THE BUILDER JULY 1916

ERNST AND FALK
(TRANSLATED FROM THE GERMAN OF G.E. LESSING (1778) BY LOUIS BLOCK,
PAST GRAND MASTER OF MASONS IN IOWA)


(Last year Past Grand Master Block translated the first two of the
five Discourses which make up the famous little Masonic classic,
"Ernst and Falk," by Lessing. (The Builder, Vol- 1, pp. 20, 59).
Owing to illness, and the pressure of business which piled up high
during the interlude, he was unable to finish the work. Herewith we
present the Third Discourse, to appreciate which the reader must
needs turn back to the first two. As a preface to the first two
Discourses we gave a brief sketch of Lessing and his work, for a
fuller account of whom the reader is referred to a delightful
little book on "The Life and Writings of Lessing," by T. W.
Rolleston, in the Great Writers series. While it makes scant
reference to the Masonic life of Lessing, it is a fine estimate and
record of his noble and fruitful life.)

THIRD DISCOURSE

Ernst--You have eluded me all day in the crush of the company. But
I have followed you into your bed room.
Falk--Had you something so important to tell me? The day has tired
me of ordinary conversation.
E.--You mock my curiosity.
F.--Your curiosity?
E.--Which you this morning knew how to arouse in such a masterly
way.
F.--What did we talk about this morning?
E.--About the Free-Masons.
F.--Well? I surely did not betray their secret in the rush and
whirl?
E.--That which you said could not be betrayed ?
E.--Now I must confess that sets me at rest again.
E.--But you did tell me something about the FreeMasons that was
unexpected by me, that astonished me, that made me think.
F.--What was that?
E.--O, don't torment me !--you certainly remember.
F.--Yes it comes back to me by degrees. That was what made you so
absent-minded all day long among your lady and gentlemen friends?
E.--That was it! And I cannot go to sleep unless you answer me at
least one more question.
F.--That depends upon what the question may be.
E.--How can you prove to me, or at least make it seem probable,
that the Masons really have such great and worthy objects?
F.--Did I speak to you about their objects? I did not know it. On
the contrary seeing that you could form no conception at all of the
real activity of the Free-Masons, I simply called your attention to
one matter in which much may yet occur concerning which the minds
of our statesmen have as yet not even dreamed. Perhaps the
Free-Masons are working at that. Or perhaps at--Just to take away
your prejudice that all sites worthy of buildings had already been
discovered and occupied, that all the needed structures had already
been distributed among the workmen required for the task.
E.--Turn and twist about now as you will. It is enough that from
your speeches I have now come to think of the Free-Masons as people
who have voluntarily taken it upon themselves to strive against the
inevitable evils of the state.
F.--That conception can at least do the Free-Masons no harm. Stick
to it! Only get it right! Mix nothing in it that does not belong in
it ! The inevitable evils of the State!--Not this state, nor that
state. Not the inevitable evils, which--a certain constitution
having been once adopted--must necessarily result from that adopted
constitution. With these the Free-Mason never concerns himself, at
least not as a Free-Mason. The alleviation and culing of these he
leaves to the citizen who may deal with them according to his
insight, his courage, and, at his peril. Evils of a far different
kind and of a higher character form the field of his activity.
E.--That I have very clearly grasped.--Not the evils that make
discontented citizens but those evils without which even the most
fortunate citizen could not exist.
F.--Right! To strive against--how do you put it?-- to strive
against these.
E.--Yes !
F.--That is saying a little too much. To work against them ? To do
away with them wholly ? That cannot be, for along with them one
would at the same time destroy the state itself. They must not even
be suddenly called to the attention of those who have as yet no
intimation of them. At most, to stimulate a perception of them from
afar, to foster its growth, to transplant the young sprout, to
cultivate it and make it blossom--can here be called striving
against these evils. Do you see now why I said, that although the
Free-Masons had long been active that still centuries might pass
away without their being able to say: this have we done ?
E.--And now I also understand the second feature of the problem--
good deeds which shall make good deeds dispensable.
F.--'Tis well--now go and study those evils and learn to know them
all and weigh their influences one upon the other and be assured
that this study will reveal things to you which in days of
depression will appear to be most disheartening and
incomprehensible exceptions to providence and virtue. This
revelation, this enlightenment will make you peaceful and happy--
even without your being called a Free-Mason.
E.--You lay so much stress on this being called.
F.--Because one can be something without being called it.   






