-
Articles/Ads
Article P.G.M. PARVIN'S ADDRESS. ← Page 2 of 4 Article P.G.M. PARVIN'S ADDRESS. Page 2 of 4 →
Note: This text has been automatically extracted via Optical Character Recognition (OCR) software.
P.G.M. Parvin's Address.
celebrating the event in a manuer , and upon a scale commensurate -with its importance . It must , in the nature of events , be so , because it marks an era in human progress which concerns , not the citizens of our great Republic alone , but those of the whole civilized world . Nor is it merely the interest of the passing hour which concerns us and them . Around it is clustered , and upon its future depends
the weightiest * considerations which can affect a people interested in the solution of the grandest problem of human life—civil government . Ours has been well defined by the martyred President to be a " government of the people , by the people and for the people . " Henco all classes of citizens , as individuals , associations , societies or states ( we , as Masons , being a constituent part ) must feel a deep
interest m an event in which we and they have not heretofore , and will not again be called upon to participate—the baptismal of our centennial anniversary . It was no insignificent event , when on the morn of a bright summer ' s day the old bell of Independence Hall " proclaimed liberty throughout the world , " in notes so loud and clear that the sound as not died away , for its echo , like the vision of
the pulpit , ever and anon comes to us from the distant hills of far off nations straggling to be free . As Free and Accepted Masons , we , and those we represent upon this joyous occasion , feel an interest in common with yon , the ladies and gentlemen of this , the Gate City of Iowa . Your very name serves ever to recall the past of our early history , and thns becomes
an index to mark the progress we have made in all that goes to make up the advance of civilization over barbaric mode 8 of life . True it is that the institution , one of whose steps in the march of time we to-day commemorate , had its rise in a dark age and among a despotic people—yet its greatest development and most rapid progress has been among the people the most enlightened and whoso institutions
secure to the many the largest degree of rational liberty . Freemasonry may , nay , does exist under governments the most despotic ; but it cannot expand and grow into general favour and usefulness , except where freedom is the birthright of the individual , and guaranteed by bonds imperishable as is nature . In seeking the land where it has flourished the most and borne its best fruits
you must turn to those nations which fnrnish the best and safest guarantees for " free thought , free speech , free press , pure morals , unfettered religious sentiments , and equal rights and privileges to all men , irrespective of rationality , color or religion . " In all absolute governments our society has been at times , and too often , under the ban of the government , under the heel of the governor , be he Pope ,
Emperor or King . Nevertheless , it is a well attested fact , true as wonderful , that Freemasonry is universal—existing in * every nation , among all peoples , and its mysteries taught in every written language . In common with our brethren of every jurisdiction are the Masons of Iowa called upon to join hands in this Centennial enterprise , and
take part in the work to be done . The summons has already come from the city of Brotherly Love , whose Masons claim—and with mnch show of reason—that the first Lodge chartered in America was in their city , inviting the Templars and Masons of Iowa to meet their brothers there in the year of our nation ' s jubilee . And surely we have an iuterest in such an event—one so telling upon the progress
of all that goes to make a nation great , and its citizens prosperous and happy . And here we are met with the question how shall we , as Masons , engage in this work ? Surely not as the vagne traditions of the Order relate , that the captives returning from Babylon to Jerusalem engaged in rebuilding the city and temple of the Lord , made desolate
by the Chaldees , arms in hand to protect themselves from surrounding foes . Nor should we go up , as did tho tribes of old , to the dedication of the Temple , when Solomon , in all his glory , placed the copestone amid the rejoicings of the gathered hosts . To all our people , the present is a time of universal peace and plenty , and there is none to molest and make us afraid . The Mason ' s temple—the
greatest ever dedicated by the fraternity to Masonry , virtue , and universal benevolence—has alread y ( a triad ago ) been consecrated to the practice of our rites and ceremonies by the pouring on of corn , wine and oil , emblems of health , plenty and peace to the Craft and tho world . Not as in . the past then will we go , for the edncated and intelligent man of to-day is not of . those , " being more exceedingly
jealous of the tradition of their fathers . " Rather like Paul , after his conversion , would we hold to the truth of the gospel which comes by faith in historical truth , and not the vain traditions which have so long obtained among men and Masons . Our fellow-citizens will go armed and equipped according to the law of individual and national progress everywhere manifest , bearing
in their hands the fruits of their labors . The agriculturist with " the fruit of the ground , " and the herdsman with " the firstlings of his flock and the fat thereof "—but not in contention and wrath , the accompaniments of tho first recorded offering to the Lord . With them will go the artisan bearing the work of his skilled hands , the artist with the choicest productions of his cultivated taste , the miner
with the treasurers of beauty and usefulness , contributed at his bidding by our mother earth , while the man of science and genius will bo represented by models of what his brain hath wrought out or evoked at hi 3 iuspired bidding . All men and women will go carrying the harvest of toil , whether of hand or mind , or both conjoined .
