What Can Do More ?

WHAT CAN DO MORE ?

X \ 7 IIAT is Masonry and why these memotuts ? is tne V V question asked by hundreds of e .-irne . 't inquirers at eveiy festival ; and tho question is entitled to an answer . Snch as I givo shall be frank , candid , SV . OIT- ; , Masonic , as 1 understand it . If I do not raise the veil that conceal . *" the hidden ruysterieF , I shall at least take you to its

entrance , and show you so much as in ; ny hunted time I may of that , which it is permitted tbe profanes to know . Tho opinions 1 may express , though perhaps not . entertained by all my brethren , if they reflect upon thoir connection with other organisations , will , I feel snre , bo approved by them as Masonic .

First , then , Freemasonry is not a religion . It does not profess to be ; and yet it inculcates religions thought , and feeling , and duty , but nofc religious doctrine . Still less is ifc a theology , though ifc inculcates duties men owe to God , and even has a creed . It is not a political organisation ;

though many political struggles , some oven bloody aud deadly , havo © centred in various lands over its right to existence , and tho rights of its members ; and though politicians have thronged and still throng its Lodges , and use , or rather abuse , its favour and influence for political

and personal ends . It is nofc a reform-school for adults , though its constant solicitude and ever watchful care and earnest teaching is to mako mankind nobler , better , manlier . It is nofc a mutual aid soci' ty , though ita members , just like all other civilised social human beings , with tho railk

of human kindness in their veins , and enchained in a bond of sympathy and common purpose and destiny , are daily ministering to the wants and necessities of each other , doing good unto all men , bufc especially to those of tho household of faith . Ifc is nofc a school of philosophy ,

though its ritual and ceremonies abound in earnest teachings of the importance of wisdom and urge upon its members the study of tho liberal arts and sciences , and the

use of all leisure time in tho acquisition of every kind of useful knowledge . When then is it , and what , its reason for existence ? Let me answer in mosfc approved and wellchosen words :

Freemasonry is a moral Order , instituted by virtuous mon , with tho praiseworthy design of recalling to our remembrance 1 ! io most sublime truths in tho midst of tho moat innocent and yr . iial plcusuivs —founded on liberality , brotherly love , and charity . It i . i a bennti .

system of morality , veiled in allegory and illustrated by nymbola . Truth is its centre—tbe point wbence its radii diverge and show to its disciples a correct knowledge of those moral relations which man may know , and of thoso moral laws ordained for tho government of the world .

It dwells exclusively in the domain of duty , and deals with man as a free moral agent , " cabin'd , cribbed , confined , bound in to saucy doubts and fears , " ancl yet with a sublime faith in his origin and destiny .

So near to grandeur is our dust , So close is God to man , When duty whispers low— " Thon must , " The soul replies— " I can . "

It touches upon theology and religion at only one point in the whole circle of its teaching and thought , and then only touches . It has a creed , but recognising how in the history of mankind creeds have been forged as fetters for the human mind , and used by tyrants to enslave the good

aud great , in all ages and everywhere , it has tho shortest , simplest creed ever formulated : " I believe and trust in God . " It is the faith of humanity in all ages—the creed of the universe . From Adam till now it hath been professed . It is the property of no race or religion or era or

clime , but as universal and free as the sunlight—and as beneficent . No other creed , no other formula of faith hath Masonry . But everywhere , in all tongues and among all religions , it is the same ; and every Mason , whether Christian or Parsee , Buddhist or Mohammedan , hath this

Masonic creed and none other ; and in it he rests with cheerfulness and confidence . If you ask , " In what God ?" I reply , " There is but one . " Was He the God of Israel ? Yes , and of Islam , too , and of all people everywhere ; not the God of one man , or one nation , but of all men and all

nations ; nofc of ancient times , but of all times . He , in whom all good men have believed , and to whom He hath revealed himself : Moses , Elias , Confucius , Buddha ,

Socrates , Seneca , Mahomet , Zoroaster , John and Paul ; He in whom men believe on Calvary as well as Sinai ; in India , and China , and Egypt , as well as Judea ; in peace as well as war * , in sunshine as well as in storm ; in dayli ght

