THE BUILDER AUGUST 1918

THE ANCIENT MYSTERIES

BY BRO. R. PERRY BUSH, PAST GRAND CHAPLAIN, MASSACHUSETTS

FOR quite a number of years I have been a student of Freemasonry
and it has been my aim to follow into the distant past the lines of
causation by means of which our noble institution has been
developed into its present form and influence. Steadily but surely
the origin of the Craft has been pushed back amid the dim mists of
farthest antiquity. Not that in those far-off times there was
anything like the present organization or ritual, but that our
genealogy includes the builders of the great cathedrals of Europe,
those who gave glory to Rome and Athens, and even those who reared
the wonderful temples at Karnac or heaved the pyramids above the
sands of Cairo, is now the accepted belief.

With the advance of knowledge, the better and more complete
understanding of the factors that go to make up our present
civilization, and the constant bringing to light of facts that fol
long ages were lost from human sight, it becomes morally certain
that the roots of our modern Masonry may be traced not only to the
reign of Solomon and the structure erected on Mt. Moriah, but far
beyond that day and generation.

Within the last half century the archaeologists have pushed their
investigations into almost every nook and corner of the world, and
they have brought forth from the storehouses of the long ago a more
complete record of the thoughts and deeds of those of ancient times
than was ever before in the possession of mankind. Throughout the
Peloponnesus and by the waters of the Nile and in the valleys of
the Tigris and the Euphrates they have been digging in the earth
and uncovering the story of man's development in ages long anterior
to the Christian era. The discovery of the Rosetta stone, the
laying hold upon the secret of the deciphering of the cuneiform
inscriptions of Assyria; the finding of the laws of Hammurabi,
these, with other helps that have been afforded, have led to a
discarding of the conceptions previously entertained regarding the
peoples of antiquity, and made it plain that we must reconstruct
our theories of the far-off past. And it is abundantly evident that
they of old time were wrestling with much the same problems that
confront us at the present moment. And they were dealing--in their
way--both with the practical protection of their welfare as
workmen, and with the philosophy of life--the distinction between
the body and the soul that tenants or is imprisoned in the flesh.

That the great multitudes of those of operative skill were banded
together and that they hedged themselves about with secret means of
identification, there is today no shadow of doubt, and that these
were the progenitors of our modern lodges, and that we are their
lineal descendants, in my judgment it is impossible reasonably to
deny.

They who in this day write the history of Masonry are more and more
inclined to look upon the 24th of June, 1717, as but a date when
the transition from its operative to its speculative form was fully
consummated. They are not content to start at that point and simply
tell us what it since has been and done, but almost without
exception they go back from that date to the stone Masons of the
Middle Ages and through these to the Roman Corporations of Builders
which had their origin under Numa Pompilius in the eighth century
before Christ and try to connect these in some more or less
definite way with the architects and builders of Egypt and Assyria
and to show that we may justly claim that this is the attested line
of our descent.

To this kind of work I have applied myself with much interest, but
it is only the following of the history of what was in effect but
an old time Knights of Labor. It is worth our while, in my
estimation, for it is no small honor to be allied with an
institution that spans so many centuries, and there is a certain
justifiable pride in the great age of the Craft, but fundamentally
I do not personally worship dust-begrimed antiquity, nor do I go
into any temple of the long ago to find the idols at whose feet I
lay my truest sacrifice. It does not necessarily recommend a thing
to me to tell me that it is old. If I love it heartily, it is
because within it is embodied a nobler song, a higher ideal, a more
vital help and inspiration than I can find elsewhere.

So it is that in my study of Masonry I have not been satisfied
simply to trace the fortunes of the workmen of various lands and
ages, the signs and grips and words by which they communicated with
each other, and the testimony that there is a line of relationship
running back from our lodges to the days of the earliest Pharoahs,
but I have found a keener interest in the revelation that is made
of what is really deeper and more vital in those institutions of
the past out of which our fraternity and its teachings have been
developed.

Now it requires but a little investigation to show that one is
amply repaid who applies himself to this more philosophical phase
of study, and at every step it will grow upon us that Masonry is
but a form and expression of that innate something in man which
from the dawn of his evolution has led him to reach out toward the
Eternal-not-ourselves and to strive to understand the meaning of
what we may designate as death. And to him who contemplates it in
this fashion it appears as of the same character as that other line
of man's development which has been expressed in the building of
temples and churches of worship.

