the matter of the Universe, leaving only its forces; he dissolves away
the phenomena of human history, leaving only immortal spirit; he studies
the law, the mode of action of these forces and this spirit, which make
up the material and the human world, and cannot fail to be filled with
reverence, with trust, with boundless love of the Infinite God, who
devised these laws of matter and of mind, and thereby bears up this
marvellous Universe of things and men. Science has its New Testament;
and the beatitudes of Philosophy are profoundly touching. An undevout
astronomer is mad. Familiarity with the grass and the trees teaches us
deeper lessons of love and trust than we can glean from the writings of
Fénélon and Augustine. The great Bible of God is ever open before
mankind. The eternal flowers of Heaven seem to shed sweet influence on
the perishable blossoms of the earth. The great sermon of Jesus was
preached on a mountain, which preached to Him as He did to the people,
and His figures of speech were first natural figures of fact.
If to-morrow I am to perish utterly, then I shall only take counsel for
to-day, and ask for qualities which last no longer. My fathers will be
to me only as the ground out of which my bread-corn is grown; dead, they
are but the rotten mould of earth, their memory of small concern to me.
Posterity!--I shall care nothing for the future generations of mankind!
I am one atom in the trunk of a tree, and care nothing for the roots
below, or the branch above, I shall sow such seed only as will bear
harvest to-day. Passion may enact my statutes to-day, and ambition
repeal them to-morrow. I will know no other legislators. Morality will
vanish, and expediency take its place. Heroism will be gone; and instead
of it there will be the savage ferocity of the he-wolf, the brute
cunning of the she-fox, the rapacity of the vulture, and the headlong
daring of the wild bull; but no longer the cool, calm courage that, for
truth's sake, and for love's sake, looks death firmly in the face, and
then wheels into line ready to be slain. Affection, friendship,
philanthropy, will be but the wild fancies of the monomaniac, fit
subjects for smiles or laughter or for pity.
But knowing that we shall live forever, and that the Infinite God loves
all of us, we can look on all the evils of the world, and see that it is
only the hour before sunrise, and that the light is coming; and so we
also, even we, may light a little taper, to illuminate the darkness
while it lasts, and help until the day-spring come. Eternal morning
follows the night: a rainbow scarfs the shoulders of every cloud that
weeps its rain away to be flowers on land and pearls at sea: Life rises
out of the grave, the soul cannot be held by fettering flesh. No dawn is
hopeless; and disaster is only the threshold of delight.
Beautifully, above the great wide chaos of human errors, shines the
calm, clear light of natural human religion, revealing to us God as the
Infinite Parent of all, perfectly powerful, wise, just, loving, and
perfectly holy too. Beautiful around stretches off every way the
Universe, the Great Bible of God. Material nature is its Old Testament,
millions of years old, thick with eternal truths under our feet,
glittering with everlasting glories over our heads; and Human Nature is
the New Testament from the Infinite God, every day revealing a new page
as Time turns over the leaves. Immortality stands waiting to give a
recompense for every virtue not rewarded, for every tear not wiped away,
for every sorrow undeserved, for every prayer, for every pure intention
and emotion of the heart. And over the whole, over Nature, Material and
Human, over this Mortal Life and over the eternal Past and Future, the
infinite Loving-kindness of God the Father comes enfolding all and
blessing everything that ever was, that is, that ever shall be.
Everything is a thought of the Infinite God. Nature is His prose, and
man His Poetry. There is no Chance, no Fate; but God's Great Providence,
enfolding the whole Universe in its bosom, and feeding it with
everlasting life. In times past there has been evil which we cannot
understand; now there are evils which we cannot solve, nor make square
with God's perfect goodness by any theory our feeble intellect enables
us to frame. There are sufferings, follies, and sins for all mankind,
for every nation, for every man and every woman. They were all foreseen
by the infinite wisdom of God, all provided for by His infinite power
and justice, and all are consistent with His infinite love. To believe
otherwise would be to believe that He made the world, to amuse His idle
hours with the follies and agonies of mankind, as Domitian was wont to
do with the wrigglings and contortions of insect agonies. Then indeed we
might despairingly unite in that horrible utterance of Heine: "Alas,
God's Satire weighs heavily on me! The Great Author of the Universe, the
Aristophanes of Heaven, is bent on demonstrating, with crushing force,
to me, the little, earthly, German Aristophanes, how my wittiest
sarcasms are only pitiful attempts at jesting, in comparison with His,
and how miserably I am beneath Him, in humor, in colossal mockery."
No, no! God is not thus amused with and prodigal of human suffering. The
world is neither a Here without a Hereafter, a body without a soul, a
chaos with no God; nor a body blasted by a soul, a Here with a worse
Hereafter, a world with a God that hates more than half the creatures He
has made. There is no Savage, Revengeful, and Evil God: but there is an
Infinite God, seen everywhere as Perfect Cause, everywhere as Perfect
Providence, transcending all, yet in-dwelling everywhere, with perfect
power, wisdom, justice, holiness, and love, providing for the future
welfare of each and all, foreseeing and forecaring for every bubble that
breaks on the great stream of human life and human history.
