
THE BUILDER OCTOBER 1916

THE EMPIRE OF FREEMASONRY
BY BRO. J. GEORGE GIBSON, ENGLAND

An Empire implies an Imperator; and it is evident that Freemasonry
cannot be imperial even with the limitation of the widest and most
free of all the Empires of the political world at its head. There
was a time when we should have thought that Older which comprised
among its membership representatives from every one of our British
colonies must be sufficiently broad to satisfy all the demands of
the imperial state. That time has long gone by. Freemasonry is no
longer willing, or able, to accept the tutelage of even the
greatest profane Empire, and cannot accept either the limitation
which that tutelage implies. The Craft has discovered that it
exists not on sufferance as an adjunct of social amelioration, but
that it is as ancient as the oldest form of government, and has at
least an equal empire with that of the mightiest of worldly
political systems. The researches of the savants of Masonry, and
the dreams of the more imaginative, have done a great deal to make
it impossible for us to begin our history in the 17th or 18th
centuries. We can no longer find the warrant for our landmark in
the determination of the four London Lodes, or in the older custom
and law of the older operative lodges. There may be a difference of
opinion as he antiquity of the earth, and of the Masonic cult of
ancient days; but it is evident to the most casual student that our
authority is antecedent to even the erection of the pyramids of
Egypt and elsewhere, and that we must base our imperial structure
right back upon the foundations that are of most ancient readings
of the Book of the Sacred Law. But whether we accept the theory of
the experts of Masonic literature as to the Egyptian origin of
human civilization, or date our authority from the comparatively
recent Grand Lodges of Sinai and Jerusalem, in either case we find
our prime authority in the command of the Creator, which moved holy
men in divers ways, and at divers times to fix in labour the
determination of the Divine. And every conception of the Masonic
Empire must assume the Authority of the G. A. O. T. U., without
which neither Masonry nor Empire can exist.

There have been of recent years many evident signs of a desire on
the part of mankind, including both true Masons and those who are
under the impression that they can be true Masons without
recognizing the Supremacy of the Creator, to come nearer together
in labour and in the manifestation of Masonic Brotherhood. With
many of these overtures we are to some extent in sympathy, though
not as Masons. We recognize and admire much that has been done, or
attempted. by those even who are not in sympathy with our aims, and
our position respecting the place in the Lodge of the symbol of the
Divine throne. And nothing would please us more than to have the
power and the authority to give the grip of fellowship to those in
whose testimony against iniquity and slavery we have felt the
keenest delight. We have even been at times tempted to wonder
whether we have not been just a little too hasty in our assumption
that the symbols are necessary to the recognition of the authority
they represent. We have been at times also agreeably surprised to
find the members of these quasi-masonic bodies (as some regard
them) acting very much as we would act in similar circumstances.
And yet we have always come to see that any derogation from the
sole authority of the Creator means the inevitable sequel of the
setting up of a host of denominational authorities which each
claims to exercise rule upon the great Level, and each renders
anything like harmonious labour a something out of the question. We
are more and more convinced that the only possible Empire is that
which has supreme as its warrant the Imperator. We need not go
abroad to see this. We have many institutions of a beautiful and
useful character, such as the Christian orders of chivalry to which
so many Masons delight to belong. Introduce the ritual and the
legend of one of these into the lodge of Craft Masonry, and
disruption is certain. And when we remember that there are so many
of the religions of the world that do not accord to that we most of
us belong to that respect that we render to it, we can see at once
that the imperial Masonry must, and can alone come, upon the basis
of true Craft and Royal Arch Masonry.

Nor can this Empire come under the aegis of any nation, or race.
Religions have shown that their influence is greatest when they do
not follow the flag. A flag not our own excites suspicion of
dynastic aims and that religion is the most successful in
establishing itself which is not identified with any nation, but
only with the Imperator in whose name the missionary goes forth.
The authority must become effective through the human and not the
national instrumentality.

Mankind is more than Nations are, 
And human trust than nation's power.

