Good, Pitying, Beneficent, and Merciful Creator and Preserver of the
Universe was the same, by whatever name he was called, to the
intellectual and enlightened men of all nations. The name was nothing,
if not a symbol and representative hieroglyph of his nature and
attributes. The name AL represented his remoteness _above_ men, his
_inaccessibility_; BAL and BALA, his _might_; ALOHIM, his various
_potencies_; IHUH, _existence_ and the _generation_ of things. None of
his names, among the Orientals, were the symbols of a divinely infinite
love and tenderness, and all-embracing mercy. As MOLOCH or MALEK he was
but an omnipotent _monarch_, a tremendous and irresponsible _Will_; as
ADONAÏ, only an arbitrary LORD and _Master_; as AL _Shadaï_, _potent_
and a DESTROYER.
To communicate true and correct ideas in respect of the Deity was one
chief object of the mysteries. In them, Khūrūm the King, and Khūrūm the
Master, obtained their knowledge of him and his attributes; and in them
that knowledge was taught to Moses and Pythagoras.
Wherefore nothing forbids you to consider the whole legend of this
Degree, like that of the Master's, an allegory, representing the
perpetuation of the knowledge of the True God in the sanctuaries of
initiation. By the subterranean vaults you may understand the places of
initiation, which in the ancient ceremonies were generally under ground.
The Temple of Solomon presented a symbolic image of the Universe; and
resembled, in its arrangements and furniture, all the temples of the
ancient nations that practised the mysteries. The system of numbers was
intimately connected with their religions and worship, and has come down
to us in Masonry; though the esoteric meaning with which the numbers
used by us are pregnant is unknown to the vast majority of those who use
them. Those numbers were especially employed that had a reference to the
Deity, represented his attributes, or figured in the frame-work of the
world, in time and space, and formed more or less the bases of that
frame-work. These were universally regarded as sacred, being the
expression of order and intelligence, the utterances of Divinity
Himself.
The Holy of Holies of the Temple formed a cube; in which, drawn on a
plane surface, there are 4+3+2=9 _lines_ visible, and three sides or
faces. It corresponded with the number _four_, by which the ancients
presented _Nature_, it being the number of substances or corporeal
forms, and of the elements, the cardinal points and seasons, and the
_secondary_ colors. The number _three_ everywhere represented the
Supreme Being. Hence the name of the Deity, engraven upon the
_triangular_ plate, and that sunken into the _cube_ of agate, taught the
ancient Mason, and teaches us, that the true knowledge of God, of His
nature and His attributes, is written by Him upon the leaves of the
great Book of Universal Nature, and may be read there by all who are
endowed with the requisite amount of intellect and intelligence. This
knowledge of God, so written there, and of which Masonry has in all ages
been the interpreter, is _the Master Mason's Word_.
Within the Temple, all the arrangements were mystically and symbolically
connected with the same system. The vault or ceiling, starred like the
firmament, was supported by twelve columns, representing the twelve
months of the year. The border that ran around the columns represented
the zodiac, and one of the twelve celestial signs was appropriated to
each column. The brazen sea was supported by twelve oxen, three looking
to each cardinal point of the compass.
And so in our day every Masonic Lodge represents the Universe. Each
extends, we are told, from the rising to the setting sun, from the South
to the North, from the surface of the Earth to the Heavens, and from the
same to the centre of the globe. In it are represented the sun, moon,
and stars; three great torches in the East, West, and South, forming a
triangle, give it light; and, like the Delta or Triangle suspended in
the East, and inclosing the Ineffable Name, indicate, by the
mathematical equality of the angles and sides, the beautiful and
harmonious proportions which govern in the aggregate and details of the
Universe; while those sides and angles represent, by their number,
three, the Trinity of Power, Wisdom, and Harmony, which presided at the
building of this marvellous work. These three great lights also
represent the great mystery of the three principles, of creation,
dissolution or destruction, and reproduction or regeneration,
consecrated by all creeds in their numerous Trinities.
The luminous pedestal, lighted by the perpetual flame within, is a
symbol of that light of _Reason_, given by God to man, by which he is
enabled to read in the Book of Nature the record of the thought, the
revelation of the attributes of the Deity.
