The Builders: A Story and Study of Masonry

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from time immemorial; and honorable it must be acknowledged to be, as by natural tendency it conduces to make those so who are obedient to its precepts. To so high an eminence has its credit been advanced that in

ut it is obviously inadequate, the more so when it uses the word "peculiar" as describing the morality of Masonry; and it gives no hint of a world-encircling fellowship and its far-ramifying influence. Another definition has it that Masonry is "a science which is engaged in the search after divine truth;"[163] but that

o the eternal law of duty."[164] Such is indeed the very essence and spirit of Masonry, but Masonry has no monopoly of that spirit, and its uniqueness consists, rather, in the form in which it seeks to embody and express the gracious and benign spirit which is the genius of all the higher life

s trade and from architecture, work for the welfare of mankind, striving morally to ennoble themselves and others,

and piled a cairn to mark the graves where their dead lay asleep. History is no older than architecture. How fitting, then, that the idea and art of building should be made the basis of a great order of men which has no other aim than the upbuilding of humanity in Faith, Freedom, and Friendship. Seeking to ennoble and beautify life, it finds in the common tas

d through that common life the light and glory of the Ideal-as the sun shoots its transfiguring rays through a great dull cloud, evoking beauty from the brown earth. Such is Masonry, which unites all these high interests and brings to their service a vast, world-wide fraternity of free and devout men, built upon a foundation of spiritual faith and moral idealism, whose mission it is to make men friends, to refine and exalt the

laces of its meetings. Having come down from dark days of persecution, when all the finer things sought the protection of seclusion, if it still adheres to secret rites, it is not in order to hide the truth, but the better to teach it more impressively, to train men in its pure service, and to promote union and amity upon earth. Its signs and grips serve as a kind of universal language, and still more as a gracious cover for the practice of sweet charity-maki

er critics on this side are of two kinds. There are those who hold that the humanitarian ideal is an error, maintaining that human nature has no moral aptitude, and can be saved only by submission to a definite system of dogma. Then there are those who look for salvation solely in political action and social agitation, who live in the delusion that man can be

will agree; but they are blind who do not see that the way is long and the process slow. What is it that so tragically delays the march of man toward the better and wiser social order whereof our prophets dream? Our age, like the ages gone before, is full of schemes of every kind for the reform and betterment of mankind. Why do they not succeed? Some fail, perhaps, because they are imprudent and ill-co

s shown us how The Pillars of Society, resting on rotten foundations, came crashing down, wounding the innocent in their wreck. Long ago it was said that "through wisdom is an house builded, and by understanding it is established; and by knowledge shall the chambers be filled with pleasant and precious riches."[169] Time has shown that the House of Wisdom must be founded upon righteousness, justice, purity, character, faith in God and love of man,

ble cause succeeds; by as much as she fails, everything fails! By its ministry to the individual man-drawing him into the circle of a great friendship, exalting his faith, refining his ideals, enlarging his sympathies, and setting his feet in the long white path-Masonry best serves society and the state.[170] While it is not a reformatory, it is a center of moral

er settled at all, and settled right, it must be in an atmosphere of mutual recognition and respect, such as Masonry seeks to create and make prevail. Whether it be a conflict of nations, or a clash of class with class, appeal must be made to intelligence and the moral sense, as befits the dignity of man. Amidst bitterness and strife Masonry brings men of every rank and walk of life together as men, and nothing else, at an altar where they can talk and not figh

ies of language, race, creed, and even color, while striving to make the wisdom of the past available for the culture of men in faith and purity. Not a party, not a sect, not a cult, it is a great order of men selected, initiated, sworn, and trained to make sweet reason and the will of God prevail! Against the ancient enmities and inhumanities of the world it wages ete

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ut that may be the fault, not of Masonry, but of the Church so long defamed by bigotry and distracted by sectarian feud, and which has too often made acceptance of abstract dogmas a test of its fellowship.[171] Naturally many fine minds have been estranged from the Church, not because they were irreligious, but because they were required to believe what it was impossible for them to believe; and, rather than sacrifice their integrity of soul, they have turned away from the last place from which a man should ever turn away. No part of the ministry of Masonr

erate each other; asserting a principle broader than any of them-the sanctity of the soul and the duty of every man to revere, or at least to regard with charity, what is sacred to his fellows. It is like the crypts underneath the old cathedrals-a place where men of every cr

his sobriety; the Jew his clinging, through good and evil days, to the one God who loveth righteousness, and whose name is "I AM;" the Christian, that which is better than all, if those who doubt it would try it-our love

ertake to explain or dogmatically to settle those questions or solve those dark mysteries which out-top human knowledge. Beyond the facts of faith it does not go. With the subtleties of speculation concerning those truths, and the unworldly envies growing out of them, it has not to do. There divisions begin, and Masonry was not made to divide men, but to unite

ns who substituted intolerance for charity, persecution for friendship, and did not love God because they hated their neighbors, Masonry made eloquent protest, putting their bigotry to shame by its simple insight, and the dignity of its golden voice. A vast change of heart is now taking place in the religious world, by reason of an

d that when the masks of misunderstanding are taken off they know and love one another. Our little dogmas will have their day and cease to be, lost in the vision of a truth so great that a

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s, will be written the simple words of the one eternal religion-the Fatherhood of God, t

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of Freemasonry

who had the spirit of Friendship and Integrity, that he was a Mason, is in a sense true, but it is misleading. Ne

cyclopedia of Masonry, published in 1900. S

he Philosophy of Mystery," quoting the words of Carlyle in Sartor Resartus: "Bees will not work except in darkness; thoughts will not work except in silence; neither will virtue work except in secrecy" (History and Philosophy of Masonry, chap. xxi). But neither writer seems t

a Masonic Obligation," in Practical Mason

tion of Freemasonry," by Dr. Pa

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rshall carried the spirit of Masonry into the organic law of this republic. It is not politics that corrupts character; it is bad character that corrupts politics-and by building men up to spiritual faith and cha

Christianity, as Hutchinson did-and even Arnold in his chapter on "Christianity and Freemasonry" (History and Philosophy of Masonry). All this confusion results from a misunderstanding of what religion is. Religions are many; religion is one-perhaps we may say one thing, but that one thing includes everything-the life of God in the soul of man, which finds expression in all the forms which life and love and duty take. This conception of religion shakes the poison out of all our wild flowers, and shows us that it is the inspiration of all scientific inquiry, all striving for liberty, all virtue and charity; the spirit of all thought, the motif of all great music, the soul of al

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righteousness is accepted of Him. All Masons, therefore, whether Christians, Jews, or Mahomedans, who violate not the rule of right, written by the Almighty upon the tables of the heart, who DO fear Him, and WORK righteousness, we are to acknowledge as brethren; and, though we take different roads, we are not to be angry with, or persecute each other on

son, The Spi