Ever A Seeker Of Truth.

EVER A SEEKER OF TRUTH .

An address at the installation of Officers of Winslow Lewis Lodge No . 125 , at Osseo , Minnesota , by Judge George D . Emery Past Master of Khurum Lodge , No . 112 , of Minneapolis , Minnesota . THE present season is always fraught with deep interest to the Masonic Craft . Like the commencement-time to the schoolboy , it is the period

of examination in our Masonic progress and the bestowal of fche rewards of faithful labour . Throughout the Masonic world this season is devoted to the performance of those duties which we have seen to-night so impressively discharged , and which are of such deep significance and importance to the Craffc .

While in the Christian world the Christmas season typifies the advent of the Light of Israel , the same season brings to the Masonic fraternity with each recurring year an event of great interest in fche selection and installation of a new Master as representing the source of Masonic light . As the Master and Wardens are selected for their skill and proficiency

in the mystic art , and as they possess wisdom to properly order and direct the work , so will the Craft progress in knowledge and influence and in like proportion will success crown their labours . Yefc not by the plans and design of the Master only—perfect though they may be—nor by the force of his wisdom alone , can the Temple upon which we labour be raised and beautified .

The plans are to be wrought out by the patient hand of labour ; each individual Craftsman must apply the lessons of wisdom to the accomplishment of his allotted task . Forest and mountain must yield their treasures of wood and stone ; ocean and desert must be passed and repassed ; weeks must lengthen into months , and these into years , all filled with unremitting care

and toil , ere the sculptor ' s chisel shall give forth the finished statue , the polished walls of the completed Temple shall reflect the splendour of the rising morn , or its burnished pinnacles be bathed in the sunset ' s crimson . Unless the Craft labour faithfully the Master ' s wisdom is in vain . How necessary it is , then , thafc we , whose hands must wield the implements of toil , do each perform with fidelity and care his allotted portion I

To those who have not passed between the brazen columns , crossed our checkered pavement , nor climbed the steps that lead into our mystic sanctum , Masonry is a weird and mysterious problem . While modern progress and enlightenment have swept away the skepticism and suspicion which once surrounded our institution , established its dignity and influence , and accorded

it high place among the social organisations of the world , yet its veil has not been rent nor its mysteries penetrated , and it still presents a fascinating theme for speculation and wonderment to fche uninitiated . To such it is my purpose to declare to-night some of those secrets which they would otherwise only learn by long and arduous—yea , even dangerous—pursuit , through the medium of the rites and ceremonies of a Masonic Lodge . .

Of course I shall assume that all my hearers are either , Masons or the relatives and near friends of Masons , and hence of right entitled to know what we as Masons teach and practice . Firsfc , then , to be a Mason one must be a man . Nay , mothers , wives , sisters , sweethearts , you need not grieve at this requirement ; ifc is of

inestimable benefit to you . Not a man in sex only do we require , but a man in all thafc the term implies , and bearing that good repute before fche world which marks an upright life . And fche better the man the better Mason will he become , and the better , higher , nobler and more worthy and true will he be as father , husband , son and lover . In building our moral and Masonio

edifice we reject those materials which we find upon inspection to be unworthy and unsound , and seek to employ only fche good and unblemished materials . Next , the candidate for Masonic light must come to us of his own volition , prepared in his heart to renounce all that may tend to impair his

faculties or debase the dignity of his profession ; inspired by a pure motive in the pursuit of knowledge and possessed of a worthy desire to subdue his evil passions and to improve in his social and moral intercourse with the world about him . To such fche door is never closed .

Being found worthy of our fellowship , the candidate must carefully divest himself of those vices and superfluities which offend the moral senses , distort tho intellect and mar the character , and must be purified by sincere repentance and faith to receive the sublime lessons of morality and virtue . Self examination is to him a paramount duty . Only he who has learned to

know himself may presume to scan his fellow . Being thus prepared , the seeker after Masonic light is taught the first great duty of men and Masons in a manner so impressive as never to be forgotten . He learns that no man should ever enter upon any great and important undertaking without firsfc approaching , in prayerful humility , the throne of divine grace . Behold him

kneeling in the midst of his assembled Brethren , seeking from the true source the light of duty and happiness . Mother , where better could you wish your son ? Wife , what influence do you fear from the performance of this duty by him to whom you have given the treasures of your love ? Maiden , are you less willing to trust and honour the lover whose head was just now bowed

with reverence at the Masonic altar ? The world's heroes have been prayerful men . At the battle of Bannockbum , just before the onset , at the sound of the bagpipe the Highlanders knelt in prayer . The English king , mistaking

the action , cried to those about him : " See , the rebels kneel to implore our pardon . " But a Northman standing near him replied , as he reverently bared his head : " Sire , they kneel to a higher power . Those men will die or conquer where they kneel . " Thus prepared and purified , the Neophyte is ready to receive those instructions whereby to erect his moral and Masonic edifice . In order that

Ever A Seeker Of Truth.

