knowledge shall the chambers be filled with pleasant and precious riches."[169] Time has shown that the House of Wisdom must be founded upon righteousness, justice, purity, character, faith in G.o.d and love of man, else it will fall when the floods descend and the winds beat upon it. What we need to make our social dreams come true is not more laws, not more dogmas, not less liberty, but better men, cleaner minded, more faithful, with loftier ideals and more heroic integrity; men who love the right, honor the truth, worship purity, and prize liberty--upright men who meet all horizontals at a perfect angle, a.s.suring the virtue and stability of the social order.

Therefore, when Masonry, instead of identifying itself with particular schemes of reform, and thus becoming involved in endless turmoil and dispute, estranging men whom she seeks to bless, devotes all her benign energy and influence to _enn.o.bling the souls of men_, she is doing fundamental work in behalf of all high enterprises. By as much as she succeeds, every n.o.ble cause succeeds; by as much as she fails, everything fails! By its ministry to the individual man--drawing him into the circle of a great friendship, exalting his faith, refining his ideals, enlarging his sympathies, and setting his feet in the long white path--Masonry best serves society and the state.[170] While it is not a reformatory, it is a center of moral and spiritual power, and its power is used, not only to protect the widow and orphan, but also, and still more important, to remove the cause of their woe and need by making men just, gentle, and generous to all their fellow mortals. Who can measure such a silent, persistent, unresting labor; who can describe its worth in a world of feud, of bitterness, of sorrow!

No one needs to be told that we are on the eve, if not in the midst, of a most stupendous and bewildering revolution of social and industrial life. It shakes England today. It makes France tremble tomorrow. It alarms America next week. Men want shorter hours, higher wages, and better homes--of course they do--but they need, more than these things, to know and love each other; for the questions in dispute can never be settled in an air of hostility. If they are ever settled at all, and settled right, it must be in an atmosphere of mutual recognition and respect, such as Masonry seeks to create and make prevail. Whether it be a conflict of nations, or a clash of cla.s.s with cla.s.s, appeal must be made to intelligence and the moral sense, as befits the dignity of man. Amidst bitterness and strife Masonry brings men of every rank and walk of life together as men, and nothing else, at an altar where they can talk and not fight, discuss and not dispute, and each may learn the point of view of his fellow. Other hope there is none save in this spirit of friendship and fairness, of democracy and the fellowship of man with man. Once this spirit has its way with mankind, it will bring those brave, large reconstructions, those profitable abnegations and brotherly feats of generosity that will yet turn human life into a glad, beautiful, and triumphant cooperation all round this sunlit world.

Surely the way of Masonry is wise. Instead of becoming only one more factor in a world of factional feud, it seeks to remove all hostility which may arise from social, national, or religious differences. It helps to heal the haughtiness of the rich and the envy of the poor, and tends to establish peace on earth by allaying all fanaticism and hatred on account of varieties of language, race, creed, and even color, while striving to make the wisdom of the past available for the culture of men in faith and purity. Not a party, not a sect, not a cult, it is a great order of men selected, initiated, sworn, and trained to make sweet reason and the will of G.o.d prevail! Against the ancient enmities and inhumanities of the world it wages eternal war, without vengeance, without violence, but by softening the hearts of men and inducing a better spirit. Apparitions of a day, here for an hour and tomorrow gone, what is our puny warfare against evil and ignorance compared with the warfare which this venerable Order has been waging against them for ages, and will continue to wage after we have fallen into dust!

III

Masonry, as it is much more than a political party or a social cult, is also more than a church--unless we use the word church as Ruskin used it when he said: "There is a true church wherever one hand meets another helpfully, the only holy or mother church that ever was or ever shall be!" It is true that Masonry is not _a_ religion, but it is Religion, a worship in which all good men may unite, that each may share the faith of all. Often it has been objected that some men leave the Church and enter the Masonic Lodge, finding there a religious home. Even so, but that may be the fault, not of Masonry, but of the Church so long defamed by bigotry and distracted by sectarian feud, and which has too often made acceptance of abstract dogmas a test of its fellowship.[171] Naturally many fine minds have been estranged from the Church, not because they were irreligious, but because they were required to believe what it was impossible for them to believe; and, rather than sacrifice their integrity of soul, they have turned away from the last place from which a man should ever turn away. No part of the ministry of Masonry is more beautiful and wise than its appeal, not for tolerance, but for fraternity; not for uniformity, but for unity of spirit amidst varieties of outlook and opinion. Instead of criticizing Masonry, let us thank G.o.d for one altar where no man is asked to surrender his liberty of thought and become an indistinguishable atom in a ma.s.s of sectarian agglomeration. What a witness to the worth of an Order that it brings together men of all creeds in behalf of those truths which are greater than all sects, deeper than all doctrines--the glory and the hope of man!

