and the intellectual and spiritual improvement of individuals and
society. Neither can be effected, except by the dissemination of truth.
It is falsehood in doctrines and fallacy in principles, to which most of
the miseries of men and the misfortunes of nations are owing. Public
opinion is rarely right on any point; and there are and always will be
important truths to be substituted in that opinion in the place of many
errors and absurd and injurious prejudices. There are few truths that
public opinion has not at some time hated and persecuted as heresies,
and few errors that have not at some time seemed to it truths radiant
from the immediate presence of God. There are moral maladies, also, of
man and society, the treatment of which requires not only boldness, but
also, and more, prudence and discretion; since they are more the fruit
of false and pernicious doctrines, moral, political, and religious, than
of vicious inclinations.
Much of the Masonic secret manifests itself, without revealing it, to
him who even partially comprehends all the Decrees in proportion as he
receives them; and particularly to those who advance to the highest
Degrees of the Ancient and Accepted Scottish Rite. That Rite raises a
corner of the veil, even in the degree of Apprentice; for it there
declares that Masonry is a _worship_.
Masonry labors to improve the social order by enlightening men's minds,
warming their hearts with the love of the good, inspiring them with the
great principle of human fraternity, and requiring of its disciples that
their language and actions shall conform to that principle, that they
shall enlighten each other, control their passions, abhor vice, and pity
the vicious man as one afflicted with a deplorable malady.
It is the universal, eternal, immutable religion, such as God planted it
in the heart of universal humanity. No creed has ever been long-lived
that was not built on this foundation. It is the base, and they are the
superstructure. "Pure religion and undefiled before God and the Father
is this, to visit the fatherless and widows in their affliction, and to
keep himself unspotted from the world." "Is not _this_ the fast that I
have chosen? to loose the bands of wickedness, to undo the heavy
burdens, and to let the oppressed go free, and that ye break every
yoke?" The ministers of this religion are all Masons who comprehend it
and are devoted to it; its sacrifices to God are good works, the
sacrifices of the base and disorderly passions, the offering up of
self-interest on the altar of humanity, and perpetual efforts to attain
to all the moral perfection of which man is capable.
To make honor and duty the steady beacon-lights that shall guide your
life-vessel over the stormy seas of time; to do that which it is right
to do, not because it will insure you success, or bring with it a
reward, or gain the applause of men, or be "the best policy," more
prudent or more advisable; but because it is right, and therefore
_ought_ to be done; to war incessantly against error, intolerance,
ignorance, and vice, and yet to pity those who err, to be tolerant even
of intolerance, to teach the ignorant, and labor to reclaim the vicious,
are some of the duties of a Mason.
A good Mason is one that can look upon death, and see its face the same
countenance with which he hears its story; that "I endure all the labors"
of his life with his soul supporting his body, that can equally despise
riches when he hath them and when he hath them not; that is, not sadder
if they are in his neighbor's exchequer, nor more lifted up if they
shine around about his own walls; one that is not moved with good
fortune coming to him, nor going from him; that can look upon another
man's lands with equanimity and pleasure, as if they were his own; and
yet look upon his own, and use them too, just as if they were another
man's; that neither spends his goods prodigally and foolishly, nor yet
keeps them avariciously and like a miser; that weighs not benefits by
weight and number, but by the mind and circumstances of him who confers
them; that never thinks his charity expensive, if a worthy person be the
receiver; that does nothing for opinion's sake, but everything for
conscience, being as careful of his thoughts as of his acting in markets
and theatres, and in as much awe of himself as of a whole assembly; that
is, bountiful and cheerful to his friends, and charitable and apt to
forgive his enemies; that loves his country, consults its honor, and
obeys its laws, and desires and endeavors nothing more than that he may
do his duty and honor God. And such a Mason may reckon his life to be
the life of a man, and compute his months, not by the course of the sun,
but by the zodiac and circle of his virtues.