the lessons about fco be imparted fco him may not be distorted and their influence counteracted by the enemies of Masonry , their benefits impared , fcheir force lessened , and that he may retain them in common with his Brethren in their pristine purity , he is pledged to reveal them to none , save in fche course of duty and in the tiled recesses of a Masonic Lodge . He is

then clothed with the apron of an Apprentice and taught its significance , and is invested wifch fche working tools of his degree and their uses explained to him . How beautiful may the humblest implements become when glorified with intellectual significance and employed in a holy and ennobling cause Behold the twenty-four inch gauge or common rule , the simplest tool of fche

operative Craftsman , employed by him in measuring and laying out his work . With us it serves a higher and more noble purpose . The Mason is taught to use ifc in dividing his time—thafc brief interval between yesterday and to-morrow—in such measure as shall allow him equal opportunities for fche service of God and his distressed Brethren , for his usual vocations and for

the rest and refreshment necessary to his existence . The common gavel in the hands of the workman is little calculated to excite admiration or stimulate thought . With harsh voice and ceaseless persistence it rings upon chisel and stone , knocking off here and there a protuberance , squaring an edge or a corner , or leveling a rough surface , till the stone is fitted for the

builder's use . Bufc here we are taught to use it emblematically in divesting our minds and consciences of corroding influences and vices of life , thereby fitting our bodies as living stones for that spiritual temple whose builder and maker is God . Having learned these lessons , the Apprentice , clothed with the emblem of innocence , stands before his Master and Brethren a just and

upright man and Mason , upon the threshold of his Masonic life . Ah I could the sublime lesson of that moment bufc be impressed upon his mind , be brought home in all its significance to his inmost heart , how pregnant it would be with good to him and to those about him I " A just and upright man and Mason , charged ever to walk and act as such ! " A clean record , a

conscience void of offence toward God and man , no duty to perform but fche practice of virtue and honour , and to sustain by precept and example the exalted character he has assumed , what a sublime and important epoch in his life does the moment present 1 Who of us to-night—could we but turn back the hands upon the dial of time to the first hour of our temporal

existence—bearing with us the ripened experience of the years—bufc would profit by the mistakes of the past and strive ever to keep the record as clean and spotless as that emblematic apron , our lives as free from sfcain and sin as when first we stood as just and upright souls , fresh from the hand of God ?

Thus I have briefly sketched to you somo of the secrets of the firsfc degree , which we . guard so jealously and which are now placed in your possession in the confident hope that you may profit by their consideration . When you have learned to apply them to your daily life , and to employ them in the purifying of your moral being , you are fitted to receive further instruction and I will invite you further into our mysteries .

Freemasonry is-a descendant of ancient days . No man knoweth its origin , and no pen hath traced its early history . No land can claim its birth . As you have no doubt surmised , it is a system of moral philosophy , veiled in allegory and taught by symbols ; a simple code of practical conduct between man and man , which strictly followed will make its votaries wiser ,

better and consequently happier . As in the earlier stages of our race learning and erudition -were fche objects of suspicion and fear , and those who possessed them were too often subjected to hatred and persecution , man learned to conceal knowledge beneath the mask of allegory and fable and to surround the most sublime truths wifch the veil of mystery and speculation .

Litfcle by little the great truths of life were revealed to the inquiring mind ; step by step the heights of knowledge were gained . So in Masonry , which is bufc a type of the world , the candidate advances by progressive stages , mastering fche successive steps in their order , until he achieves the completion of his Masonic education and begins indeed fche great labour of his life .

Being purified and bound by every consideration of propriety to observe secrecy , practice morality and subdue his passions to the government of virtue and wisdom , the desire of knowledge is a sufficient incentive to lead him in new fields of thought . From a bearer of burdens he now becomes a skilled workman in the quarries and in the temple . He receives the rough

stones from the hands of fche inferior Craftsman and completes their exterior , perfects their lines and fits them to fcheir places in the rising wall , the arch , the transcept , and fche tower , as the temple assumes day by day ifcs destined proportions . To enable him to do this ho must possess that skill acquired by long practice and the intelligence fco follow the designs laid down for him by the Master upon the trestle board . In the second stage the Fellow Orait is

taught fche use of the plumb , square , and level , and how by their proper application to do his part in the building of the moral temple—a Mason ' s complete life . He can now earn and is entitled fco receive wages as a skilled Craftsman , and at length penetrates to thafc mysterious middle chamber wherein are stored fche sacred vessels of fche temple , and beholds " that wonderful hieroglyphic light which none but Craftsmen ever saw , " and in the truths there revealed he is furnished fresh incentive to new and more

perfect labour . ' By the aid of the plumb fche operative workman erects his wall or column to a true perpendicular ; by the level he properly lays horizontal beams and surfaces , with due relation to the axis of the earth , and by fche square he

perfects and adapts his work in strict accordance with the rules and plans of the Master . The Speculative Fellow Craffc is taught to regulate his conduct towards God and man by the true plumb-line of rectitude , following that rule which fche Master set in the midst of his people Israel : " Whatsoever ye