All things will contribute to show the progress made in the useful arts and sciences , and tho offering will be made by all our people , and those of every nation and the isles of the sea , for all have an interest in this , the world ' s movement , centering in this sovereign State , though the youngest in years , " the first among its equals , " 1 n all that constitutes the State .
The lesson in its usefulness will very much depend upon how it is learned and improved . "A centennial is imperfectly improved unless an accurate balance is struck between the profit and loss flowing from the event celebrated , and a discriminating estimate is made that will show upon tho whole world is better or worse off for what is commemorated . " It will be wise for ns as a people , and for us as a sooiety , to inquire in what reapect we have fallen below the
P.G.M. Parvin's Address.
standards of a hundred years ago , as well as in what respect we havo vison above them ; and in estimating our gains we will do well to consider the losses , if we would arrive at conclusions at all profitable to ourselves . Tho President of the nation , recently at the capital of our State , in the only general utterance evor escaping his lips , declared this
important truth , to which it would be well to give heed that "the centennial year of our natioual oxistonce is a good time to begin the work of strengthening the fonudatiou of tho structure commeucod b y our forefathers a hundred years ago at Lexington . " So recoufc is our organization as a nation that it is an oa 3 y matter to bring in review
the past , and all the past , iu our history and growth , from so small a beginning , to the present outgrowth of a centennial and millions of freemen , the bulwark of the world's liberty , which , in tho end , all people must share and enjoy or become , as Napoleon declared , Cossack without end .
The instructions and admonitions we nave cited as applicable to the nation , apply with equal force and significance to us as a society . True , we cannot , with the nation , go back to our origin as an institution , and trace its progress through the long years of its history to the present . Nor is there any occasion for such a useless waste of time and effort . It will suffice if we well and truly trace its progress
and history for the century that is passed , and confine ourselves to the truth as it is told . As Masons , symbolic and Royal ATch , and as Templars ( who though individually aro Masons , their organization i 3 not Masonic , as tho ignorant have declared , for Masonry is of all religions and cosmopolitan , whilo Templars are purely and solely Christian , excluding the Jew and the Gentile ) , we are wont to meet
annually and as often to toll the old story of the origin of the institution , and presont the people who honour with their presence our public assemblies , that same old dish of hash called Masonic history , tracing the institution back to the time " when the morning stars sang together and all the sons of God shouted for joy . " Or if they ( that is the grandiloquent orators ) be a little modest or doubting in
faith , they will drop off a few cycles and come down to the time when "Adam delved and Eve spun " without the garden from which they had been expelled by an angry God whose laws they had sot at naught , in presuming , as some of our illustrous brothers and Sir Knights have since presumed , to rebel against constituted authority and set up their will as the law for all to follow or be for ever
" anathema marantba . Such oracles are always proclaiming as Masons , Enoch , the translated , Solomon , the wise , and the St . Johns of Christian sanctity . It is amusing to note how they always enroll among their numbers the noble and the good of all nations , aud all the time as carefully excluding tho opposite class . Another and a large number more of our anniversary orators drop the antediluvian
chapter , and are even so considerate as to come down to the period of the building of the first temple , and trace its origin to that event , and make Solomon its great founder , as God ' s vicegerent in its creation . And it is indeed only within a few years past that a generation of doubting Thomases have arison , who demaud the proof that even these things are so , and havo applied the same tests to
Masonic history as has been for a century applied to all sacred and profane history—to the end that the truth might be eliminated from the myths and traditions which have so long misled even the world of letters . My hearers ( whether Masons or no ) can recall the times almost a score , when they have heard not only tho nonsense wo havo related
as touching the times so long remote , but coming down to our own day and country , three blind leaders have , time and again , so often proclaimed as a fact , that they no doubt believe that " all the general officers of the revolution were Masons , except the traitor Arnold , " and that " all the Presidents of the Republic wore Aiasons . " As wo penned these lines we received throngh the mails a circular , from a