The whole world is, but one republic, of which each nation is a family,
and every individual a child. Masonry, not in anywise derogating from
the differing duties which the diversity of states requires, tends to
create a new people, which, composed of men of many nations and tongues,
shall all be bound together by the bonds of science, morality, and
virtue.
Essentially philanthropic, philosophical, and progressive, it has for
the basis of its dogma a firm belief in the existence of God and his
providence, and of the immortality of the soul; for its object, the
dissemination of moral, political, philosophical, and religious truth,
and the practice of all the virtues. In every age, its device has been,
"Liberty, Equality, Fraternity," with constitutional government, _law,
order, discipline_, and _subordination_ to legitimate
authority--_government_ and not _anarchy_.
But it is neither a political party nor a religious sect. It embraces
all parties and all sects, to form from among them all a vast fraternal
association. It recognizes the dignity of human nature, and man's right
to such freedom as he is fitted for; and it knows nothing that should
place one man below another, except ignorance, debasement, and crime,
and the necessity of subordination to lawful will and authority.
It is philanthropic; for it recognizes the great truth that all men are
of the same origin, have common interests, and should co-operate
together to the same end.
Therefore it teaches its members to love one another, to give to each
other mutual assistance and support in all the circumstances of life, to
share each other's pains and sorrows, as well as their joys and
pleasures; to guard the reputations, respect the opinions, and be
perfectly tolerant of the errors, of each other, in matters of faith and
beliefs.
It is philosophical, because it teaches the great Truths concerning the
nature and existence of one Supreme Deity, and the existence and
immortality of the soul. It revives the Academy of Plato, and the wise
teachings of Socrates. It reiterates the maxims of Pythagoras,
Confucius, and Zoroaster, and reverentially enforces the sublime lessons
of Him who died upon the Cross.
The ancients thought that universal humanity acted under the influence
of two opposing Principles, the Good and the Evil: of which the Good
urged men toward Truth, Independence, and Devotedness; and the Evil
toward Falsehood, Servility, and Selfishness. Masonry represents the
Good Principle and constantly wars against the evil one. It is the
Hercules, the Osiris, the Apollo, the Mithras, and the Ormuzd, at
everlasting and deadly feud with the demons of ignorance, brutality,
baseness, falsehood, slavishness of soul, intolerance, superstition,
tyranny, meanness, the insolence of wealth, and bigotry.
When despotism and superstition, twin-powers of evil and darkness,
reigned everywhere and seemed invincible and immortal, it invented, to
avoid persecution, the mysteries, that is to say, the allegory, the
symbol, and the emblem, and transmitted its doctrines by the secret mode
of initiation. Now, retaining its ancient symbols, and in part its
ancient ceremonies, it displays in every civilized country its banner,
on which in letters of living light its great principles are written;
and it smiles at the puny efforts of kings and popes to crush it out by
excommunication and interdiction.
Man's views in regard to God, will contain only so much positive truth
as the human mind is capable of receiving; whether that truth is
attained by the exercise of reason, or communicated by revelation. It
must necessarily be both limited and alloyed, to bring it within the
competence of finite human intelligence. Being finite, we can form no
correct or adequate idea of the Infinite; being material, we can form no
clear conception of the Spiritual. We do believe in and know the
infinity of Space and Time, and the spirituality of the Soul; but the
_idea_ of that infinity and spirituality eludes us. Even Omnipotence
cannot infuse infinite conceptions into finite minds; nor can God,
without first entirely changing the conditions of our being, pour a
complete and full knowledge of His own nature and attributes into the
narrow capacity of a human soul. Human intelligence could not grasp it,
nor human language express it. The visible is, necessarily, the measure
of the invisible.
The consciousness of the individual reveals _itself_ alone. His
knowledge cannot pass beyond the limits of his own being. His
conceptions of other things and other beings _are only his conceptions_.
They are not those things or beings themselves. The living principle of
a living Universe must be INFINITE; while all _our_ ideas and
conceptions are _finite_, and applicable only to finite beings.