What Can Do More ?

as well as in darkness ; in market as well as in church ; on Monday as well as on Sunday ; the God in whom men instinctively , intuitively believe ; whom no man or age of chnrch or people cau monopolise , the omniscient , omnipotent , omnipresent Spirit , approving good and reprobating

evil , the witness of truth and avenger of falsehood , the living , loving Father of all , who nofc only plants his footsteps in the sea and rides upon the storm , but who delights in that still small voice , which all may understand . In time pasfc men have sought to comprehend aud to picture

Him so that they might convey their conceptions of Him to each other . Different phases and manifestations of divine character and attributes have been variously pictured , sometimes in wood , in stone or brass , sometimes with pencil upon canvas , and as often with pen in words ;

and even to this day , and among those of the same faith we have , even in our own midst , as various and inconsistent conceptions of him as are the faces and minds of men . And whether this conception bo hewn , or carved , or painted , or printed , ifc is the eidolon , picture , idol

of tho man , and thus all worshippers aro idolaters ; but each is sure that his is the true conception , and those who havo another are idolaters only . So far has this

practice been carried , and so intolerant have men been of each other , that a witty writer of our time , paraphrasing Pope , has said , " An honest God is the noblest work of man . "

Recognising the impossibility , so long as men ' s minds aro as different as fcheir faces , of bringing them , even good men , to the same conception of God , Masonry has contented itself with its single faith and simple formula , and thus has preserved its universality and its power through

tho changing thought of centuries , and all efforts at the destruction of this simple creed , whether by persecution from without , or so-called reform from within , as by the Adoptive Rito in our time , adding an article requiring belief in the plenary inspiration of the Bible , have failed ;

and we stand to day as we havo stood through all the ages , upon the common faith of humanity— " I believe and trust in God . " Bigots and fanatics , pharisees and hypocrites , kingcraft and priestcraft , have proscribed and persecuted in vain . Our liberality , whilo ifc has invited persecution

from tyrants , political and ecclesiastical , has been our strong fortress and sure defence against it , and has been tho great , Masonic secret which , like a loadstone , has ever drawn the liberal , noble , great-souled men of all creeds and sects * to our Order ; and we seo now , in this ' evening of

the nineteenth centnry , that catholic spirit of liberality and humanity which Masonry has borne throngh all the dark ages of oppression and tyranny of church and state , even as Israel bore the ark of tho covenant through thc wilderness , pervading all society and freeing men from

that mental bondage , whose chains are moro galling and degrading than corporal slavery . It remains now to be seen whether Masonry can preserve this pure , simple faith against the nil admirari spirit of modern thought and inquiry , moro subtle , more powerful , more dangerous than kings' dungeons or priests' racks .

The tendency of this age is towards a negation of all faith . Ifc abhors fche cant and hypocrisy on which the souls of men have been fed , almost to starvation of all

nobility and truth ; it laugns at the superstitions which enslaved our grandfathers ; it defies the power of that ecelesiasticism which has impeded all progress iu science , incarcerating Galileo because he saw and said that the earth moved , and deposing Professor Winchell from his

chair of science , becanse in public lectures he approved the scientific truth of evolution . It detests the narrow dogmatisms which men have used to crush out truth , and it hesitates not , in the zeal of its contest with them , to accept even atheism itself . Ifc has declared war against

the church becanse the church has declared war against science ; and ifc is not in the nature of things that the church shall be able to restrain it . What order or organization can more properly and effectually restrain the youth of this scientific age from the folly of atheism than

Masonry ? In the days when tyranny , ecclesiastical and political , dominated the world , the light of liberty was never permitted to go out upon the altar of Freemasonry ; ancl now when the pendulum of thought has swung across

its arc , ancl liberty may degenerate into licence , ifc is tbo right of Masonry , in the name and for the sake of that liberty it has so sacredly preserved , to warn men of the folly and danger of the negation of thafc simple faith of humanity , which is greater and older than creeds and' con-