The three Masters, Adoniram, Joabert, and Stolkin, are types of the True
Mason, who seeks for knowledge from pure motives, and that he may be the
better enabled to serve and benefit his fellow-men; while the
discontented and presumptuous Masters who were buried in the ruins of
the arches represent those who strive to acquire it for unholy purposes,
to gain power over their fellows, to gratify their pride, their vanity,
or their ambition.
The Lion that guarded the Ark and held in his mouth the key wherewith to
open it, figuratively represents Solomon, the Lion of the Tribe of
Judah, who preserved and communicated the key to the true knowledge of
God, of His laws, and of the profound mysteries of the moral and
physical Universe.
ENOCH [[Hebrew: חנוך], Khanōc], we are told, walked with God three
hundred years, after reaching the age of sixty-five--"walked with God,
and he was no more, for God had taken him." His name signified in the
Hebrew, INITIATE or INITIATOR. The legend of the columns, of granite and
brass or bronze, erected by him, is probably symbolical. That of bronze,
which survived the flood, is supposed to symbolize the mysteries, of
which Masonry is the legitimate successor--from the earliest times the
custodian and depository of the great philosophical and religious
truths, unknown to the world at large, and handed down from age to age
by an unbroken current of tradition, embodied in symbols, emblems, and
allegories.
The legend of this Degree is thus, partially, interpreted. It is of
little importance whether it is in anywise historical. For its value
consists in the lessons which it inculcates, and the duties which it
prescribes to those who receive it. The parables and allegories of the
Scriptures are not less valuable than history. Nay, they are more so,
because ancient history is little instructive, and truths are concealed
in and symbolized by the legend and the myth. There are profounder
meanings concealed in the symbols of this Degree, connected with the
philosophical system of the Hebrew Kabalists, which you will learn
hereafter, if you should be so fortunate as to advance. They are
unfolded in the higher Degrees. The _lion_ [[Hebrew: אריה,ארי] _Arai_,
_Araiah_, which also means the _altar_] still holds in his mouth the key
of the enigma of the sphynx.
But there is one application of this Degree, that you are now entitled
to know; and which, remembering that Khūrūm, the Master, is the symbol
of human freedom, you would probably discover for yourself.
It is not enough for a people to _gain_ its liberty. It must _secure_
it. It must not intrust it to the keeping, or hold it at the pleasure,
of any one man. The keystone of the Royal Arch of the great Temple of
Liberty is a fundamental law, charter, or constitution; the expression
of the fixed habits of thought of the people, embodied in a written
instrument, or the result of the slow accretions and the consolidation
of centuries; the same in war as in peace; that cannot be hastily
changed, nor be violated with impunity, but is sacred, like the Ark of
the Covenant of God, which none could touch and live.
A permanent constitution, rooted in the affections, expressing the will
and judgment, and built upon the instincts and settled habits of thought
of the people, with an independent judiciary, an elective legislature of
two branches, an executive responsible to the people, and the right of
trial by jury, will guarantee the liberties of a people, if it be
virtuous and temperate, without luxury, and without the lust of conquest
and dominion, and the follies of visionary theories of impossible
perfection.
Masonry teaches its Initiates that the pursuits and occupations of this
life, its activity, care, and ingenuity, the predestined developments of
the nature given us by God, tend to promote His great design, in making
the world; and are not at war with the great purpose of life. It teaches
that everything is beautiful in its time, in its place, in its appointed
office; that everything which man is put to do, if rightly and
faithfully done, naturally helps to work out his salvation; that if he
obeys the genuine principles of his calling, he will be a good man: and
that it is only by neglect and non-performance of the task set for him
by Heaven, by wandering into idle dissipation, or by violating their
beneficent and lofty spirit, that he becomes a bad man. The appointed
action of life is the great training of Providence; and if man yields
himself to it, he will need neither churches nor ordinances, except for
the _expression_ of his religious homage and gratitude.