The Deity is thus not an object of _knowledge_, but of _faith_; not to
be approached by the _understanding_, but by the _moral sense_; not to
be _conceived_, but to be _felt_. All attempts to embrace the Infinite
in the conception of the Finite are, and must be only accommodations to
the frailty of man. Shrouded from human comprehension in an obscurity
from which a chastened imagination is awed back, and Thought retreats in
conscious weakness, the Divine Nature is a theme on which man is little
entitled to dogmatize. Here the philosophic Intellect becomes most
painfully aware of its own insufficiency.
And yet it is here that man most dogmatizes, classifies and describes
God's attributes, makes out his map of God's nature, and his inventory
of God's qualities, feelings, impulses, and passions; and then hangs and
burns his brother, who, as dogmatically as he, makes out a different map
and inventory. The common understanding has no humility. _Its_ God is an
_incarnate_ Divinity. Imperfection imposes its own limitations on the
Illimitable, and clothes the Inconceivable Spirit of the Universe in
forms that come within the grasp of the senses and the intellect, and
are derived from that infinite and imperfect nature which is but God's
creation.
We are all of us, though not all equally, mistaken. The cherished dogmas
of each of us are not, as we fondly suppose, the pure truth of God; but
simply our own special form of error, our guesses at truth, the
refracted and fragmentary rays of light that have fallen upon our own
minds. Our little systems have their day, and cease to be; they are but
broken lights of God; and He is more than they. Perfect truth is not
attainable anywhere. We style this Degree that of Perfection; and yet
what it teaches is imperfect and defective. Yet we are not to relax in
the pursuit of truth, nor contentedly acquiesce in error. It is our duty
always to press forward in the search; for though absolute truth is
unattainable, yet the amount of error in our views is capable of
progressive and perpetual diminution; and thus Masonry is a continual
struggle toward the light.
All errors are not equally innocuous. That which is most injurious is to
entertain unworthy conceptions of the nature and attributes of God; and
it is this that Masonry symbolizes by ignorance of the True Word. The
true word of a Mason is, not the entire, perfect, absolute truth in
regard to God; but the highest and noblest conception of Him that our
minds are capable of forming; and this _word_ is Ineffable, because one
man cannot communicate to another his own conception of Deity; since
every man's conception of God must be proportioned to his mental
cultivation, and intellectual powers, and moral excellence. God is, as
man conceives Him, the reflected image of man himself.
For every man's conception of God must vary with his mental cultivation
and mental powers. If any one contents himself with any _lower_ image
than his intellect is capable of grasping, then he contents himself with
that which is false _to him_, as well as false _in fact_. If lower than
he can reach, he must needs _feel_ it to be false. And if we, of the
nineteenth century after Christ, adopt the conceptions of the nineteenth
century before Him; if _our_ conceptions of God are those of the
ignorant, narrow-minded, and vindictive Israelite; then we think worse
of God, and have a lower, meaner, and more limited view of His nature,
than the faculties which He has bestowed are capable of grasping. The
highest view we can form is nearest to the truth. If we acquiesce in any
lower one, we acquiesce in an untruth. We feel that it is an affront and
an indignity to Him, to conceive of Him as cruel, short-sighted,
capricious and unjust; as a jealous, an angry, a vindictive Being.
When we examine our conceptions of His character, if we can conceive of
a loftier, nobler, higher, more beneficent, glorious, and magnificent
character, then this latter is to us the true conception of Deity; _for
nothing can be imagined more excellent than He_.