publishing house at the National Capitol , named for a man , who , when a boy , would not lie , asking our aid as a Mason , to further the sale of a series of Presidential portraits they havo executed . And what think you was the consideration upon which they presumed to invoke our aid as a Mason and an officer in a Masonic body whoso jurisdiction is co-extensive with that of the State . That circular
publishes to the world , with solemn emphasis , that all tho Presidents were Masons . As happily there havo been no traitors ( as in the case of the Generals ) so the usual exception of one as is the case of Judas and Arnold is not made by this class of-buncombo orators—of which Orator Puff is a fair exponent . But you , my brethren , must not think this class of speakers are all
foreign , for we have some of the most famous within our own Grand bodies . You have only to oxamiuo tho proceedings of one of the Grand bodies here and now represented to find published an oration from which we quote as follows . In speakiug as usual of tho antiquity of Freemasonry , the orator says : "Masonry and Christianity were married and the union was designed by Omnipotence himself ,
and that this marriage took place in the reign of the Roman Emperor Constantino [ who died A . D . 337 ] and the union so consummated continued until the Reformation [ A . D . 1517 , a period of twelve centuries ] when in consequence of the intolerance , bigotry and corruption of the Romish church , tho twain were separated , never to be re-united again . " Warming with his subject our eloquent brother
adds , " that the studious Knight Mason of to-day knows that tho intimate union of religion and Masonry is something older than the marriage of order with the church of Christ , before tho inauguration of the church [ A . D . 33 ] Masonry was , ( the emphasis is his ) and when the church was born it was promptly adopted by the fraternity , the which with reverent humility abdicated its right as elder sister and exponent of the will of the Deity . " Verily our Iowa exDonent
of Masonry is not to be outdone by the long line of his illustrious predecessors . Now , in all candour and with all proper respect to the brethren , to this audience , not overlooking my own self respect as a Mason and a man of mature age , I must declare that such stuff , while it may possibly ( though we can deviae no good reason ) be " told to marines , " certainly to all such heresios we may apply tho injunction of David
Note: This text has been automatically extracted via Optical Character Recognition (OCR) software.
P.G.M. Parvin's Address.
celebrating the event in a manuer , and upon a scale commensurate -with its importance . It must , in the nature of events , be so , because it marks an era in human progress which concerns , not the citizens of our great Republic alone , but those of the whole civilized world . Nor is it merely the interest of the passing hour which concerns us and them . Around it is clustered , and upon its future depends
the weightiest * considerations which can affect a people interested in the solution of the grandest problem of human life—civil government . Ours has been well defined by the martyred President to be a " government of the people , by the people and for the people . " Henco all classes of citizens , as individuals , associations , societies or states ( we , as Masons , being a constituent part ) must feel a deep
interest m an event in which we and they have not heretofore , and will not again be called upon to participate—the baptismal of our centennial anniversary . It was no insignificent event , when on the morn of a bright summer ' s day the old bell of Independence Hall " proclaimed liberty throughout the world , " in notes so loud and clear that the sound as not died away , for its echo , like the vision of
the pulpit , ever and anon comes to us from the distant hills of far off nations straggling to be free . As Free and Accepted Masons , we , and those we represent upon this joyous occasion , feel an interest in common with yon , the ladies and gentlemen of this , the Gate City of Iowa . Your very name serves ever to recall the past of our early history , and thns becomes
an index to mark the progress we have made in all that goes to make up the advance of civilization over barbaric mode 8 of life . True it is that the institution , one of whose steps in the march of time we to-day commemorate , had its rise in a dark age and among a despotic people—yet its greatest development and most rapid progress has been among the people the most enlightened and whoso institutions
secure to the many the largest degree of rational liberty . Freemasonry may , nay , does exist under governments the most despotic ; but it cannot expand and grow into general favour and usefulness , except where freedom is the birthright of the individual , and guaranteed by bonds imperishable as is nature . In seeking the land where it has flourished the most and borne its best fruits