Cordial intents have not been born through the skill of the
diplomat; but have become effective through the pervasive
friendship of peoples, which diplomats have recognized and made use
of. And the empire of Freemasonry must come by a similar pervasion.
We do not attack the religions that recognize the authority of the
LORD of the Sacred Name; but we pervade them with the spirit which
finds access to every one of them. It is this spirit which creates
the empire. There are religions which as such have little in common
and yet which in the lodge find that all are aiming at the correct
building of the temple, and all are depending upon the accuracy of
the same plans. Where we cannot meet in comfort in church, we can
delight in gathering at the Pool of Siloam. We cannot unite in the
propagation of a doctrine of religion; but we meet upon the square
in all the work of education and nation building that we

devote our common labour to as Freemasons. The place for flag
waving is not the lodge; for there we realize as perhaps nowhere
else that the Masonic Empire must be the goal of a perfect national
ideal, and that all nations, whether they know it or not are
working toward the ideal of a common brotherhood. And we feel
assured that there is no common brotherhood without its anterior
Common Fatherhood. Already Freemasonry has made war less terrible,
and less in evidence as the final arbiter of nations. Already
things are of common occurrence in the campaign which testify that
the world is coming to the view that in the builder's Lodge there
are things of greater importance than the dialect of the Mason or
the garments he wears. The babel of tongues no longer shuts out
from the universal communion any of the sons of God. As we are told
the first wandering of Mankind began with Man's disobedience to the
Supreme Law, so the return of Man to his proper Oneness will come
about when the obedience is restored.

Yet, while we must place the flag in its proper relationship to
Masonry, we cannot but be pleased that there is such a tendency
among those who do speak our language and are filled with our
spirit to a closer reunion within the bounds of the world Empire of
our race. The Masonic leaven must begin to work in the homes of
those who were once of our own household. And Freemasonry can only
become imperial by this leavening process. Already the old
suspicions and animosities which had much of their origin in
political feuds centuries ago are dying a natural death. There is
expressed on both sides of the Atlantic a feeling that it is about
time that our common Anglo-Saxon conception of Masonry should be
presented in more similar forms. Now that there is no reason for
the suspicion that territorial considerations are at the base of
the desire for unanimity some round table conference might be
sought without invidious suggestion; and this would pave the way to
many acts of community that would eventuate in a better
understanding, and a more intelligent appreciation of each other's
Masonic ideals. And a common ideal held by those who hail from the
North of Europe, would not be allowed to end there. At present
there is a sharp line of cleavage which insensibly divides the
Latin from the other races of European descent. There is no reason
why this should continue to exist, and the common understanding of
the Masons, and the Masonic bodies that are represented in our
American Colonies and the great Republic beyond the Atlantic would
prepare the way to such a rapprochement as might result in a world
Masonry that would be in deed and in truth a real Empire.

Without for a moment abating one demand of pure Masonry, and indeed
with a common accentuation of that upon which Masonry is based, it
might be found possible to replace the travesty of Masonry so much
in evidence in the South with the real thing. And could this be
done then we should indeed be impregnable as an army of Peace, and
of Progress. Later the ancient, but less known systems of the
yellow and red races might have attention, with the effect that the
separating suspicions which are so hindering in their influence
upon the advance of the race would prove easier of solution. There
is no field in which the beneficent influence of Freemasonry might
find itself barred. All that is disruptive in the present social
system, all that is wasteful in the present method of government,
all that is generative of suspicion or hatred in the councils of
men, and all that in any way would, or could, tend to hold back
mankind from the common labour which would build the temple of
Humanity, would prove still more easy to get rid of, and Man would
be elevated to more than his pristine purity and usefulness. The
imperial ideal of Freemasonry has robbed the "wireless" of much of
its terrors; and the "airship bogie" would lose half its dangers
did we realize in the language of a common Masonic experience how
much better it is for brethren to dwell together in unity, in an
Empire of Brotherhood.

