The Glories Of Freemasonry.

The rightly instructed Mason knows sufficiently how ignorant and untruthful is this reckless and foolish denunciation . We are here to-day—to return to the question with which I beganbecause all our Order and ritual affirm and reaffirm those august truths for which this Holy house and the worship and teaching that obtain here , forever stand . We are here because , step by

step , as we ascend from the level of a Master to that higher plane on which Eoyal Arch Masonry has always stood , each successive rite , vow , and degree , declares its loyalty to the Divine Head and Master of all the race , and the truths for which He gave His life . These are the impregnable facts , on which immovably we are planted , and to which it is our joy that we are pledged .

And yet it is the glory of Masonry that while in these aspects of it it is an exclusive body , there are others in which , of all other societies , it is the most inclusive . An Entered Apprentice , Fellow Craft , or Master Mason may be such , holding simply and only to a faith in God our Father , and our obligation of homage and obedience to Him . And so , to-day , those races to whom the

fulness of that revelation , which we find in the New Testament , has not yet come , such as Hebrews and those others in the far East or anywhere , who cry " Great is God , " and this or that man " is his prophet , " may ascend along the glorious pathway of Masonry to the rank of Master Masons . But on the other hand , denying such a faith , they cut themselves off from our

fellowship ; and no nobler act has adorned the history of the Grand Lodge of this commonwealth than the recent proclamtion of its Grand Master , with reference to the infidel pronunciamento of a Grand Lodge in South America , in regard to its renunciation of all belief in a Superior Being . Such action , as he rightly declares , is , Masonically considered , an act of suicide , and must , by all loyal Masons , be so treated and regarded .

Have you ever thought , now , of the tremendous significance of an Order so wide , so international , so all , but all encompassing ? What is there to be compared with it which the wit of man has devised ? What , if only its members will rise to the height of its great possibilities , may it not accomplish for the good of men and the promotion of human brotherhood ? How earnestly and

constantly it ought to seek to illustrate the principles of its constitution and the spirit of love and loyalty and self-sacrifice that breathes through all its rites and offices ! The warring world waits , my Brothers , for something which shall bind together men of warring races , warring interests , warring creeds ; something that breathes in all its speech the fraternal spirit , and ,

that in all its life , will live it ! May we be unwilling to lose the vision of so high an aim , or , in what we are and do , to go below it ! The anniversary , which we commemorate to-day , presents another aspect of our great Order , which , just here , we may appropriately recognise . A stranger who has thus far listened to me might say , " This is all very well ; but I do not quite see what it has to do with Masonry as we know it to-day . You have been

talking of what , in our day , we would call a trades union or guild ; but surely Freemasonry is no longer that . You are not a Mason in any sense which relates you , organically or even intelligently , to the builders' art or trade ; and what is true of you is true of the great majority of those with whom you are associated . Your designation is misleading , your association is unreal , your aims are fictitious . "

The answer to such objections , as I need not remind you , is to be found in that history with which you are all familiar . The time came in the life of Freemasonry when the Order passed out of the domain practical , into that of symbolic or speculative Masonry ; when the art and craft and tools of Masonry became ,

in other words , the signs or emblems of that greater structure which we call human society . As the race ascends out of barbarism , it steadily becomes increasingly constructive , not only of houses , and roads , and temples , but of that measured , wellordered , squared and plumbed life , of which a well-built house or temple is the enduring image . As the Mason builds the house

The Glories Of Freemasonry.

with a supreme reference to a supreme law—the law of gravitation , which the great Architect of the Universe has ordained—so must you and I build character , the family , the state , the nation . All powers , all righteousness , all rightlivedness , in other words , gravitate back for their foundation and source to the Supreme Builder of all . And so it was felt , a few

centuries ago , in France , in Scotland , obedience to Him and love to his brother man , might well in Germany , in Italy , in England , and elsewhere , that any man who sought to build himself plumb to God's law of obedience to Him and love to his brother man , might well find his place m the Masonic Order ; and scholars

and thinkers ; merchants , and travellers , and poets ; men of great rank , and men of low rank , alike turned to it , in various and widely separated lands saying , "Here is a fellowship whose aim is plain to the humblest and the highest alike ; a fellowship in which all differences disappear , and in which all turning to the East for light , look and watch and wait for it !"

The history of a century of Royal Arch Masonry at once vindicates and illustrates that original aspiration . Coming into being in another land , amid much discussion , and represented , originally , by two bodies , or orders , each of which disputed the

legitimacy of the other , it , early in its history , yielded to the wise influences which drew the " Ancient" and " Modern" Royal Arch Masons together , and developed a ritual and order which have served as a beneficent example on both sides of the Atlantic .

You know its distinctive symbols , my Brothers . The working tools of a Royal Arch Mason are the Crow-bar , the Pick-axe , and the Spade—fit emblems of the arduous task which belongs always and everywhere to him who is a Royal Arch Mason . Out of the pathway of virtue and noble doing for his Order , his household , the community , and the nation , he is to

roll away the obstructions that bar the onward march to humanity . " Whatsoever things are true , whatsoever things are honest , whatsoever things are lovely , whatsoever things are of good report , " these things he is to think on and to strive for . His crow-bar is the enduring symbol of that higher Masonry that forever lifts away obstructions and makes rough places plain .

And so of his pick-axe and shovel . There is ground that must be broken up , there are foundations that must be dug , there are rubbish heaps " of ignorance and vice " that must be removed , until he can discern " that eternal foundation of truth and wisdom upon which he is to erect the spiritual and moral temple of his second life . "

A high and noble and heroic purpose ! May our lives , my Brothers , who can count it our joy and honour that we are Royal Arch Masons , be worthy of it ! The great Order of which , in common with all Master Masons , whether or no they have advanced to this high degree , we are members , stands for great ideas , and for great possibilities for the country and the race . If

sometimes we have fallen below them , —if we have been content hitherto with those features of Masonry which emphasise its social or mutually helpful character , its friendly and convivial and self-protective aims , let us make this centennial an occasion for advancing to a loftier conception of its aims ; and striving for a loftier realisation of its better aspirations . It stands supremely

for human brotherhood . Let us seek to make real that brotherhood all around the world ! It stands for loyalty to our common country and to the priceless heritage of our free institutions . Let us jealously guard and defend them . No Freemason may honourably bend the knee to any foreign potentate , civil or ecclesiastical , or yield allegiance to any alien sovereignty ,

temporal or spiritual . See to it that you stand fast in that liberty wherewith God and our fathers made us free ? A Royal Arch spans with its luminous splendours the ground on which our feet are planted within this goodly fellowship ? Peace be within her walls , and plenteousness within her palaces!— " American Tyler . "

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