THE BUILDER, NOVEMBER 1926

The Spiritual Significance of Freemasonry

By BRO. SILAS H. SHEPHERD, Wisconsin

THE most essential thing for every Freemason to learn is just what
Freemasonry is, and how it functions. The ritual contains all that
is necessary to a very clear and comprehensive knowledge, but in
many cases those who participate in the forms and ceremonies of the
ritual fail to carefully analyze the things they hear and see, and
even those who assume to teach sometimes fail to fully understand
the words and sentences they have memorized.

We are told that Freemasonry is a "regular system of morality
veiled in allegory, which will unfold its beauties to the candid
and industrious inquirer." It has also been defined as "the
subjugation of the human that is in man by the Divine; the conquest
of the appetites and passions by moral sense and reason; a
continual effort, struggle and warfare of the spiritual against the
material and sensual." Another very beautiful definition is that it
is "a union of unions, an association of men, bound together in
their struggles to attain all that is noble, who desire only what
is true and beautiful, and who love and practice virtue for its own
sake." Many are the definitions that might be quoted to show the
high importance and spiritual significance of Freemasonry. Methods
of expression differ, but every student of Freemasonry is agreed
that its forms and ceremonies are but a means and method of
bringing man to a better comprehension of the real purpose of life,
and to develop the qualities of his soul.

We often read in Masonic books and periodicals that Freemasonry is
not a religion. "A religion" implies one of several or many
religions, and in this respect Freemasonry is most emphatically not
a religion. If we accept the definition of religion as the outward
act or form by which men indicate recognition of a God to whom
obedience and honor is due, we cannot well deny that Freemasonry is
positively and basically religious.

It will be readily conceded that any person who desires to become
a member of the Fraternity has little conception of its serious
purposes. He is, however, given a fairly comprehensive idea in the
formal petition he signs, and again in the questions to which he
must give unequivocal answers. These questions are of first
importance. If the answers are sincere and strictly lived up to,
the candidate will not only become a member of the organized
Fraternity, but will also be a Freemason in its most comprehensive
sense. He will learn to subdue his- passions--fear, hate, greed,
selfishness, prejudice, intolerance, anger, envy--and improve
himself in the science of character building. These questions,
which every Freemason answers in the affirmative, are so important
that we believe every candidate ought to not only memorize them but
frequently question himself as to whether he is strictly complying
with them:


Do you seriously declare, upon your honor, that, unbiased by
friends and uninfluenced by mercenary motives, you freely and
voluntarily offer yourself a candidate for the mysteries of
Freemasonry ?

Do you seriously declare, upon your honor, that you are prompted to
solicit the privileges of Masonry by a favorable opinion conceived
of the institution, a DESIRE FOR KNOWLEDGE and a SINCERE WISH OF
BEING SERVICEABLE TO YOUR FELLOW CREATURES?

Do you seriously declare, upon your honor that you will cheerfully
conform to all the ancient established usages and customs of the
Fraternity?

These are serious obligations voluntarily assumed, and no deviation
can be made without moral retrogradation. We repudiated mercenary
motives and declared our desire for knowledge. What kind of
knowledge ought we to expect? Surely not that which pertains to our
financial, material or physical welfare. The knowledge we can
rightly expect and surely find is a knowledge of our moral and
spiritual nature, and is to be used in being serviceable to our
fellow creatures.

If we have gone thus far and failed to comprehend the deep
spiritual significance of Freemasonry, the address of the Junior
Deacon to the candidate ought to put everyone in the proper
attitude for the impressive ceremonies. This also is of such
importance that frequent rehearsal of it is greatly to be desired.

"Mr. _____, the institution of which you are about to become a
member is one by no means of a light and trifling nature, but of
high importance and deep solemnity. Masonry consists of a course of
ancient hieroglyphical and moral instructions, taught according to
ancient usage, by types, emblems and allegorical figures. Even the
ceremony of your gaining admission within these walls is
emblematical of an event which all must sooner or later
experience.... You are doubtless aware that whatever a man may
possess here on earth, whether it be titles, honors or even his own
reputation, will not gain him admission into the Celestial Lodge
above; but, previous to his gaining admission there, he must become
poor and penniless . . . dependent on the sovereign will of our
supreme Great Master."

Can there be any further doubt that Freemasonry is appealing to the
soul of man? The esoteric ceremonies of reception ought fully to
satisfy us, but for the purposes of this essay we are only using
the monitorial portions. The prayer at the reception of a candidate
might alone give us the very keynote of Freemasonry.

