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Article THE MASONIC MISSION. Page 1 of 5 →
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The Masonic Mission.
THE MASONIC MISSION .
A WINTER'S EVENING MEDITATION .
He prayeth hest who loveth best . — COLERIDGE . " Floreat iu retermuu . " THE sentiment of Charity , in its genuine conception , lias a meaning- far more expansive than the one conventionally attributed to it by the
sometimes deceptive courtesies of artificial society . Ask a portly , comfortable gentleman , or a well-meaning elderly gentlewoman of easy circumstances and placid disposition , how this , the chief of virtues , is to be practised ?—and the answer will probably be , the appropriation of some fragmentary portion of surplus income to the relief of the loiver classes . Ask a sectarian , of the less robust order of
intellectual conformation , —and you will be told that it consists solely in the industrious inculcation of his particular set of polemical points of doctrine . Ask the devoted political partisan , aye , or the statesman of high , pretensions to broad views of men and society ; and you are perhaps treated to a harangue on the virtues of some peculiar political recipe , physical , moral , social , educational , or what not , which , on inquiry , you
shall find to be diametrically opposed to the equally cherished recipe of some neighbouring- economist or statesman , of not inferior " reputation and pretensions .
^ Now , the grave and profound error of these and other classes of doctrinaires , who talk ex-cathedra about methods for suppressing social and individual ills , arises from neglect of the meaning of the great principle of charity , as set forth iu the BOOK which cannot deceive . That principle means LOVE . AVe call it a principle ratliev than an impulse , because , though it partakes essentiall y of the emotions flowing from the heart , it cannot
exist in completeness unless associated with , and guided by , the faculties of the intellect and the reason . Love it is , through which , as H
Note: This text has been automatically extracted via Optical Character Recognition (OCR) software.
The Masonic Mission.
THE MASONIC MISSION .
A WINTER'S EVENING MEDITATION .
He prayeth hest who loveth best . — COLERIDGE . " Floreat iu retermuu . " THE sentiment of Charity , in its genuine conception , lias a meaning- far more expansive than the one conventionally attributed to it by the
sometimes deceptive courtesies of artificial society . Ask a portly , comfortable gentleman , or a well-meaning elderly gentlewoman of easy circumstances and placid disposition , how this , the chief of virtues , is to be practised ?—and the answer will probably be , the appropriation of some fragmentary portion of surplus income to the relief of the loiver classes . Ask a sectarian , of the less robust order of
intellectual conformation , —and you will be told that it consists solely in the industrious inculcation of his particular set of polemical points of doctrine . Ask the devoted political partisan , aye , or the statesman of high , pretensions to broad views of men and society ; and you are perhaps treated to a harangue on the virtues of some peculiar political recipe , physical , moral , social , educational , or what not , which , on inquiry , you
shall find to be diametrically opposed to the equally cherished recipe of some neighbouring- economist or statesman , of not inferior " reputation and pretensions .
^ Now , the grave and profound error of these and other classes of doctrinaires , who talk ex-cathedra about methods for suppressing social and individual ills , arises from neglect of the meaning of the great principle of charity , as set forth iu the BOOK which cannot deceive . That principle means LOVE . AVe call it a principle ratliev than an impulse , because , though it partakes essentiall y of the emotions flowing from the heart , it cannot
exist in completeness unless associated with , and guided by , the faculties of the intellect and the reason . Love it is , through which , as H