While Masonry is not a church, it has religiously preserved some things of highest importance to the Church--among them the right of each individual soul to its own religious faith. Holding aloof from separate sects and creeds, it has taught all of them how to respect and tolerate each other; a.s.serting a principle broader than any of them--the sanct.i.ty of the soul and the duty of every man to revere, or at least to regard with charity, what is sacred to his fellows. It is like the crypts underneath the old cathedrals--a place where men of every creed who long for something deeper and truer, older and newer than they have hitherto known, meet and unite. Having put away childish things, they find themselves made one by a profound and childlike faith, each bringing down into that quiet crypt his own pearl of great price--

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The Hindu his innate disbelief in this world, and his unhesitating belief in another world; the Buddhist his perception of an eternal law, his submission to it, his gentleness, his pity; the Mohammedan, if nothing else, his sobriety; the Jew his clinging, through good and evil days, to the one G.o.d who loveth righteousness, and whose name is "I AM;" the Christian, that which is better than all, if those who doubt it would try it--our love of G.o.d, call Him what you will, manifested in our love of man, our love of the living, our love of the dead, our living and undying love. Who knows but that the crypt of the past may become the church of the future?[172]

Of no one age, Masonry belongs to all ages; of no one religion, it finds great truths in all religions. Indeed, it holds that truth which is common to all elevating and benign religions, and is the basis of each; that faith which underlies all sects and over-arches all creeds, like the sky above and the river bed below the flow of mortal years.

It does not undertake to explain or dogmatically to settle those questions or solve those dark mysteries which out-top human knowledge.

Beyond the facts of faith it does not go. With the subtleties of speculation concerning those truths, and the unworldly envies growing out of them, it has not to do. There divisions begin, and Masonry was not made to divide men, but to unite them, leaving each man free to think his own thought and fashion his own system of ultimate truth.

All its emphasis rests upon two extremely simple and profound principles--love of G.o.d and love of man. Therefore, all through the ages it has been, and is today, a meeting place of differing minds, and a prophecy of the final union of all reverent and devout souls.

Time was when one man framed a dogma and declared it to be the eternal truth. Another man did the same thing, with a different dogma; then the two began to hate each other with an unholy hatred, each seeking to impose his dogma upon the other--and that is an epitome of some of the blackest pages of history. Against those old sectarians who subst.i.tuted intolerance for charity, persecution for friendship, and did not love G.o.d because they hated their neighbors, Masonry made eloquent protest, putting their bigotry to shame by its simple insight, and the dignity of its golden voice. A vast change of heart is now taking place in the religious world, by reason of an exchange of thought and courtesy, and a closer personal touch, and the various sects, so long estranged, are learning to unite upon the things most worth while and the least open to debate. That is to say, they are moving toward the Masonic position, and when they arrive Masonry will witness a scene which she has prophesied for ages.

At last, in the not distant future, the old feuds of the sects will come to an end, forgotten in the discovery that the just, the brave, the true-hearted are everywhere of one religion, and that when the masks of misunderstanding are taken off they know and love one another. Our little dogmas will have their day and cease to be, lost in the vision of a truth so great that all men are one in their littleness; one also in their a.s.surance of the divinity of the soul and "the kindness of the veiled Father of men." Then men of every name will ask, when they meet:

/P Not what is your creed?

But what is your need?

P/

High above all dogmas that divide, all bigotries that blind, all bitterness that beclouds, will be written the simple words of the one eternal religion--the Fatherhood of G.o.d, the brotherhood of man, the moral law, the golden rule, and the hope of a life everlasting!

FOOTNOTES:

[163] _Symbolism of Freemasonry_, by Dr. Mackey.

[164] _History and Philosophy of Masonry_, by A.C.L. Arnold, chap. xvi.

To say of any man--of Socrates, for example--who had the spirit of Friendship and Integrity, that he was a Mason, is in a sense true, but it is misleading. Nevertheless, if a man have not that spirit, he is not a Mason, though he may have received the thirty-third degree.

[165] Vol. i, p. 320. The _Handbuch_ is an encyclopedia of Masonry, published in 1900. See admirable review of it, _A. Q. C._, xi, 64.

[166] Much has been written about the secrecy of Masonry. Hutchinson, in his lecture on "The Secrecy of Masons," lays all the stress upon its privacy as a shelter for the gentle ministry of Charity (_Spirit of Masonry_, lecture x). Arnold is more satisfactory in his essay on "The Philosophy of Mystery," quoting the words of Carlyle in _Sartor Resartus_: "Bees will not work except in darkness; thoughts will not work except in silence; neither will virtue work except in secrecy"

(_History and Philosophy of Masonry_, chap. xxi). But neither writer seems to realize the psychology and pedagogy of secrecy--the value of curiosity, of wonder and expectation, in the teaching of great truths deemed commonplace because old. Even in that atmosphere, the real secret of Masonry remains hidden to many--as sunlight hides the depths of heaven.

[167] Read the n.o.ble chapter on "Prayer as a Masonic Obligation," in _Practical Masonic Lectures_, by Samuel Lawrence (lecture x).