The end of man and the object of existence in this world, being not only
happiness, but happiness in virtue and through virtue, virtue in this
world is the condition of happiness in another life, and the condition
of virtue in this world is suffering, more or less frequent, briefer or
longer continued, more or less intense. Take away suffering, and there
is no longer any resignation or humanity, no more self-sacrifice, no
more devotedness, no more heroic virtues, no more sublime morality. We
are subjected to suffering, both because we are sensible, and because we
ought to be virtuous. If there were no physical evil, there would be no
possible virtue, and the world would be badly adapted to the destiny of
man. The apparent disorders of the physical world, and the evils that
result from them, are not disorders and evils that occur despite the
power and goodness of God. God not only allows, but wills them. It is
His will that there shall be in the physical world causes enough of pain
for man, to afford him occasions for resignation and courage.
Whatever is favorable to virtue, whatever gives the moral liberty more
energy, whatever can serve the greater moral development of the human
race, is good. Suffering is not the worst condition of man on earth. The
worst condition is the moral brutalization which the absence of physical
evil would engender.
External or internal physical evil connects itself with the object of
existence, which is to accomplish the moral law here below, whatever the
consequences, with the firm hope that virtue unfortunate will not fail
to be rewarded in another life. The moral law has its sanction and its
reason in itself. It owes nothing to that law of merit and demerit that
accompanies it, but is not its basis. But, though the principle of merit
and demerit ought not to be the determining principle of virtuous
action, it powerfully concurs with the moral law, because it offers
virtue a legitimate ground of consolation and hope.
Morality is the recognition of duty, as duty, and its accomplishment,
whatever the consequences.
Religion is the recognition of duty in its necessary harmony with
goodness; a harmony that must have its realization in another life,
through the justice and omnipotence of God.
Religion is as true as morality; for once morality is admitted, its
consequences must be admitted.
The whole moral existence is included in these two words, harmonious
with each other: DUTY and HOPE.
Masonry teaches that God is infinitely good. What motive, what reason,
and, morally speaking, what possibility can there be to Infinite Power
and Infinite Wisdom, to be anything but good? Our very sorrows,
proclaiming the loss of objects inexpressibly dear to us, demonstrate
His Goodness. The Being that made us intelligent cannot Himself be
without intelligence; and He Who has made us so to love and to sorrow
for what we love, must number love for the creatures He has made, among
His infinite attributes. Amid all our sorrows, we take refuge in the
assurance that He loves us; that He does not capriciously, or through
indifference, and still less in mere anger, grieve and afflict us; that
He chastens us, in order that by His chastisements, which are by His
universal law only the consequences of our acts, we may be profited; and
that He could not show so much love for His creatures, by leaving them
unchastened, untried, undisciplined. We have faith in the Infinite;
faith in God's Infinite Love; and it is that faith that must save us.
No dispensations of God's Providence, no suffering or bereavement is a
messenger of wrath: none of its circumstances are indications of God's
Anger. He is incapable of Anger; higher above any such feelings than the
distant stars are above the earth. Bad men do not die because God hates
them. They die because it is best for them that they should do so; and,
bad as they are, it is better for them to be in the hands of the
infinitely good God, than anywhere else.
Darkness and gloom lie upon the paths of men. They stumble at
difficulties, are ensnared by temptations, and perplexed by trouble.
They are anxious, and troubled, and fearful. Pain and affliction and
sorrow often gather around the steps of their earthly pilgrimage. All
this is written indelibly upon the tablets of the human heart. It is not
to be erased; but Masonry sees and reads it in a new light. It does not
expect these ills and trials and sufferings to be removed from life; but
that the great truth will at some time be believed by all men, that they
are the means, selected by infinite wisdom, to purify the heart, and to
invigorate the soul whose inheritance is immortality, and the world its
school.
Masonry propagates no creed except its own most simple and Sublime One;
that universal religion, taught by Nature and by Reason. Its Lodges are
neither Jewish, Moslem, nor Christian Temples. It reiterates the
precepts of morality of all religions. It venerates the character and
commends the teachings of the great and good of all ages and of all
countries. It extracts the good and not the evil, the truth, and not the
error, from all creeds; and acknowledges that there is much which is
good and true in all.
Above all the other great teachers of morality and virtue, it reveres
the character of the Great Master Who, submissive to the will of His and
our Father, died upon the Cross. All must admit, that if the world were
filled with beings like Him, the great ills of society would be at once
relieved. For all coercion, injury, selfishness, and revenge, and all
the wrongs and the greatest sufferings of life, would disappear at
once. These human years would be happy; and the eternal ages would roll
on in brightness and beauty; and the still, sad music of Humanity, that
sounds through the world, now in the accents of grief, and now in
pensive melancholy, would change to anthems, sounding to the March of
Time, and bursting out from the heart of the world.