Religion, to obtain currency and influence with the great mass of
mankind, must needs be alloyed with such an amount of error as to place
it far below the standard attainable by the higher human capacities. A
religion as pure as the loftiest and most cultivated human reason could
discern, would not be comprehended by, or effective over, the less
educated portion of mankind. What is Truth to the philosopher, would not
be Truth, nor have the effect of Truth, to the peasant. The religion of
the many must necessarily be more incorrect than that of the refined and
reflective few, not so much in its essence as in its forms, not so much
in the spiritual idea which lies latent at the bottom of it, as in the
symbols and dogmas in which that idea is embodied. The truest religion
would, in many points, not be comprehended by the ignorant, nor
consolatory to them, nor guiding and supporting for them. The doctrines
of the Bible are often not clothed in the language of strict truth, but
in that which was fittest to convey to a rude and ignorant people the
practical essentials of the doctrine. A perfectly pure faith, free from
all extraneous admixtures, a system of noble theism and lofty morality,
would find too little preparation for it in the common mind and heart,
to admit of prompt reception by the masses of mankind; and Truth might
not have reached us, if it had not borrowed the wings of Error.
The Mason regards God as a Moral Governor, as well as an Original
Creator; as a God at hand, and not merely one afar off in the distance
of infinite space, and in the remoteness of Past or Future Eternity. He
conceives of Him as taking a watchful and presiding interest in the
affairs of the world, and as influencing the hearts and actions of men.
To him, God is the great Source of the World of Life and Matter; and
man, with his wonderful corporeal and mental frame, His direct work. He
believes that God has made men with different intellectual capacities;
and enabled some, by superior intellectual power, to see and originate
truths which are hidden from the mass of men. He believes that when it
is His will that mankind should make some great step forward, or achieve
some pregnant discovery, He calls into being some intellect of more than
ordinary magnitude and power, to give birth to new ideas, and grander
conceptions of the Truths vital to Humanity.
We hold that God has so ordered matters in this beautiful and
harmonious, but mysteriously-governed Universe, that one great mind
after another will arise, from time to time, as such are needed, to
reveal to men the truths that are wanted, and the amount of truth than
can be borne. He so arranges, that nature and the course of events shall
send men into the world, endowed with that higher mental and moral
organization, in which grand truths, and sublime gleams of spiritual
light will spontaneously and inevitably arise. These speak to men by
inspiration.
Whatever Hiram really was, he is the type, perhaps an imaginary type, to
us, of humanity in its highest phase; an exemplar of what man may and
should become, in the course of ages, in his progress toward the
realization of his destiny; an individual gifted with a glorious
intellect, a noble soul, a fine organization, and a perfectly balanced
moral being; an earnest of what humanity may be, and what we believe it
will hereafter be in God's good time; _the possibility of the race made
real_.
The Mason believes that God has arranged this glorious but perplexing
world with a purpose, and on a plan. He holds that every man sent upon
this earth, and especially every man of superior capacity, has a duty to
perform, a mission to fulfill, a baptism to be baptized with; that every
great and good man possesses some portion of God's truth, which he must
proclaim to the world, and which must bear fruit in his own bosom. In a
true and simple sense, he believes all the pure, wise, and intellectual
to be inspired, and to be so for the instruction, advancement, and
elevation of mankind. That kind of inspiration, like God's omnipresence,
is not limited to the few writers claimed by Jews, Christians, or
Moslems, but is co-extensive with the race. It is the consequence of a
faithful use of our faculties. Each man is its subject, God is its
source, and Truth its only test. It differs in degrees, as the
intellectual endowments, the moral wealth of the soul, and the degree of
cultivation of those endowments and faculties differ. It is limited to
no sect, age, or nation. It is wide as the world and common as God. It
was not given to a few men, in the infancy of mankind, to monopolize
inspiration, and bar God out of the soul. We are not born in the dotage
and decay of the world. The stars are beautiful as in their prime; the
most ancient Heavens are fresh and strong. God is still everywhere in
nature. Wherever a heart beats with love, wherever Faith and Reason
utter their oracles, there is God, as formerly in the hearts of seers
and prophets. No soil on earth is so holy as the good man's heart;
nothing is so full of God. This inspiration is not given to the learned
alone, not alone to the great and wise, but to every faithful child of
God. Certain as the open eye drinks in the light, do the pure in heart
see God; and he who lives truly, feels Him as a presence within the
soul. The conscience is the very voice of Deity.