[168] Read a thoughtful "Exposition of Freemasonry," by Dr. Paul Carus, _Open Court_, May, 1913.

[169] Proverbs 24:3, 4.

[170] While Masonry abjures political questions and disputes in its Lodges, it is all the while training good citizens, and through the quality of its men it influences public life--as Washington, Franklin, and Marshall carried the spirit of Masonry into the organic law of this republic. It is not politics that corrupts character; it is bad character that corrupts politics--and by building men up to spiritual faith and character, Masonry is helping to build up a state that will endure the shocks of time; a n.o.bler structure than ever was wrought of mortar and marble (_The Principles of Freemasonry in the Life of Nations_, by Findel).

[171] Not a little confusion has existed, and still exists, in regard to the relation of Masonry to religion. Dr. Mackey said that old Craft-masonry was sectarian (_Symbolism of Masonry_); but it was not more so than Dr. Mackey himself, who held the curious theory that the religion of the Hebrews was genuine and that of the Egyptians spurious.

Nor is there any evidence that Craft-masonry was sectarian, but much to the contrary, as has been shown in reference to the invocations in the _Old Charges_. At any rate, if it was ever sectarian, it ceased to be so with the organization of the Grand Lodge of England. Later, some of the chaplains of the order sought to identify Masonry with Christianity, as Hutchinson did--and even Arnold in his chapter on "Christianity and Freemasonry" (_History and Philosophy of Masonry_).

All this confusion results from a misunderstanding of what religion is.

Religions are many; religion is one--perhaps we may say one thing, but that one thing includes everything--the life of G.o.d in the soul of man, which finds expression in all the forms which life and love and duty take. This conception of religion shakes the poison out of all our wild flowers, and shows us that it is the inspiration of all scientific inquiry, all striving for liberty, all virtue and charity; the spirit of all thought, the motif of all great music, the soul of all sublime literature. The church has no monopoly of religion, nor did the Bible create it. Instead, it was religion--the natural and simple trust of the soul in a Power above and within it, and its quest of a right relation to that Power--that created the Bible and the Church, and, indeed, all our higher human life. The soul of man is greater than all books, deeper than all dogmas, and more enduring than all inst.i.tutions.

Masonry seeks to free men from a limiting conception of religion, and thus to remove one of the chief causes of sectarianism. It is itself one of the forms of beauty wrought by the human soul under the inspiration of the Eternal Beauty, and as such is religious.

[172] _Chips from a German Workshop_, by Max Muller.

THE MASONIC PHILOSOPHY

/# _Masonry directs us to divest ourselves of confined and bigoted notions, and teaches us, that Humanity is the soul of Religion. We never suffer any religious disputes in our Lodges, and, as Masons, we only pursue the universal religion, the Religion of Nature.

Worshipers of the G.o.d of Mercy, we believe that in every nation, he that feareth Him and worketh righteousness is accepted of Him.

All Masons, therefore, whether Christians, Jews, or Mahomedans, who violate not the rule of right, written by the Almighty upon the tables of the heart, who_ DO _fear Him, and_ WORK _righteousness, we are to acknowledge as brethren; and, though we take different roads, we are not to be angry with, or persecute each other on that account. We mean to travel to the same place; we know that the end of our journey is the same; and we affectionately hope to meet in the Lodge of perfect happiness. How lovely is an inst.i.tution fraught with sentiments like these! How agreeable must it be to Him who is seated on a throne of Everlasting Mercy, to the G.o.d who is no respecter of persons!_

--WM. HUTCHINSON, _The Spirit of Masonry_ #/

CHAPTER II

_The Masonic Philosophy_

"Hast any philosophy in thee, Shepherd?"[173] was the question of Touchstone in the Shakespeare play; and that is the question we must always ask ourselves. Long ago Kant said that it is the mission of philosophy, not to discover truth, but to set it in order, to seek out the rhythm of things and their reason for being. Beginning in wonder, it sees the familiar as if it were strange, and its mind is full of the air that plays round every subject. s.p.a.cious, humane, eloquent, it is "a blend of science, poetry, religion and logic"[174]--a softening, enlarging, enn.o.bling influence, giving us a wider and clearer outlook, more air, more room, more light, and more background.

When we look at Masonry in this large and mellow light, it is like a stately old cathedral, gray with age, rich in a.s.sociations, its steps worn by innumerable feet of the living and the dead--not piteous, but strong and enduring. Entering its doors, we wonder at its lofty s.p.a.ces, its windows with the dimness and glory of the Infinite behind them, the spring of its pillars, the leap of its arches, and its roof inlaid with stars. Inevitably we ask, whence came this temple of faith and friendship, and what does it mean--rising lightly as a lyric, uplifted by the hunger for truth and the love for beauty, and exempt from the shock of years and the ravages of decay? What faith builded this home of the soul, what philosophy underlies and upholds it? Truly did Longfellow sing of _The Builders_:

/P In the elder years of art, Builders wrought with greatest care Each minute and hidden part, For the G.o.ds see everywhere.

P/