is a contented spirit. We may be reconciled to poverty and a low
fortune, if we suffer contentedness and equanimity to make the
proportions. No man is poor who doth not think himself so; but if, in a
full fortune, with impatience he desires more, he proclaims his wants
and his beggarly condition. This virtue of contentedness was the sum of
all the old moral philosophy, and is of most universal use in the whole
course of our lives, and the only instrument to ease the burdens of the
world and the enmities of sad chances. It is the great reasonableness of
complying with the Divine Providence, which governs all the world, and
hath so ordered us in the administration of His great family. It is fit
that God should dispense His gifts as He pleases; and if we murmur here,
we may, at the next melancholy, be troubled that He did not make us to
be angels or stars.
We ourselves make our fortunes good or bad; and when God lets loose a
Tyrant upon us, or a sickness, or scorn, or a lessened fortune, if we
fear to die, or know not how to be patient, or are proud, or covetous,
then the calamity sits heavy on us. But if we know how to manage a noble
principle, and fear not death so much as a dishonest action, and think
impatience a worse evil than a fever, and pride to be the greatest
disgrace as well as the greatest folly, and poverty far preferable to
the torments of avarice, we may still bear an even mind and smile at the
reverses of fortune and the ill-nature of Fate.
If thou hast lost thy land, do not also lose thy constancy; and if thou
must die sooner than others, or than thou didst expect, yet do not die
impatiently. For no chance is evil to him who is content, and to a man
nothing is miserable unless it be unreasonable. No man can make another
man to be his slave, unless that other hath first enslaved himself to
life and death, to pleasure or pain, to hope or fear; command these
passions, and you are freer than the Parthian Kings.
When an enemy reproaches us, let us look on him as an impartial relator
of our faults; for he will tell us truer than our fondest friend will,
and we may forgive his anger, whilst we make use of the plainness of his
declamation. The ox, when he is weary, treads truest; and if there be
nothing else in abuse, but that it makes us to walk warily, and tread
sure for fear of our enemies, that is better than to be flattered into
pride and carelessness.
If thou fallest from thy employment in public, take sanctuary in an
honest retirement, being indifferent to thy gain abroad, or thy safety
at home. When the north wind blows hard, and it rains sadly, we do not
sit down in it and cry; but defend ourselves against it with a warm
garment, or a good fire and a dry roof. So when the storm of a sad
mischance beats upon our spirits, we may turn it into something that is
good, if we resolve to make it so; and with equanimity and patience may
shelter ourselves from its inclement pitiless pelting. If it develop our
patience, and give occasion for heroic endurance, it hath done us good
enough to recompense us sufficiently for all the temporal affliction;
for so a wise man shall overrule his stars; and have a greater influence
upon his own content, than all the constellations and planets of the
firmament.
Compare not thy condition with the few above thee, but to secure thy
content, look upon those thousands with whom thou wouldst not, for any
interest, change thy fortune and condition. A soldier must not think
himself unprosperous, if he be not successful as Alexander or
Wellington; nor any man deem himself unfortunate that he hath not the
wealth of Rothschild; but rather let the former rejoice that he is not
lessened like the many generals who went down horse and man before
Napoleon, and the latter that he is not the beggar who, bareheaded in
the bleak winter wind holds out his tattered hat for charity. There may
be many who are richer and more fortunate; but many thousands who are
very miserable, compared to thee.
After the worst assaults of Fortune, there will be something left to
us,--a merry countenance, a cheerful spirit, and a good conscience, the
Providence of God, our hopes of Heaven, our charity for those who have
injured us; perhaps a loving wife, and many friends to pity, and some to
relieve us; and light and air, and all the beauties of Nature; we can
read, discourse, and meditate; and having still these blessings, we
should be much in love with sorrow and peevishness to lose them all, and
prefer to sit down on our little handful of thorns.
Enjoy the blessings of this day, if God sends them, and the evils of it
bear patiently and calmly; for this day only is ours: we are dead to
yesterday, and we are not yet born to the morrow. When our fortunes are
violently changed, our spirits are unchanged, if they always stood in
the suburbs and expectation of sorrows and reverses. The blessings of
immunity, safeguard, liberty, and integrity deserve the thanksgiving of
a whole life. We are quit from a thousand calamities, every one of
which, if it were upon us, would make us insensible of our present
sorrow, and glad to receive it in exchange for that other greater
affliction.