If every man were a perfect imitator of that Great, Wise, Good Teacher,
clothed with all His faith and all His virtues, how the circle of Life's
ills and trials would be narrowed! The sensual passions would assail the
heart in vain. Want would no longer successfully tempt men to act
wrongly, nor curiosity to do rashly. Ambition, spreading before men its
Kingdoms and its Thrones, and offices and honors, would cause none to
swerve from their great allegiance. Injury and insult would be shamed by
forgiveness. "Father," men would say, "forgive them; for they know not
what they do." None would seek to be enriched at another's loss or
expense. Every man would feel that the whole human race were his
brothers. All sorrow and pain and anguish would be soothed by a perfect
faith and an entire trust in the Infinite Goodness of God. The world
around us would be new, and the Heavens above us; for here, and there,
and everywhere, through all the ample glories and splendors of the
Universe, all men would recognize and feel the presence and the
beneficent care of a loving Father.
However the Mason may believe as to creeds, and churches, and miracles,
and missions from Heaven, he must admit that the Life and character of
Him who taught in Galilee, and fragments of Whose teachings have come
down to us, are worthy of all imitation. That Life is an undenied and
undeniable Gospel. Its teachings cannot be passed by and discarded. All
must admit that it would be happiness to follow and perfection to
imitate Him. None ever felt for Him a sincere emotion of contempt, nor
in anger accused Him of sophistry, nor saw immorality lurking in His
doctrines; however they may judge of those who succeeded Him, and
claimed to be His apostles. Divine or human, inspired or only a
reforming Essene, it must be agreed that His teachings are far nobler,
far purer, far less alloyed with error and imperfection, far less of the
earth earthly, than those of Socrates, Plato, Seneca, or Mahomet, or any
other of the great moralists and Reformers of the world.
If our aims went as completely as His beyond personal care and selfish
gratification; if our thoughts and words and actions were as entirely
employed upon the great work of benefiting our kind--the true work which
we have been placed here to do--as His were; if our nature were as
gentle and as tender as His; and if society, country, kindred,
friendship, and home were as dear to us as they were to Him, we should
be at once relieved of more than half the difficulties and the diseased
and painful affections of our lives. Simple obedience to rectitude,
instead of self-interest; simple self-culture and self-improvement,
instead of constant cultivation of the good opinion of others;
single-hearted aims and purposes, instead of improper objects, sought
and approached by devious and crooked ways, would free our meditations
of many disturbing and irritating questions.
Not to renounce the nobler and better affections of our natures, nor
happiness, nor our just dues of love and honor from men; not to vilify
ourselves, nor to renounce our self-respect, nor a just and reasonable
sense of our merits and deserts, nor our own righteousness of virtue,
does Masonry require, nor would our imitation of Him require; but to
renounce our vices, our faults, our passions, our self-flattering
delusions; to forego all outward advantages, which are to be gained only
through a sacrifice of our inward integrity, or by anxious and petty
contrivances and appliances; to choose and keep the better part; to
secure that, and let the worst take care of itself; to keep a good
conscience, and let opinion come and go as it will; to retain a lofty
self-respect, and let low self-indulgence go; to keep inward happiness,
and let outward advantages hold a subordinate place; to renounce our
selfishness, and that eternal anxiety as to what we are to have, and
what men think of us; and be content with the plenitude of God's great
mercies, and so to be happy. For it is the inordinate devotion to self,
and consideration of self, that is ever a stumbling-block in the way;
that spreads questions, snares, and difficulties around us, darkens the
way of Providence, and makes the world a far less happy one to us than
it might be.
As He taught, so Masonry teaches, affection to our kindred, tenderness
to our friends, gentleness and forbearance toward our inferiors, pity
for the suffering, forgiveness of our enemies; and to wear an
affectionate nature and gentle disposition as the garment of our life,
investing pain, and toil, and agony, and even death, with a serene and
holy beauty. It does not teach us to wrap ourselves in the garments of
reserve and pride, to care nothing for the world because it cares
nothing for us, to withdraw our thoughts from society because it does us
not justice, and see how patiently we can live within the confines of
our own bosoms, or in quiet communion, through books, with the mighty
dead. No man ever found peace or light in that way. Every relation, of
hate, scorn, or neglect, to mankind, is full of vexation and torment.
There is nothing to do with men but to love them, to admire their
virtues, pity and bear with their faults, and forgive their injuries. To
hate your adversary will not help you; to kill him will help you still
less: nothing within the compass of the Universe will help you, but to
pity, forgive, and love him.