E.--That's good ! I understand--but to get back to my question,
which I must but clothe in a little different form. Now that I do
know the evils against which Free-Masonry contends--
F.--You know them ?
E.--Did you not name them for me yourself ?
F.--I named a few as instances. Just a few of those which are
apparent even to the most short-sighted eye, just a few of the most
unquestionable, the most far-reaching. But how many are there not
still remaining which although they are not so clear, so
unquestionable and so all inclusive are never the less no less
certain, none the less inevitable.
E.--Then let me confine my question to only those parts which you
have yourself named for me. How can you show me that the
Free-Masons have really given their attention to these? You are
silent? You are thinking it over?
F.--Assuredly not over what answer I should make to this question!-
-but I do not know what reasons you may have for putting this
question.
E.--And you will answer my question if I tell you the Ereasons that
prompt it?
F.--That I promise you.
E.--I know and distrust your ingenuity.
F.--My ingenuity?
E.--I feared you might sell me your speculations for facts.
F.--Much obliged !
E.--Does that offend you ?
F.--Rather must I thank you for calling that "ingenuity" which you
might have called something far different.
E.--Certainly not; on the contrary I know how easily the clever man
deceives himself, how easily he suspects and attributes to other
people plans and intentions of which they had never even thought.
F.--But, upon what does one base his idea of the plans and
intentions of others? Surely upon their own actions alone ?
E.--Upon what else? And here I come again to my question--From what
single unquestionable act of the Free-Masons may we conclude that
it is but one of Free-Masonry's objects through itself and in
itself to do away with that division and disunion which you have
said states and governments make inevitable among men ?
F.--And that without detriment to these states and governments.
E.--So much the better ! It is not even necessary that there should
be actions from which this might be concluded. Just so long as
there are certain peculiarities or oddities which point to it or
arise out of it. You must have begun with some such in making your
supposition, assuming that your system was only hypothetical.
E.--Your distrust still shows itself. But I trust it will disappear
when I bring home to your consciousness one of the fundamental
principles of Free-Masonry
E.--And which may that be? 
F.--One of which they have never made a secret. One according to
which they have always acted beforethe eyes of the whole world.
E.--And that is ?
F.--That is to welcome into their order every worthy man of fitting
disposition without regard to his nationality, his creed, or his
social station.
E.--Indeed !
F.--Naturally this fundamental principle takes for granted the
existence of men who have risen above such divisions, rather than
those who intend to create them. For nitre must be in the air
before it can deposit itself upon the walls in the form of
saltpetre.
E.--O, yes !
F.--And why should not the Free-Masons here call to their service
the common ruse ? That is, to pursue a part of one's secret objects
quite openly in order that Mistrust, which always suspects
something different from what it sees, may be led astray.
E.--And why not ?
F.--Why should not the artist, who can make silver, deal in old
broken silver so as to arouse less suspicion that he could make it?
E.--Why not?
F.--Ernst! Did you hear me? You answer as in a dream, I believe.
F.--No, friend ! But I have enough, enough for tonight. Early
tomorrow morning I return to the city.
F.--Already ? Why so soon ?
E.--You know me and ask ? How much longer will your water-cure
take?
F.--I only began it day before yesterday.
E.--Then I shall see you again before you finish it. Farewell !
Good-night.
F.--Good-night. Farewell !

BY WAY OF INFORMATION

The spark had kindled. Ernst went and became a Free-Mason. What he
found there forms the subject of a fourth and fifth discourse with
which the road divides.

Character is the warp of ancestry and the woof of environment woven
by the power of will on the loom of life.
--J. F. N.

SENTIMENT

A human being may lack eyes and be none the poorer in character; a
human being may lack hands and be none the poorer in character; but
whenever in life a person lacks any great emotion, that person is
poorer in everything.
--James Lane Allen. A Cathedral Singer.