Measure your desires by your fortune and condition, not your fortunes by
your desires: be governed by your needs, not by your fancy; by nature,
not by evil customs and ambitious principles. It is no evil to be poor,
but to be vicious and impatient. Is that beast better, that hath two or
three mountains to graze on, than the little bee that feeds on dew or
manna, and lives upon what falls every morning from the store-houses of
Heaven, clouds and Providence?
There are some instances of fortune and a fair condition that cannot
stand with some others; but if you desire this, you must lose that, and
unless you be content with one, you lose the comfort of both. If you
covet learning, you must have leisure and a retired life; if honors of
State and political distinctions, you must be ever abroad in public, and
get experience, and do all men's business, and keep all company, and
have no leisure at all. If you will be rich, you must be frugal; if you
will be popular, you must be bountiful; if a philosopher, you must
despise riches. If you would be famous as Epaminondas, accept also his
poverty, for it added lustre to his person, and envy to his fortune, and
his virtue without it could not have been so excellent. If you would
have the reputation of a martyr, you must needs accept his persecution;
if of a benefactor of the world, the world's injustice; if truly great,
you must expect to see the mob prefer lesser men to yourself.
God esteems it one of His glories, that He brings good out of evil; and
therefore it were but reason we should trust Him to govern His own world
as He pleases; and that we should patiently wait until the change
cometh, or the reason is discovered.
A Mason's contentedness must by no means be a mere contented
selfishness, like his who, comfortable himself, is indifferent to the
discomfort of others. There will always be in this world wrongs to
forgive, suffering to alleviate, sorrow asking for sympathy, necessities
and destitution to relieve, and ample occasion for the exercise of
active charity and beneficence. And he who sits unconcerned amidst it
all, perhaps enjoying his own comforts and luxuries the more, by
contrasting them with the hungry and ragged destitution and shivering
misery of his fellows, is not contented, but selfish and unfeeling.
It is the saddest of all sights upon this earth, that of a man lazy and
luxurious, or hard and penurious, to whom want appeals in vain, and
suffering cries in an unknown tongue. The man whose hasty anger hurries
him into violence and crime is not half so unworthy to live. He is the
faithless steward, that embezzles what God has given him in trust for
the impoverished and suffering among his brethren. The true Mason must
be and must have a right to be content with himself; and he can be so
only when he lives not for himself alone, but for others also, who need
his assistance and have a claim upon his sympathy.
"Charity is the great channel," it has been well said, "through which
God passes all His mercy upon mankind. For we receive absolution of our
sins in proportion to our forgiving our brother. This is the rule of our
hopes and the measure of our desire in this world; and on the day of
death and judgment, the great sentence upon mankind shall be transacted
according to our alms, which is the other part of charity. God himself
is love; and every degree of charity that dwells in us is the
participation of the Divine nature."
These principles Masonry reduces to practice. By them it expects you to
be hereafter guided and governed. It especially inculcates them upon him
who employs the labor of others, forbidding him to discharge them, when
to want employment is to starve; or to contract for the labor of man or
woman at so low a price that by over-exertion they must sell him their
blood and life at the same time with the labor of their hands.
These Degrees are also intended to teach _more_ than morals. The symbols
and ceremonies of Masonry have more than one meaning. They rather
_conceal_ than _disclose_ the Truth. They _hint_ it only, at least; and
their varied meanings are only to be discovered by reflection and study.
Truth is not only symbolized by Light, but as the ray of light is
separable into rays of different colors, so is truth separable into
kinds. It is the province of Masonry to teach _all_ truths--not moral
truth alone, but political and philosophical, and even religious truth,
so far as concerns the great and essential principles of each. The
sphynx was a symbol. To whom has it disclosed its inmost meaning? Who
knows the symbolic meaning of the pyramids?
You will hereafter learn who are the chief foes of human liberty
symbolized by the assassins of the Master Khūrūm; and in their
fate you may see foreshadowed that which we earnestly hope will
hereafter overtake those enemies of humanity, against whom Masonry has
struggled so long.