you must turn to those nations which fnrnish the best and safest guarantees for " free thought , free speech , free press , pure morals , unfettered religious sentiments , and equal rights and privileges to all men , irrespective of rationality , color or religion . " In all absolute governments our society has been at times , and too often , under the ban of the government , under the heel of the governor , be he Pope ,
Emperor or King . Nevertheless , it is a well attested fact , true as wonderful , that Freemasonry is universal—existing in * every nation , among all peoples , and its mysteries taught in every written language . In common with our brethren of every jurisdiction are the Masons of Iowa called upon to join hands in this Centennial enterprise , and
take part in the work to be done . The summons has already come from the city of Brotherly Love , whose Masons claim—and with mnch show of reason—that the first Lodge chartered in America was in their city , inviting the Templars and Masons of Iowa to meet their brothers there in the year of our nation ' s jubilee . And surely we have an iuterest in such an event—one so telling upon the progress
of all that goes to make a nation great , and its citizens prosperous and happy . And here we are met with the question how shall we , as Masons , engage in this work ? Surely not as the vagne traditions of the Order relate , that the captives returning from Babylon to Jerusalem engaged in rebuilding the city and temple of the Lord , made desolate
by the Chaldees , arms in hand to protect themselves from surrounding foes . Nor should we go up , as did tho tribes of old , to the dedication of the Temple , when Solomon , in all his glory , placed the copestone amid the rejoicings of the gathered hosts . To all our people , the present is a time of universal peace and plenty , and there is none to molest and make us afraid . The Mason ' s temple—the
greatest ever dedicated by the fraternity to Masonry , virtue , and universal benevolence—has alread y ( a triad ago ) been consecrated to the practice of our rites and ceremonies by the pouring on of corn , wine and oil , emblems of health , plenty and peace to the Craft and tho world . Not as in . the past then will we go , for the edncated and intelligent man of to-day is not of . those , " being more exceedingly
jealous of the tradition of their fathers . " Rather like Paul , after his conversion , would we hold to the truth of the gospel which comes by faith in historical truth , and not the vain traditions which have so long obtained among men and Masons . Our fellow-citizens will go armed and equipped according to the law of individual and national progress everywhere manifest , bearing
in their hands the fruits of their labors . The agriculturist with " the fruit of the ground , " and the herdsman with " the firstlings of his flock and the fat thereof "—but not in contention and wrath , the accompaniments of tho first recorded offering to the Lord . With them will go the artisan bearing the work of his skilled hands , the artist with the choicest productions of his cultivated taste , the miner
with the treasurers of beauty and usefulness , contributed at his bidding by our mother earth , while the man of science and genius will bo represented by models of what his brain hath wrought out or evoked at hi 3 iuspired bidding . All men and women will go carrying the harvest of toil , whether of hand or mind , or both conjoined .
All things will contribute to show the progress made in the useful arts and sciences , and tho offering will be made by all our people , and those of every nation and the isles of the sea , for all have an interest in this , the world ' s movement , centering in this sovereign State , though the youngest in years , " the first among its equals , " 1 n all that constitutes the State .
The lesson in its usefulness will very much depend upon how it is learned and improved . "A centennial is imperfectly improved unless an accurate balance is struck between the profit and loss flowing from the event celebrated , and a discriminating estimate is made that will show upon tho whole world is better or worse off for what is commemorated . " It will be wise for ns as a people , and for us as a sooiety , to inquire in what reapect we have fallen below the
P.G.M. Parvin's Address.
standards of a hundred years ago , as well as in what respect we havo vison above them ; and in estimating our gains we will do well to consider the losses , if we would arrive at conclusions at all profitable to ourselves . Tho President of the nation , recently at the capital of our State , in the only general utterance evor escaping his lips , declared this
important truth , to which it would be well to give heed that "the centennial year of our natioual oxistonce is a good time to begin the work of strengthening the fonudatiou of tho structure commeucod b y our forefathers a hundred years ago at Lexington . " So recoufc is our organization as a nation that it is an oa 3 y matter to bring in review
the past , and all the past , iu our history and growth , from so small a beginning , to the present outgrowth of a centennial and millions of freemen , the bulwark of the world's liberty , which , in tho end , all people must share and enjoy or become , as Napoleon declared , Cossack without end .