For there is a religion of toil. It is not all drudgery, a mere
stretching of the limbs and straining of the sinews to tasks. It has a
meaning and an intent. A living heart pours life-blood into the toiling
arm; and warm affections inspire and mingle with man's labors. They are
the _home_ affections. Labor toils a-field, or plies its task in cities,
or urges the keels of commerce over wide oceans; but home is its centre;
and thither it ever goes with its earnings, with the means of support
and comfort for others; offerings sacred to the thought of every true
man, as a sacrifice at a golden shrine. Many faults there are amidst the
toils of life; many harsh and hasty, words are uttered; but still the
toils go on, weary and hard and exasperating as they often are. For in
that home is age or sickness, or helpless infancy, or gentle childhood,
or feeble woman, that must not want. If man had no other than mere
selfish impulses, the scene of labor which we behold around us would not
exist.
The advocate who fairly and honestly presents his case, with a feeling
of true self-respect, honor, and conscience, to help the tribunal on
towards the right conclusion, with a conviction that God's justice
reigns there, is acting a religious part, leading that day a religious
life; or else right and justice are no part of religion. Whether, during
all that day, he has once appealed, in form or in terms, to his
conscience, or not; whether he has once spoken of religion and God, or
not; if there has been the inward purpose, the conscious intent and
desire, that sacred justice should triumph, he has that day led a good
and _religious_ life, and made a most essential contribution to that
religion of life and of society, the cause of equity between man and
man, and of truth and right action in the world.
Books, to be of religious tendency in the Masonic sense, need not be
books of sermons, of pious exercises, or of prayers. Whatever inculcates
pure, noble, and patriotic sentiments, or touches the heart with the
beauty of virtue, and the excellence of an upright life, accords with
the religion of Masonry, and is the Gospel of literature and art. That
Gospel is preached from many a book and painting, from many a poem and
fiction, and review and newspaper; and it is a painful error and
miserable narrowness, not to recognize these wide-spread agencies of
Heaven's providing; not to see and welcome these many-handed
coadjutors, to the great and good cause. The oracles of God do not speak
from the pulpit alone.
There is also a religion of society. In business, there is much more
than sale, exchange, price, payment; for there is the sacred faith of
man in man. When we repose perfect confidence in the integrity of
another; when we feel that he will not swerve from the right, frank,
straightforward, conscientious course, for any temptation; his integrity
and conscientiousness are the image of God to us; and when we believe in
_it_, it is as great and generous an act, as when we believe in the
rectitude of the Deity.
In gay assemblies for amusement, the good affections of life gush and
mingle. If _they_ did not, these gathering-places would be as dreary and
repulsive as the caves and dens of outlaws and robbers. When friends
meet, and hands are warmly pressed, and the eye kindles and the
countenance is suffused with gladness, there is a religion between their
hearts; and each loves and worships the True and Good that is in the
other. It is not policy, or self-interest, or selfishness that spreads
such a charm around that meeting, but the halo of bright and beautiful
affection.
The same splendor of kindly liking, and affectionate regard, shines like
the soft overarching sky, over all the world; over all places where men
meet, and walk or toil together; not over lovers' bowers and
marriage-altars alone, not over the homes of purity and tenderness
alone; but over all tilled fields, and busy workshops, and dusty
highways, and paved streets. There is not a worn stone upon the
sidewalks, but has been the altar of such offerings of mutual kindness;
nor a wooden pillar or iron railing against which hearts beating with
affection have not leaned. How many soever other elements there are in
the stream of life flowing through these channels, _that_ is surely here
and everywhere; honest, heartfelt, disinterested, inexpressible
affection.
Every Masonic Lodge is a temple of religion; and its teachings are
instruction in religion. For here are inculcated disinterestedness,
affection, toleration, devotedness, patriotism, truth, a generous
sympathy with those who suffer and mourn, pity for the fallen, mercy for
the erring, relief for those in want, Faith, Hope, and Charity. Here we
meet as brethren, to learn to know and love each other. Here we greet
each other gladly, are lenient to each other's faults, regardful of each
other's feelings, ready to relieve each other's wants. This is the true
religion revealed to the ancient patriarchs; which Masonry has taught
for many centuries, and which it will continue to teach as long as time
endures. If unworthy passions, or selfish, bitter, or revengeful
feelings, contempt, dislike, hatred, enter here, they are intruders and
not welcome, strangers uninvited, and not guests.