[Illustration]
[Illustration]
IX.
ELECT OF THE NINE.
[Elu of the Nine.]
Originally created to reward fidelity, obedience, and devotion, this
Degree was consecrated to bravery, devotedness, and patriotism; and your
obligation has made known to you the duties which you have assumed. They
are summed up in the simple mandate, "Protect the oppressed against the
oppressor; and devote yourself to the honor and interests of your
Country."
Masonry is not "speculative," nor theoretical, but experimental; not
sentimental, but practical. It requires self-renunciation and
self-control. It wears a stern face toward men's vices, and interferes
with many of our pursuits and our fancied pleasures. It penetrates
beyond the region of vague sentiment; beyond the regions where
moralizers and philosophers have woven their fine theories and
elaborated their beautiful maxims, to the very depths of the heart,
rebuking our littlenesses and meannesses, arraigning our prejudices and
passions, and warring against the armies of our vices.
It wars against the passions that spring out of the bosom of a world of
fine sentiments, a world of admirable sayings and foul practices, of
good maxims and bad deeds; whose darker passions are not only restrained
by custom and ceremony, but hidden even from itself by a veil of
beautiful sentiments. This terrible solecism has existed in all ages.
Romish sentimentalism has often covered infidelity and vice; Protestant
straightness often lauds spirituality and faith, and neglects homely
truth, candor, and generosity; and ultra-liberal Rationalistic
refinement sometimes soars to heaven in its dreams, and wallows in the
mire of earth in its deeds.
There may be a world of Masonic sentiment; and yet a world of little or
no Masonry. In many minds there is a vague and general sentiment of
Masonic charity, generosity, and disinterestedness, but no practical,
active virtue, nor habitual kindness, self-sacrifice, or liberality.
Masonry plays about them like the cold though brilliant lights that
flush and eddy over Northern skies. There are occasional flashes of
generous and manly feeling, transitory splendors, and momentary gleams
of just and noble thought, and transient coruscations, that light the
Heaven of their imagination; but there is no vital warmth in the heart;
and it remains as cold and sterile as the Arctic or Antarctic regions.
They _do_ nothing; they gain no victories over themselves; they make no
progress; they are still in the Northeast corner of the Lodge, as when
they first stood there as Apprentices; and they do not cultivate
Masonry, with a cultivation, determined, resolute, and regular, like
their cultivation of their estate, profession, or knowledge. Their
Masonry takes its chance in general and inefficient sentiment,
mournfully barren of results; in words and formulas and fine
professions.
Most men have _sentiments_, but not _principles_. The former are
temporary sensations, the latter permanent and controlling impressions
of goodness and virtue. The former are general and involuntary, and do
not rise to the character of virtue. Every one feels them. They flash up
spontaneously in every heart. The latter are rules of action, and shape
and control our conduct; and it is these that Masonry insists upon.
We approve the right; but pursue the wrong. It is the old story of human
deficiency. No one abets or praises injustice, fraud, oppression,
covetousness, revenge, envy, or slander; and yet how many who condemn
these things, are themselves guilty of them. It is no rare thing for him
whose indignation is kindled at a tale of wicked injustice, cruel
oppression, base slander, or misery inflicted by unbridled indulgence;
whose anger flames in behalf of the injured and ruined victims of wrong;
to be in some relation unjust, or oppressive, or envious, or
self-indulgent, or a careless talker of others. How wonderfully
indignant the penurious man often is, at the avarice or want of public
spirit of another!
A great Preacher well said, "Therefore thou art inexcusable. O Man,
whosoever thou art, that judgest; for wherein thou judgest another, thou
condemnest thyself: for thou that judgest, doest the same things." It is
amazing to see how men can talk of virtue and honor, whose life denies
both. It is curious to see with what a marvellous facility many bad men
quote Scripture. It seems to comfort their evil consciences, to use good
words; and to gloze over bad deeds with holy texts, wrested to their
purpose. Often, the more a man talks about Charity and Toleration, the
less he has of either; the more he talks about Virtue, the smaller stock
he has of it. The mouth speaks out of the abundance of the heart; but
often the very reverse of what the man practises. And the vicious and
sensual often express, and in a sense feel, strong disgust at vice and
sensuality. Hypocrisy is not so common as is imagined.