The instructions and admonitions we nave cited as applicable to the nation , apply with equal force and significance to us as a society . True , we cannot , with the nation , go back to our origin as an institution , and trace its progress through the long years of its history to the present . Nor is there any occasion for such a useless waste of time and effort . It will suffice if we well and truly trace its progress
and history for the century that is passed , and confine ourselves to the truth as it is told . As Masons , symbolic and Royal ATch , and as Templars ( who though individually aro Masons , their organization i 3 not Masonic , as tho ignorant have declared , for Masonry is of all religions and cosmopolitan , whilo Templars are purely and solely Christian , excluding the Jew and the Gentile ) , we are wont to meet
annually and as often to toll the old story of the origin of the institution , and presont the people who honour with their presence our public assemblies , that same old dish of hash called Masonic history , tracing the institution back to the time " when the morning stars sang together and all the sons of God shouted for joy . " Or if they ( that is the grandiloquent orators ) be a little modest or doubting in
faith , they will drop off a few cycles and come down to the time when "Adam delved and Eve spun " without the garden from which they had been expelled by an angry God whose laws they had sot at naught , in presuming , as some of our illustrous brothers and Sir Knights have since presumed , to rebel against constituted authority and set up their will as the law for all to follow or be for ever
" anathema marantba . Such oracles are always proclaiming as Masons , Enoch , the translated , Solomon , the wise , and the St . Johns of Christian sanctity . It is amusing to note how they always enroll among their numbers the noble and the good of all nations , aud all the time as carefully excluding tho opposite class . Another and a large number more of our anniversary orators drop the antediluvian
chapter , and are even so considerate as to come down to the period of the building of the first temple , and trace its origin to that event , and make Solomon its great founder , as God ' s vicegerent in its creation . And it is indeed only within a few years past that a generation of doubting Thomases have arison , who demaud the proof that even these things are so , and havo applied the same tests to
Masonic history as has been for a century applied to all sacred and profane history—to the end that the truth might be eliminated from the myths and traditions which have so long misled even the world of letters . My hearers ( whether Masons or no ) can recall the times almost a score , when they have heard not only tho nonsense wo havo related
as touching the times so long remote , but coming down to our own day and country , three blind leaders have , time and again , so often proclaimed as a fact , that they no doubt believe that " all the general officers of the revolution were Masons , except the traitor Arnold , " and that " all the Presidents of the Republic wore Aiasons . " As wo penned these lines we received throngh the mails a circular , from a
publishing house at the National Capitol , named for a man , who , when a boy , would not lie , asking our aid as a Mason , to further the sale of a series of Presidential portraits they havo executed . And what think you was the consideration upon which they presumed to invoke our aid as a Mason and an officer in a Masonic body whoso jurisdiction is co-extensive with that of the State . That circular
publishes to the world , with solemn emphasis , that all tho Presidents were Masons . As happily there havo been no traitors ( as in the case of the Generals ) so the usual exception of one as is the case of Judas and Arnold is not made by this class of-buncombo orators—of which Orator Puff is a fair exponent . But you , my brethren , must not think this class of speakers are all
foreign , for we have some of the most famous within our own Grand bodies . You have only to oxamiuo tho proceedings of one of the Grand bodies here and now represented to find published an oration from which we quote as follows . In speakiug as usual of tho antiquity of Freemasonry , the orator says : "Masonry and Christianity were married and the union was designed by Omnipotence himself ,
and that this marriage took place in the reign of the Roman Emperor Constantino [ who died A . D . 337 ] and the union so consummated continued until the Reformation [ A . D . 1517 , a period of twelve centuries ] when in consequence of the intolerance , bigotry and corruption of the Romish church , tho twain were separated , never to be re-united again . " Warming with his subject our eloquent brother
adds , " that the studious Knight Mason of to-day knows that tho intimate union of religion and Masonry is something older than the marriage of order with the church of Christ , before tho inauguration of the church [ A . D . 33 ] Masonry was , ( the emphasis is his ) and when the church was born it was promptly adopted by the fraternity , the which with reverent humility abdicated its right as elder sister and exponent of the will of the Deity . " Verily our Iowa exDonent
of Masonry is not to be outdone by the long line of his illustrious predecessors . Now , in all candour and with all proper respect to the brethren , to this audience , not overlooking my own self respect as a Mason and a man of mature age , I must declare that such stuff , while it may possibly ( though we can deviae no good reason ) be " told to marines , " certainly to all such heresios we may apply tho injunction of David