Certainly there are many evils and bad passions, and much hate and
contempt and unkindness everywhere in the world. We cannot refuse to see
the evil that is in life. But _all_ is not evil. We still see God in the
world. There is good amidst the evil. The hand of mercy leads wealth to
the hovels of poverty and sorrow. Truth and simplicity live amid many
wiles and sophistries. There are good hearts underneath gay robes, and
under tattered garments also.
Love clasps the hand of love, amid all the envyings and distractions of
showy competition; fidelity, pity, and sympathy hold the long
night-watch by the bedside of the suffering neighbor, amidst the
surrounding poverty and squalid misery. Devoted men go from city to city
to nurse those smitten down by the terrible pestilence that renews at
intervals its mysterious marches. Women well-born and delicately
nurtured nursed the wounded soldiers in hospitals, before it became
fashionable to do so; and even poor lost women, whom God alone loves and
pities, tend the plague-stricken with a patient and generous heroism.
Masonry and its kindred Orders teach men to love each other, feed the
hungry, clothe the naked, comfort the sick, and bury the friendless
dead. Everywhere God finds and blesses the kindly office, the pitying
thought, and the loving heart.
There is an element of good in all men's lawful pursuits and a divine
spirit breathing in all their lawful affections. The ground on which
they tread is holy ground. There is a natural religion of life,
answering, with however many a broken tone, to the religion of nature.
There is a beauty and glory in Humanity, in man, answering, with however
many a mingling shade, to the loveliness of soft landscapes, and
swelling hills, and the wondrous glory of the starry heavens.
Men may be virtuous, self-improving, and religious _in_ their
employments. Precisely for that, those employments were made. All their
social relations, friendship, love, the ties of family, were made to be
holy. They may be religious, not by a kind of protest and resistance
against their several vocations; but by conformity to their true spirit.
Those vocations do not _exclude_ religion; but _demand_ it, for their
own perfection. They may be religious laborers whether in field or
factory; religious physicians, lawyers, sculptors, poets, painters, and
musicians. They may be religious in all the toils and in all the
amusements of life. Their life may be a religion; the broad earth its
altar; its incense the very breath of life; its fires ever kindled by
the brightness of Heaven.
Bound up with our poor, frail life, is the mighty thought that spurns
the narrow span of all visible existence. Ever the soul reaches outward,
and asks for freedom. It looks forth from the narrow and grated windows
of sense, upon the wide immeasurable creation; it knows that around it
and beyond it lie outstretched the infinite and everlasting paths.
Everything within us and without us ought to stir our minds to
admiration and wonder. We are a mystery encompassed with mysteries. The
connection of mind with matter is a mystery; the wonderful telegraphic
communication between the brain and every part of the body, the power
and action of the will. Every familiar step is more than a story in a
land of enchantment. The power of movement is as mysterious as the power
of thought. Memory, and dreams that are the indistinct echoes of dead
memories are alike inexplicable. Universal harmony springs from infinite
complication. The momentum of every step we take in our dwelling
contributes in part to the order of the Universe. We are connected by
ties of thought, and even of matter and its forces, with the whole
boundless Universe and all the past and coming generations of men.
The humblest object beneath our eye as completely defies our scrutiny as
the economy of the most distant star. Every leaf and every blade of
grass holds within itself secrets which no human penetration will ever
fathom. No man can tell what is its principle of life. No man can know
what his power of secretion is. Both are inscrutable mysteries. Wherever
we place our hand we lay it upon the locked bosom of mystery. Step where
we will, we tread upon wonders. The sea-sands, the clods of the field,
the water-worn pebbles on the hills, the rude masses of rock, are traced
over and over, in every direction, with a handwriting older and more
significant and sublime than all the ancient ruins and all the
overthrown and buried cities that past generations have left upon the
earth; for it is the handwriting of the Almighty.
A Mason's great business with life is to read the book of its teaching;
to find that life is not the doing of drudgeries, but the hearing of
oracles. The old mythology is but a leaf in that book; for it peopled
the world with spiritual natures; and science, many-leaved, still
spreads before us the same tale of wonder.