Here, in the Lodge, virtue and vice are matters of reflection and
feeling only. There is little opportunity here, for the practice of
either; and Masons yield to the argument here, with facility and
readiness; because nothing is to follow. It is easy, and safe, here, to
_feel_ upon these matters. But to-morrow, when they breathe the
atmosphere of worldly gains and competitions, and the passions are again
stirred at the opportunities of unlawful pleasure, all their fine
emotions about virtue, all their generous abhorrence of selfishness and
sensuality, melt away like a morning cloud.
For the time, their emotions and sentiments are sincere and real. Men
may be really, in a certain way, interested in Masonry, while fatally
deficient in virtue. It is not always hypocrisy. Men pray most fervently
and sincerely, and yet are constantly guilty of acts so bad and base, so
ungenerous and unrighteous, that the crimes that crowd the dockets of
our courts are scarcely worse.
A man may be a good sort of man in general, and yet a very bad man in
particular: good in the Lodge and bad in the world; good in public, and
bad in his family; good at home, and bad on a journey or in a strange
city. Many a man earnestly desires to be a good Mason. He says so, and
is sincere. But if you require him to resist a certain passion, to
sacrifice a certain indulgence, to control his appetite at a particular
feast, or to keep his temper in a dispute, you will find that he does
not wish to be a good Mason, _in that particular case_; or, wishing, is
not able to resist his worse impulses.
The _duties_ of life are more than life. The law imposeth it upon every
citizen, that he prefer the urgent service of his country before the
safety of his life. If a man be commanded, saith a great writer, to
bring ordnance or munition to relieve any of the King's towns that are
distressed, then he cannot for any danger of tempest justify the
throwing of them overboard; for there it holdeth which was spoken by the
Roman, when the same necessity of weather was alleged to hold him from
embarking: "_Necesse est ut eam, non ut vivam_:" it needs that I go: it
is not necessary I should live.
How ungratefully he slinks away, who dies, and does nothing to reflect a
glory to Heaven! How barren a tree he is, who lives, and spreads, and
cumbers the ground, yet leaves not one seed, not one good work to
generate another after him! All cannot leave alike; yet all may leave
_something_, answering their proportions and their kinds. Those are dead
and withered grains of corn, out of which there will not one ear spring.
He will hardly find the way to Heaven, who desires to go thither alone.
Industry is never wholly unfruitful. If it bring not joy with the
incoming profit, it will yet banish mischief from thy busied gates.
There is a kind of good angel waiting upon Diligence that ever carries a
laurel in his hand to crown her. How unworthy was that man of the world
who never did aught, but only lived and died! That we have liberty to do
anything, we should account it a gift from the favoring Heavens; that we
have minds sometimes inclining us to use that liberty well, is a great
bounty of the Deity.
Masonry is action, and not inertness. It requires its Initiates to WORK,
actively and earnestly, for the benefit of their brethren, their
country, and mankind. It is the patron of the oppressed, as it is the
comforter and consoler of the unfortunate and wretched. It seems to it a
worthier honor to be the instrument of advancement and reform, than to
enjoy all that rank and office and lofty titles can bestow. It is the
advocate of the common people in those things which concern the best
interests of mankind. It hates insolent power and impudent usurpation.
It pities the poor, the sorrowing, the disconsolate; it endeavors to
raise and improve the ignorant, the sunken, and the degraded.
Its fidelity to its mission will be accurately evidenced, by the extent
of the efforts it employs, and the means it sets on foot, to improve the
people at large and to better their condition; chiefest of which,
within its reach, is to aid in the education of the children of the
poor. An intelligent people, informed of its rights, will soon come to
know its power, and cannot long be oppressed; but if there be not a
sound and virtuous populace, the elaborate ornaments at the top of the
pyramid of society will be a wretched compensation for the want of
solidity at the base. It is never safe for a nation to repose on the lap
of ignorance: and if there ever was a time when public tranquillity was
insured by the absence of knowledge, that season is past. Unthinking
stupidity cannot sleep, without being appalled by phantoms and shaken by
terrors. The improvement of the mass of the people is the grand security
for popular liberty; in the neglect of which, the politeness,
refinement, and knowledge accumulated in the higher orders and wealthier
classes will some day perish like dry grass in the hot fire of popular
fury.