Masonry, around whose altars the Christian, the Hebrew, the Moslem, the
Brahmin, the followers of Confucius and Zoroaster, can assemble as
brethren and unite in prayer to the one God who is above _all_ the
Baalim, must needs leave it to each of its Initiates to look for the
foundation of his faith and hope to the written scriptures of his own
religion. For itself it finds those truths definite enough, which are
written by the finger of God upon the heart of man and on the pages of
the book of nature. Views of religion and duty, wrought out by the
meditations of the studious, confirmed by the allegiance of the good and
wise, stamped as sterling by the response they find in every uncorrupted
mind, commend themselves to Masons of every creed, and may well be
accepted by all.
The Mason does not pretend to dogmatic certainty, nor vainly imagine
such certainty attainable. He considers that if there were no written
revelation, he could safely rest the hopes that animate him and the
principles that guide him, on the deductions of reason and the
convictions of instinct and consciousness. He can find a sure foundation
for his religious belief, in these deductions of the intellect and
convictions of the heart. For reason proves to him the existence and
attributes of God; and those spiritual instincts which he feels are the
voice of God in his soul, infuse into his mind a sense of his relation
to God, a conviction of the beneficence of his Creator and Preserver,
and a hope of future existence; and his reason and conscience alike
unerringly point to virtue as the highest good, and the destined aim and
purpose of man's life.
He studies the wonders of the Heavens, the frame-work and revolutions of
the Earth, the mysterious beauties and adaptations of animal existence,
the moral and material constitution of the human creature, so fearfully
and wonderfully made; and is satisfied that God IS; and that a Wise and
Good Being is the author of the starry Heavens above him, and of the
moral world within him; and his mind finds an adequate foundation for
its hopes, its worship, its principles of action, in the far-stretching
Universe, in the glorious firmament, in the deep, full soul, bursting
with unutterable thoughts.
These are truths which every reflecting mind will unhesitatingly
receive, as not to be surpassed, nor capable of improvement; and fitted,
if obeyed, to make earth indeed a Paradise, and man only a little lower
than the angels. The worthlessness of ceremonial observances, and the
necessity of active virtue; the enforcement of purity of heart as the
security for purity of life, and of the government of the thoughts, as
the originators and forerunners of action; universal philanthropy,
requiring us to love all men, and to do unto others that and that only
which we should think it right, just, and generous for them to do unto
us; forgiveness of injuries; the necessity of self-sacrifice in the
discharge of duty; humility; genuine sincerity, and _being_ that which
we _seem_ to be; all these sublime precepts need no miracle, no voice
from the clouds, to recommend them to our allegiance, or to assure us of
their divine origin. They command obedience by virtue of their inherent
rectitude and beauty; and have been, and are, and will be the law in
every age and every country of the world. God revealed them to man in
the beginning.
To the Mason, God is our Father in Heaven, to be Whose especial children
is the sufficient reward of the peacemakers, to see Whose face the
highest hope of the pure in heart; Who is ever at hand to strengthen His
true worshippers; to Whom our most fervent love is due, our most humble
and patient submission; Whose most acceptable worship is a pure and
pitying heart and a beneficent life; in Whose constant presence we live
and act, to Whose merciful disposal we are resigned by that death which,
we hope and believe, is but the entrance to a better life; and Whose
wise decrees forbid a man to lap his soul in an elysium of mere indolent
content.
As to our feelings toward Him and our conduct toward man, Masonry
teaches little about which men can differ, and little from which they
can dissent. He is our _Father_; and we are all _brethren_. This much
lies open to the most ignorant and busy, as fully as to those who have
most leisure and are most learned. This needs no Priest to teach it, and
no authority to indorse it; and if every man did that only which is
consistent with it, it would exile barbarity, cruelty, intolerance,
uncharitableness, perfidy, treachery, revenge, selfishness, and all
their kindred vices and bad passions beyond the confines of the world.