We shall be just as happy hereafter, as we are pure and upright, and no
more, just as happy as our character prepares us to be, and no more. Our
moral, like our mental character, is not formed in a moment; it is the
habit of our minds; the result of many thoughts and feelings and
efforts, bound together by many natural and strong ties. The great law
of Retribution is, that all coming experience is to be affected by every
present feeling; every future moment of being must answer for every
present moment; one moment, sacrificed to vice, or lost to improvement,
is _forever_ sacrificed and lost; an hour's delay to enter the right
path, is to put us back so far, in the everlasting pursuit of happiness;
and every sin, even of the best men, is to be thus answered for, if not
according to the full measure of its ill-desert, yet according to a rule
of unbending rectitude and impartiality.
The law of retribution presses upon every man, whether he thinks of it
or not. It pursues him through all the courses of life, with a step that
never falters nor tires, and with an eye that never sleeps. If it were
not so, God's government would not be impartial; there would be no
discrimination; no moral dominion; no light shed upon the mysteries of
Providence.
Whatsoever a man soweth, that, and not something else, shall he reap.
That which we are doing, good or evil, grave or gay, that which we do
to-day and shall do to-morrow; each thought, each feeling, each action,
each event; every passing hour, every breathing moment; all are
contributing to form the character, according to which we are to be
judged. Every particle of influence that goes to form that
aggregate,--our character,--will, in that future scrutiny, be sifted out
from the mass; and, particle by particle, with ages perhaps intervening,
fall a distinct contribution to the sum of our joys or woes. Thus every
idle word and idle hour will give answer in the judgment.
Let us take care, therefore, what we sow. An evil temptation comes upon
us; the opportunity of unrighteous gain, or of unhallowed indulgence,
either in the sphere of business or pleasure, of society or solitude. We
yield; and plant a seed of bitterness and sorrow. To-morrow it will
threaten discovery. Agitated and alarmed, we cover the sin, and bury it
deep in falsehood and hypocrisy. In the bosom where it lies concealed,
in the fertile soil of kindred vices, that sin dies not, but thrives and
grows; and other and still other germs of evil gather around the
accursed root; until, from that single seed of corruption, there springs
up in the soul all that is horrible in habitual lying, knavery, or vice.
Loathingly, often, we take each downward step; but a frightful power
urges us onward; and the hell of debt, disease, ignominy, or remorse
gathers its shadows around our steps even on earth; and are yet but the
beginnings of sorrows. The evil deed may be done in a single moment; but
conscience never dies, memory never sleeps; guilt never can become
innocence; and remorse can never whisper peace.
Beware, thou who art tempted to evil! Beware what thou layest up for the
future! Beware what thou layest up in the archives of eternity! Wrong
not thy neighbor! lest the thought of him thou injurest, and who suffers
by thy act, be to thee a pang which years will not deprive of its
bitterness! Break not into the house of innocence, to rifle it of its
treasure; lest when many years have passed over thee, the moan of its
distress may not have died away from thine ear! Build not the desolate
throne of ambition in thy heart; nor be busy with devices, and
circumventings, and selfish schemings; lest desolation and loneliness be
on thy path, as it stretches into the long futurity! Live not a useless,
an impious, or an injurious life! for bound up with that life is the
immutable principle of an endless retribution, and elements of God's
creating, which will never spend their force, but continue ever to
unfold with the ages of eternity. Be not deceived! God has formed thy
nature, thus to answer to the future. His law can never be abrogated,
nor His justice eluded; and forever and ever it win be true, that
"_Whatsoever a man soweth, that also he shall reap_."
[Illustration: Decorative]
XIV.
GRAND ELECT, PERFECT, AND SUBLIME MASON.
[Perfect Elu.]
It is for each individual Mason to discover the secret of Masonry, by
reflection upon its symbols and a wise consideration and analysis of
what is said and done in the work. Masonry does not _inculcate_ her
truths. She states them, once and briefly; or hints them, perhaps,
darkly; or interposes a cloud between them and eyes that would be
dazzled by them. "_Seek_, and ye shall _find_," knowledge and the truth.