It is not the mission of Masonry to engage in plots and conspiracies
against the civil government. It is not the fanatical propagandist of
any creed or theory; nor does it proclaim itself the enemy of kings. It
is the apostle of liberty, equality, and fraternity; but it is no more
the high-priest of republicanism than of constitutional monarchy. It
contracts no entangling alliances with any sect of theorists, dreamers,
or philosophers. It does not know those as its Initiates who assail the
civil order and all lawful authority, at the same time that they propose
to deprive the dying of the consolations of religion. It sits apart from
all sects and creeds, in its own calm and simple dignity, the same under
every government. It is still that which it was in the cradle of the
human race, when no human foot had trodden the soil of Assyria and
Egypt, and no colonies had crossed the Himalayas into Southern India,
Media, or Etruria.
It gives no countenance to anarchy and licentiousness; and no illusion
of glory, or extravagant emulation of the ancients inflames it with an
unnatural thirst for ideal and Utopian liberty. It teaches that in
rectitude of life and sobriety of habits is the only sure guarantee for
the continuance of political freedom; and it is chiefly the soldier of
the sanctity of the laws and the rights of conscience.
It recognizes it as a truth, that necessity, as well as abstract right
and ideal justice, must have its part in the making of laws, the
administration of affairs, and the regulation of relations in society.
It sees, indeed, that necessity rules in all the affairs of man. It
knows that where any man, or any number or race of men, are so imbecile
of intellect, so degraded, so incapable of self-control, so inferior in
the scale of humanity, as to be unfit to be intrusted with the highest
prerogatives of citizenship, the great law of necessity, for the peace
and safety of the community and country, requires them to remain under
the control of those of larger intellect and superior wisdom. It trusts
and believes that God will, in his own good time, work out his own great
and wise purposes; and it is willing to wait, where it does not see its
own way clear to some certain good.
It hopes and longs for the day when all the races of men, even the
lowest, will be elevated, and become fitted for political freedom; when,
like all other evils that afflict the earth, pauperism, and bondage or
abject dependence, shall cease and disappear. But it does not preach
revolution to those who are fond of kings, nor rebellion that can end
only in disaster and defeat, or in substituting one tyrant for another,
or a multitude of despots for one.
Wherever a people is fit to be free and to govern itself, and generously
strives to be so, there go all its sympathies. It detests the tyrant,
the lawless oppressor, the military usurper, and him who abuses a lawful
power. It frowns upon cruelty, and a wanton disregard of the rights of
humanity. It abhors the selfish employer, and exerts its influence to
lighten the burdens which want and dependence impose upon the workman,
and to foster that humanity and kindness which man owes to even the
poorest and most unfortunate brother.
It can never be employed, in any country under Heaven, to teach a
toleration for cruelty, to weaken moral hatred for guilt, or to deprave
and brutalize the human mind. The dread of punishment will never make a
Mason an accomplice in so corrupting his countrymen, and a teacher of
depravity and barbarity. If anywhere, as has heretofore happened, a
tyrant should send a satirist on his tyranny to be convicted and
punished as a libeller, in a court of justice, a Mason, if a juror in
such a case, though in sight of the scaffold streaming with the blood of
the innocent, and within hearing of the clash of the bayonets meant to
overawe the court, would rescue the intrepid satirist from the tyrant's
fangs, and send his officers out from the court with defeat and
disgrace.
Even if all law and liberty were trampled under the feet of Jacobinical
demagogues or a military banditti, and great crimes were perpetrated
with a high hand against all who were deservedly the objects of public
veneration; if the people, overthrowing law, roared like a sea around
the courts of justice, and demanded the blood of those who, during the
temporary fit of insanity and drunken delirium, had chanced to become
odious to it, for true words manfully spoken, or unpopular acts bravely
done, the Masonic juror, unawed alike by the single or the many-headed
tyrant, would consult the dictates of duty alone, and stand with a noble
firmness between the human tigers and their coveted prey.