Gains And Losses.

GAINS AND LOSSES .

JUDGING by the reports of the condition of Masonry which , reach us from all parts of the North American continent the Fraternity is in a flourishing condition on this side of the Atlantic . So far as I have noticed all the Grand

Lodges have made more or less substantial increases in their numerical strength , and in some parts of the country the quantity of " work" has become burdensome . This seems particularly noticeable in Chicago , where some of the Lodges are said to be in session twelve hours a day making

Masons , and even at that have a long waiting list . Of course we have to take this story with the customary grain of salt , with several grains in fact , but we are so accustomed to reading " cum grano salis" stories from the Windy City that we mentally discount them in a mechanical and

unthinking sort of way . Still in extravagance of language as in vagueness of legend there is always a sub-stratum of truth and there is no doubt that the Chicago Lodges are as busy as any of their sisters . In fact , according to Bro . Jesse B . Anthony ' s statistics , in which everything is presented on a

"hard-shell" basis , Illinois had a gain last year of 2 , 1 94 , thus towering away over Pennsylvania , which had 1 , 386 , and Missouri , which had 1 , 396 . Modesty makes me keep New York with its 3 , 3 68 out of the comparison . Wisconsin had 197 , Michigan 1 , 537 , Indiana 1 , 221 , Iowa 847 , and so on

down to Rhode Island ' s 57 and little old-fashioned Delaware ' s 85 , ana a few others which had less than a hundred . Altogether a year ' s work in the Lodges of the United States resulted in a net gain to the several rolls of 25 , 645 , while Canada had a gain of 1 , 519 .

All this , in one sense at least , is very gratifying ; it shows we are waxing in physical strength ; it gives on the surface evidence that we are raising riches as well as Masons , that we have become a popular Institution , and that our standing in the community is " way up , " as the little "boys

say . But I did not intend that this letter should be a . paean of praise , or an outburst of glorification . My purpose was and is rather to utter a wail and to . consider one of the

shadows of the picture , because I think that shadow could be softened and should be softened , unless we have in mind only the mercenary side of Masonry and care nothing for its intellectual or aesthetic principles or its true position as a teaching force .

According to Bro . Anthony ' s tables already quoted from , there were in the United States last year 14 , 808 suspensions for non-payment of dues . By last year I mean the year of Bro . Anthony ' s horoscope . I am not sure when it begins or ends , but the time covered is twelve months , and

it is really sad to contemplate such an army as thus seems to have fallen out , or been thrown out , while the Masonic column swept along in its triumphal inarch . Think of it—14 , 808—more than the figures of a majority of our Grand Lodges ! In this jurisdiction during the Masonic year which

closed 31 st December last , the number was 1 , 968 and 2 , 285 , 2 , 318 , 2 , 789 and 2 , 950 respectively for the four years preceding . In the report of the Grand Secretary in which the

work of twenty years is summarised , I find that in these two < decades 46 , 172 Masons have been unaffiliated and 20 , 034 restored , leaving the great army of 26 , 138 Brethren who wandered out from our fold and never found a way back .

This is a much more serious matter than is generally thought . What is the cause of this annual loss , a loss which in the aggregate reaches such huge figures ? It is not in ail cases poverty . A long experience in Lodge work in New York city prompts me to say that I never yet knew of a

Brother being stricken from the rolls for non-payment of dues simply because he was too poor to pay . My impression is that in one case out of each ten pride makes the Brother conceal his poverty and the Brethren act on his case blindly ; in one case out of ten the Brother in some way has raised a

feeling against him , is deemed unworthy material ; in one case out of ten the Brother is not satisfied with the Institution or some Brother may have looked cross-eyed at him when he was listening , or trying to listen , to the

instructions- of the Master ; in one case out of ten some private pique or quarrel keeps a man away from his Lodge ; but in the remaining six cases there is on the surface no valid reason for the defection . It seems to me that if our Lodges attended a little better to this matter the annual roll of

Gains And Losses.

suspensions would quickly assume less extravagant proportions . For six cases out of every ten of these suspensions I believe our Lodges—or the members of our Lodges—are to blame . In the rush for new material , for " work . " we are

not too particular in our selection . We may disguise it as we may , but . Masonry costs money and no man with the characteristics necessary to make him . a good Mason will care to retain his Lodge membership if he cannot meet on equal terms with his Brethren . That is one reason why I

have always opposed the raising of funds for this or that laudable purpose within the tiled Lodge room . The smiling fellow who shoves a little paper before you and announces that " they" want to present a locket to George Smith , because he is such a good woirkinsr member of the Lodge ,

who in the following meeting whispers that " they" are going to give the Master a watch or a diamond ring , and at the next meeting sidles up and insists that you buy two tickets in a raffle of a vase , the proceeds of which are to 1 buy new bibs for the ladies of the local Eastern Star Chapter ,

has caused more suspensions for non-payment of dues than any one else . A decent honest man who cannot afford such requisitions and does not care to < plead his poverty simply stays away from his Lodge and so loses interest in its work . Then we ought to consider the financial fitness of a man we

are willing to propose as a candidate , because knowing little or nothing of our ways he is in no condition to think out that problem for himself . I once went as a committee of one to inquire about a Brother who was declared in arrears . I found that within two months after he was " raised " he had

been dispossessed , that his employment was very precarious , sometimes only reaching three days a week , that he had a wife and two children to support and tnat poverty was the daily companion of the home . On inquiring how he had managed to get money to pay his way into a Lodge his wife

told me that he had borrowed it and that the debt remained unpaid . Now this man should never have been proposed in a Lodge , and the fact that the Brother who proposed him knew all about his circumstances ought to have been made the subject of investigaion .

It has often seemed to me that one of our weakest points lies in the fact that sometimes a Brother receives the three degrees in the most approved style and winds up his course by listening to a popular Craftsman deliver the lecture in the third degree and never comes back . I would like to follow such Brethren to their homes and learn exactly the

reason for this condition of things , but somehow I have never managed it . My own Lodge is a popular Lodge , exemplifies the standard work fairly well , spends money freely , has all the legitimate appliances in the way of costumes , & c , to make the work attractive and yet I can point

on its roll to the signatures of half a dozen men who nave received the three degrees and never returned . Perhaps they were disappointed with the teachings , perhaps they could not understand the teachings , perhaps they expected

something quite different from the reality . No one knows the reason why , or if the Brethren who proposed them do , they say nothing . Each Brother ' s work was done , his victory achieved , when he furnished the candidate . Often if some

proper committee or some Brother of experience waited upon such " renouncers "—I cannot think of a better name—the initiatory difficulty or misunderstandings might be explained and both Lodge and Brother benefitted . In fact we ought to have some system for following up

such cases and I believe that , if we had , the annual number of suspensions could be reduced fifty per cent . Once a Brother is scored off for non-payment of dues we cease holding Masonic intercourse with him , we pass him by , we forget that he ever travelled the same road , knelt at the same altar

and assumed the same obligations that we did . We even decline to talk with him on Masonic subjects . We doi not recognise him as a Mason , while he sadly remembers the old adage , " once a Mason always a Mason , " and wonders at us . So the breach between us grows . A man may withdraw

from attendance at a Lodge because his pride prevents him from acknowledging his hnancial condition , and that same pride generally keeps him away when his circumstances

change for the better . There are a hundred little things that keep a man away when he has acquired the stay-away habit . In this state we have now six Grand Stewards . Could we not arrange to have a " Grand Stewards' Lodge" bv