"I have been a Mason
for a year now," remarked the Young Brother to the Old Past Master. "While
I find a great deal in Masonry to enjoy and like the fellows and all that,
I am more or less in the dark as to what good Masonry really is in the
world. I don't mean I can't appreciate its charity or its fellowship, but
it seems to me that I don't get much out of it. I can't really see why
it has any function outside of the relationship we enjoy in the Lodge and
the charitable acts we do."
"I think I could win an argument
about you," smiled the Past Master.
"An argument about me?"
"Yes. You say you have been
a Master Mason for a year. I think I could prove to the satisfaction of
a jury of your peers, who would not need to be Master Masons, that while
you are a Lodge member in good standing, you are not a Master Mason."
"I don't think I quite understand,"
puzzled the Young Mason. "I was quite surely initiated, passed, and raised.
I have my certificate and my good standing card. I attend Lodge regularly.
I do what work I am assigned. If that isn't being a Master Mason, what
is?"
"You have the body but not
the spirit," retorted the Old Past Master. "You eat the husks and disregard
the kernel. You know the ritual and fail to understand its meaning. You
carry the documents, but for you they attest but an empty form. You do
not understand the first underlying principle, which makes Masonry the
great force she is. And yet, in spite of it, you enjoy her blessings, which
is one of her miracles. A man may love and profit by what he does not comprehend."
"I just don't understand you
at all. I am sure I am a good Mason."
"No man is a good Mason who
thinks the Fraternity has no function beyond pleasant association in the
Lodge and charity. There are thousands of Masons who seldom see the inside
of a Lodge and, therefore, miss the fellowship. There are thousands who
never need or support her charity and so never come in contact with one
of its many features. Yet these may take freely and largely from the treasure
house which is Masonry.
"Masonry, my young friend,
is an opportunity. It gives a man a chance to do and to be, among the world
of men, something he otherwise could not attain. No man kneels at the altar
of Masonry and rises again the same man. At the altar something is taken
from him never to returned, his feelings of living for himself alone. Be
he ever so selfish, ever so self-centered, ever so much an individualist,
at the altar he leaves behind him some of the dross of his purely profane
make-up.
"No man kneels at the altar
of Masonry and rises the same man because, in the place where the dross
and selfish were, is put a little of the most Divine spark which men may
see. Where was the self-interest is put an interest in others. Where was
the egotism is put love for one's fellow man. You say that the 'Fraternity
has no function.' Man, the Fraternity performs the greatest function of
any institution at work among men in that it provides a common meeting
ground where all of us be our creed, our social position, our wealth, our
ideas, our station in life what they may, may meet and understand one another.
"What caused the Civil War?
Failure of one people to understand another and an inequality of men which
this country could not endure. What caused the Great War? Class hatred.
What is the greatest leveler of class in the world? Masonry. Where is the
only place in which a capitalist and laborer, socialist and democrat, fundamentalist
and modernist, Jew and Gentile, sophisticated and simple alike meet and
forget their differences? In a Masonic Lodge, through the influence of
Masonry. "Masonry, which opens her portals to men because they are men,
not because they are wealthy or wise or foolish or great or small but because
they seek the brotherhood which only she can give.
"Masonry has no function?
Why, son, the function of charity, great as it is, is the least of the
things Masonry does. The fellowship in the Lodge, beautiful as it is, is
at best not much more than one can get in any good club, association, or
organization. These are the beauties of Masonry, but they are also beauties
of other rganizations. The great fundamental beauty of Masonry is all her
own. She, and only she, stretches a kindly and loving hand around the world,
uniting millions in a bond too strong for breaking. Time has demonstrated
that Masonry is too strong for war, too strong for hate, too strong for
jealousy and fear. The worst of men have used the strongest of means and
have but pushed Masonry to one side for the moment; not all their efforts
have broken her, or ever will!
"Masonry gives us all a chance
to do and to be; to do a little, however humble the part, in making the
world better; to be a little larger, a little fuller in our lives, a little
nearer to the G.A.O.T.U. And unless a man understands this, believes it,
takes it to his heart, and lives it in his daily life, and strives to show
it forth to others in his every act unless he live and love and labor in
his Masonry. I say he is no Master Mason; aye, though he belong to all
Rites and carry all cards, though he be hung as a Christmas tree with jewels
and pins, though he be an officer in all Bodies. But the man who has it
in his heart and sees in Masonry the chance to be in reality what he has
sworn he would be, a brother to his fellow Masons, is a Master Mason though
he be raised but tonight, belongs to no body but his Blue Lodge, and be
too poor to buy and wear a single pin."
The Young Brother, looking
down, unfastened the emblem from his coat lapel and handed it to the
OldPast Master. "Of course, you are right," he said, lowly. "Here is my
pin. Don't give it back to me until you think I am worthy to wear it."
The Old Past Master smiled.
"I think you would better put it back now," he answered gently. "None are
more fit to wear the Square and Compasses than those who know themselves
unworthy, for they are those who strive to be real Masons.