If we possessed His gentle and affectionate disposition, His love and
compassion for all that err and all that offend, how many difficulties,
both within and without us, would they relieve! How many depressed minds
should we console! How many troubles in society should we compose! How
many enmities soften! How many a knot of mystery and misunderstanding
would be untied by a single word, spoken in simple and confiding truth!
How many a rough path would be made smooth, and how many a crooked path
be made straight! Very many places, now solitary, would be made glad;
very many dark places be filled with light.
Morality has its axioms, like the other sciences; and these axioms are,
in all languages, justly termed moral truths. Moral truths, considered
in themselves, are equally as certain as mathematical truths. Given the
idea of a deposit, the idea of keeping it faithfully is attached to it
as necessarily, as to the idea of a triangle is attached the idea that
its three angles are equal to two right angles. You may violate a
deposit; but in doing so, do not imagine that you change the nature of
things, or make what is in itself a deposit become your own property.
The two ideas exclude each other. You have but a false semblance of
property: and all the efforts of the passions, all the sophisms of
interest, will not overturn essential differences. Therefore it is that
a moral truth is so imperious; because, like all truth, it is what it
is, and shapes itself to please no caprice. Always the same, and always
present, little as we may like it, it inexorably condemns, with a voice
always heard, but not always regarded, the insensate and guilty will
which thinks to prevent its existing, by denying, or rather by
pretending to deny, its existence.
The moral truths are distinguished from other truths by this singular
characteristic: so soon as we perceive them, they appear to us as the
rule of our conduct. If it is true that a deposit is made in order to be
returned to its legitimate possessor, it _must_ be returned. To the
necessity of _believing_ the truth, the necessity of _practising_ it is
added.
The necessity of practising the moral truths is obligation. The moral
truths, necessary to the eye of reason, are obligatory on the will. The
moral obligation, like the moral truth which is its basis, is absolute.
As necessary truths are not _more_ or _less_ necessary, so obligation is
not more or less _obligatory_. There are degrees of importance among
different obligations; but there are no degrees in _the obligation
itself_. One is not nearly obliged, _almost_ obliged; but _wholly_ so,
or _not at all_. If there be any place of refuge against the obligation,
it ceases to exist.
If the obligation is absolute, it is _immutable_ and _universal_. For if
what is obligation to-day may not be so _to-morrow_, if what is
obligatory for _me_ may not be so for you, the obligation differing from
itself, it would be relative and contingent. This fact of absolute,
immutable, universal obligation is certain and manifest. _The good_ is
the foundation of obligation. If it be not, obligation has _no_
foundation; and that is impossible. If one act ought to be done, and
another ought not, it must be because evidently there is an essential
difference between the two acts. If one be not good and the other bad,
the obligation imposed on us is arbitrary.
To make the Good a _consequence_, of anything whatever, is to annihilate
it. It is the first, or it is nothing. When we ask an honest man why,
despite his urgent necessities, he has respected the sanctity of a
deposit, he answers, because it was _his duty_. Asked why it was his
duty, he answers, because it was _right_, was _just_, was _good_. Beyond
that there is no answer to be made, but there is also no question to be
asked. No one permits a duty to be imposed on him without giving himself
a reason for it: but when it is admitted that the duty is commanded by
justice, the mind is satisfied; for it has arrived at a principle beyond
which there is nothing to seek, justice being its own principle. The
primary truths include their own reason: and justice, the essential
distinction between good and evil, is the first truth of morality.
Justice is not a _consequence_; because we cannot ascend to any
principle above it. Moral truth _forces itself_ on man, and does not
_emanate from him_. It no more becomes subjective, by appearing to us
obligatory, than truth does by appearing to us necessary. It is in the
very nature of the true and the good that we must seek for the reason of
necessity and obligation. Obligation is founded on the necessary
distinction between the good and the evil; and it is itself the
foundation of liberty. If man has his duties to perform, he must have
the faculty of accomplishing them, of resisting desire, passion, and
interest, in order to obey the law. He must be free; therefore he is so,
or human nature is in contradiction with itself. The certainty of the
_obligation_ involves the corresponding certainty of _free will_.
It is the _will_ that is free: though sometimes that will may be
ineffectual. The power _to do_ must not be confounded with the power _to
will_. The former may be _limited_: the latter is _sovereign_. The
_external effects_ may be prevented: _the resolution_ itself cannot. Of
this sovereign power of the will we are conscious. We feel in ourselves,
before it becomes determinate, the force which can determine itself in
one way or another. At the same time when I will this or that, I am
equally conscious that I _can_ will the contrary. I am conscious that I
am the master of my resolution: that I may check it, continue it, retake
it. When _the act_ has ceased, the consciousness of _the power_ which
produced it has not. That consciousness and the power remain, superior
to all the manifestations of the power. Wherefore free-will is the
essential and ever-subsisting attribute of the will itself.