"Vouchsafe Thine Aid, Almighty Father of the Universe, to this, our
present convention. Grant that this candidate for Masonry may
dedicate and devote his life to Thy service, and become a true and
faithful brother among us. Endue him with a competency of Thy
Divine wisdom, that by the secrets of our art he may be better
enabled to display the beauties of Brotherly Love, Relief and
Truth, to the honor and glory of Thy Holy Name. Amen."

The Masonic brethren who established this great nation on the
principles of Liberty and Equality placed their trust in God. They
placed a motto, "In God we trust" on the coins of the country.
Freemasonry stresses not alone a belief in God, but a trust in God.
No lodge is ever opened or closed without invoking Divine
assistance.

The Holy Bible, that great light in Masonry, is the most
conspicuous article of furniture of a lodge. It is the first thing
which is intrusted to the care of the Master at his installation
and he is told that it "will guide you to all truth; it will direct
your paths to the temple of happiness, and point out to you the
whole duty of man."

"The Holy Bible is to rule and guide our faith." The English lodges
call it the Volume of the Sacred Law, and Mackey, in his use of it
as a Landmark, calls it the Book of the Law, because he says it is
not absolutely required that everywhere the Old and New Testaments
shall be used. "Masonry does not attempt to interfere with the
peculiar religious faith of its disciples, except so far as relates
to the belief in God and what necessarily results from that belief.
The Book of the Law is to the speculative Mason his spiritual
Trestle-board; without this he cannot labor; whatever he believes
to be the revealed will of the Grand Architect constitutes for him
this spiritual Trestle-board, and must ever be before him in his
hours of speculative labor, to be the rule and guide of his
conduct."

These quotations from the monitorial parts of the verbal ritual are
only helpful hints at the possibilities that lie hidden in the
symbol and allegories. These are only hidden from those who fail to
follow up their expressed "desire for knowledge" with the necessary
industry and zeal to acquire it. Nothing in Freemasonry is ever
hidden from those who are worthy and properly prepared. Our hearts
and souls are the soil in which the seed must germinate. Not only
must we be industrious as physical and intellectual beings but we
must be industrious spiritually if we are to "divest our minds and
consciences of the vices and superfluities of life, thereby fitting
us as living stones for that spiritual building, that house not
made with hands. eternal in the heavens."

We find three principal systems of symbolism in Freemasonry. First,
the building of a spiritual Temple by the use of symbolic tools.
Just as surely as the operative workman can erect a temporal
structure by the tools and implements of architecture, so we can
erect a beautiful Temple of Character if we will use the tools of
our speculative science as we are taught. No great cathedral was
quickly built, neither can we expect to erect within ourselves a
perfect character without long continued and persistent effort. By
the constant practice of the one tenet of Brotherly Love, we may
make daily progress. Brotherly Love is not only a beautiful ideal,
but an actual fact in nature. It is our failure to live in
conformity to it that causes most of the discord and confusion in
the world. We profess to believe in it. We profess to regard the
whole human species as one family. Unless we practice it we are
failing to practice Freemasonry. By their fruit shall ye know them.

The search for the lost word. The quest of the Holy Grail. The
endless search for truth and light which never ceases from the
cradle to the grave. The symbolism of the lost word has taught
countless Masons the usefulness of searching for the Truth. God's
Infinite Truth is not comprehensible to our finite minds. As we
prepare ourselves by soul development we receive as much as we
deserve.

Lastly, Freemasonry teaches by an allegory of unsurpassed beauty
the great lesson that our bodies are but the temporary shelter of
our soul, and after passing through the experiences necessary the
dust returns to its Mother Earth and the soul returns unto God who
gave it.

"It was the single object of all the ancient rites and mysteries
practiced in the very bosom of pagan darkness, shining as a
solitary beacon in all the surrounding gloom and cheering the
philosopher in his weary pilgrimage of life to teach the
immortality of the soul. This is still the great design of the
Third Degree of Masonry."

It is in the light of this teaching that the Master Mason, raised
to the eminence of that "Sublime Degree" can look back on the
Charges he received as all Entered Apprentice. Then, the precepts
of the Moral Law were symbolically expounded by authority; now, in
the further light afforded him, he sees the reason for what; before
he took on trust, and is thereby fitted to guide others in his
turn.

