Further Light Demanded.

FURTHER LIGHT DEMANDED .

IT is idle to deny that deep and widespread ignorance prevails throughout the Craft concerning almost everything Masonic , except the ritual—the husk in which the corn of nourishment , or , if you prefer , the casket in which the precious jewels of the Craft are enclosed . What proportion of the members of our Lodges could

tell , for instance , within two centuries , the age of our oldest records ? How many Masters have never read a line of the old Charges of a Freemason , appointed " to be read at the making of new Brethren " ? How many

Masonic dignitaries know the symbolic significance of the cable-tow , or dream that it has any connection with that conversation in which the Man of Nazareth exclaimed to Nicodemus , " Art thou a Master of Israel , and knowest not these thines ? " Nav . what Mason in

Washington will tell me the symbolic teaching of the forty-seventh problem of Euclid ? Some of the results of this decay of knowledge are too plain and too painful to dwell upon , but too pregnant with ill omen to be ignored . Interest in the Craft flags ;

half of our members become non-affiliates , or cease to attend Lodge ; young men are entered , passed and raised , and suppose they have learned all there is in Masonry when they have heard the prescribed lectures ; for one who has mastered the ritual there is supposed to be tie j > lus ultra ; the earnest seeker after light is disappointed

and discouraged ; our Fraternity is compared with modern beneficial societies which have sprung up around us ; or , worse than all , the Lodge and the three degrees of Masonry are regarded as mere stepping stones , or entrance porches , to modern rites of orders which are

laxly called " Masonic . Wno 01 us does not annually see men eager to deck their feverish brows with a redand-white or black-and-white feather , rush through the three degrees with the haste of a Fellow Craft seeking a passage into Ethiopia , and with the indifference of Pilate

when he asked , but waited not for an answer to , that profoundest of Masonic questions , " What is truth ? " And who of us , Masters and Wardens , is not to blame

knowledge of them suggests a remedy . Perhaps the trouble began as soon after 1723 as a Master was able to excuse himself for not properly instructing an initiate , by saying , " Explanations of all these " points may be found in ye book printed by Brother Anderson , " with which it is hoped you will soon make yourself familiar . " Much

that such a condition of affairs exists ? The causes of this state of affairs are too numerous to be specified now , and are important only in so far as a

was due also to the wrong direction in which inquiring minds were diverted by the charlatans who overran Europe in the last century , and , to make a market for

their side degrees , taught that " the Master ' s degree is incomplete , " and that they , alone , possessed the " true word , " and the genuine " secrets of a Master Mason . " Their astounding success was due to an utter misapprehension of the very nature of our institution , and to ignorance of the finest allegory in Masonry , the sublime idea of the " Lost Word . " The fiction that the Master ' s degree is incomplete , is a vile abortion , begotten by deceit on the body of ignorance . No Mason who understands that " Masonry is a search for that which

was lost , " and appreciates the force of that finest of definitions , will ever expect to hear " the true word " from mortal tongue ; for the word we seek is the Word

which " was in the beginning with God ; " the Word by which " the heavens were of old , and the earth standing out of the water and in the water ; " and " the heavens and the earth which are now , by the same Word are kept in store . " Our search for a perfect knowledge of

God and truth—the Alpha and Omega of Masonrymust continue through all time , perhaps throughout eternity . Here we know in part and we prophecy in part , and see through a glass , darkly ; but not till this mortal shall have put on immortality shall we fully comprehend that Word , which to know aright is life

- *** y exiaiouiug . Later causes which contributed to the neglect of Masonic learning , especially in the new States , were the absorbing anxiety to find that golden fleece of the nineteenth century , the mythical " pure Webb-Preston

work , " and to secure " uniformity" throughout our Lodges . The latter not unimportant object not only

Further Light Demanded.

absorbed the funds and energies of young Grand Lodges having large territorial jurisdiction , but led to legislation which seems to discourage , if it does not prohibit , any instruction while conferring degrees , beyond that contained in the prescribed work and lectures . In many

foreign jurisdictions , as you know , no such restrictions prevail ; but the Master is free , provided the essentials be not varied , to adapt his language to the intellectual capacity of the candidate , or the exigencies of the

. But I am not complaining of this legislation . No man recognises more distinctly than I the importance , nay , the necessity , that every Mason know and hand down to his successors the exact esoteric work which

came down to him from the fathers ; and , doubtless , the danger that the personal ideas and conceits of individuals might be indistinguishably mingled with the teachings of Masonry , renders some iron-clad rule necessary , so far as concerns ' the esoteric work . But this forces us either

to leave the new Brother untaught , or to seek other times and opportunities to impart the intruction which he might expect to receive when the degrees are conferred . Is it not too true , and too evident , that he usually remains uninstructed ? From all over America

comes the testimony that when there are no degrees to confer , Lodge nights are well nigh wasted . In our own jurisdiction , by a rough estimate , it appears that during the last year five hundred or six hundred meetings were held at which nothing was done ; or , multiplying this

number by the average membership of our Lodges , about thirty thousand opportunities of receiving Masonic light were lost . As a result , Masonic darkness and all the attendant evils of which I have spoken prevail in many quarters , and bode no good for the future of the Craft .

How are these evils to be remedied ? How is Masonry to be taught ? Many plans have been tried . In 1802 Schroeder , in Germany , devised a plan by which , without recognising any degrees beyond the third , a society might be annexed to any Lodge , to which competent Brethren might be admitted , and in which they might study , digest and render available for the Lodges , whatever Masonic truth is i in ui

laugu any me au-uaueu nigu uegrees . xnese societies , called the Engbund , or the Divisions of the Master ' s Degree , have a simple form of initiation , and two grades not recognised as degrees . They still flourish in some German Grand Jurisdictions , and the Grand Lodge of Holland , which has at last emerged from the " toy soldier phase" of its existence , and reverted to

pure Masonry , recognises their value and importance . Probably nothing of the kind is available here , but this plan is suggestive of the fact that Brethren who are Master Masons indeed , should , like bees to the hive , bring to what some style Blue Lodges , all they glean concerning Masonry in any field . Omitting , of course , as worthless , anything which we find in Chapter , in

Commandery , in Council , or in Consistory , which is inconsistent with Craft Masonry , if any such thing there be ; ommitting , as foreign to the royal art , all matters of mere chivalry ; omitting modern invention , and the vagaries of individual teachers , we who belong to any of these societies should bring to our Masonic home all that we learn in them which pertains to the symbols or

teachings of the Lodge ; for , as Albert Pike observed , " Degrees , if worthy to be called such , are only vehicles for instruction . " And we should never forget that , as the Masonic Lodges—Grand and particular—to which our first allegiance is due , claim and have supreme and

exclusive jurisdiction over the whole corpus of pure ancient Masonry , while other bodies of Masons may use , they can acquire , as against the Lodges , no title to anything which the Grand Lodge rightly recognises as a part of the body of Masonry . ( To be continued . )

Ar00802

THERE are , says the " Trestle Board , " quite a number of Brethren belonging to regular white Lodges , who are in the habit of visiting coloured Lodges , and the coloured Lodges are making Masons from the white race . There is a Lodge of white men , of about sixty members , working under a Charter granted by the Coloured Grand Lodge of California . Thus is the problem solving itself , and race prejudice is fast disappearing before the light . of libertv and intelligence .