As one delves into the history of the operative Masons he finds all
through the ages, especially in the long ago, that when the novice
was taken in charge to be initiated and instructed there was a
double course which he was made to follow. On the one hand he was
trained in the science of architecture: he was taught the laws of
building and acquired skill in construction. There was another part
of his training, however, which has not been so much emphasized,
but which after all may be found to be most vital in the
inheritance which has come down from those ancient brethren to us
of the Masonic fraternity of today. I discover beyond a
peradventure that in Palestine and in Greece and in Egypt, and I
doubt not in other lands as well, to those of the Craft were
imparted teachings concerning the Infinite Architect of the
Universe and the destiny of the human soul. In the lecture of our
third degree today we refer to our ancient brother, the great
Pythagoras, and we exhibit the figure by which we afford the proof
that the square described upon the hypothenuse of a right angle
triangle is equal to the sum of the squares described upon the
other two sides--which is purely mathematical. It is, however, far
more interesting to me, and far more significant as regards what is
most vital in Masonry, that Pythagoras saw resemblances to numbers
of things, and held it to be true that one quality of numbers was
Justice, another Soul, and Spirit, etc., and that he taught that it
is by mathematical and scientific study that man looks into nature
and finds things obeying the laws he has ascertained for himself in
his own mind and that therefore the meaning of the Universe is
revealed in the soul and not by the senses, and that if, thus
rightly guided, we look within, we shall find the Eternal God.
Moreover, he maintained that the soul element is not limited to
bodily substance. It is not our personality, as he reasoned, but it
belongs to infinity and cannot be annihilated. All of which shows
plainly that the Pythagorean education was to lead to intercourse
with God and that it held within it the teaching of immortality.
Even here we find the heart of the system to be the reaching out
after the answers to the deepest questioning of the mind of man and
it is pertinent to observe that what Pythagoras thus taught in
regard to these deeper or mystical revelations in their relation to
the science of mathematics, is typical of what we find to have been
a characteristic of Masonry in many lands.

Whether we consider it to be to our glory or to our shame, the men
of all ages have been Mystics--they have either explicitly or
implicitly recognized the essential relation of our nature to God
and striven to adjust their lives accordingly.

Mysticism, so far as we have acquaintance with it, may be said to
have had its birth in the Orient among the Brahmins, and it
attributes to the human mind the ability to rise to an immediate
intuition of God and thereby to a knowledge of all truth. This
consummation is not to be obtained on the lower level of discursive
reasoning, but an ecstatic state of the soul is a necessary
condition for the contemplation of the absolute.

The Brahmin laid aside all that pertains to the world of sense and
allowed God alone to work within him until in the transport of mind
he became identified with the hidden deity--"the God greater than
all gods and men." Transplanted to the West, this mysticism appears
in the Neoplatonists and later in a Tauler and other Christian
mystics, or in such a one as Eckhart, whose teachings called forth
the anathema of the Vatican. To all these there is a realm above
that of sensible things, but there is a faculty in man capable of
attaining thereto and upon being introduced into that magical
circle man becomes cognizant of the absolute and of his own undying
nature.

It is true that many of the schemes evolved by these mystical
dreamers are not altogether satisfactory to us today. The Brahmin,
the Buddhist, and even Eckhart held that as all men have arisen
from God so all desire to return to the divine being, and the final
end of their activity is attained when, by the resignation of all
individuality, they get back to the source from whence they came,
the union with deity, the absorption into Nirvana--lost so far as
our distinct personality is concerned by becoming once more a part
of that from whence we came. But in all of this we see man
wrestling with the same old problems of the Infinite Artificer of
the universe and the destiny that waits us beyond the grave.

It is pertinent at this point of our study also to affirm that
Plato is understood only in the light of the mysteries. The
Neoplatonists credit him with a "secret doctrine," and they
maintain that his teacher Socrates, put his hearers through an
"initiation" whereby they found something within them they were not
aware of possessing.

The place where these philosophers taught was filled with the
spirit of the mystics, and Plato's dialogues mean more or less
according to our spiritual condition. Truth or falsity is decided
by something within which opposes the physical body and is not
subject to its laws. Socrates approaches death as he would any
other event. In the Phaedon, in which Plato records the last words
of his master, there is but little argument for immortality, but
there is the teaching that death is a release and it is folly to
rebel against it.

Now the particular fact to which we here call attention as
contributory to what we hope to make plain is that the popular
religions of the Ancients did not give satisfaction to the minds
and hearts of hosts of thinkers among them, and so there sprang up
great groups of mystics everywhere who guarded their secrets by a
priestly caste and by most solemn vows. There was a oneness of
belief which runs like a golden thread through all the fabric of
these old time organizations and which is not lost even when the
votaries turn to shame and debauchery. To each of the mysteries
there was a different god or hero, but always the same aim and
purpose, the elevation of the initiated to the apprehension of God
and immortality, and I shall endeavor to acquaint you with what one
is able to learn concerning the methods employed by those of old
time to enforce their lessons and to show that there is something
more than a casual connection between these companies of
worshippers and our Masonic fraternity.

The task is the more difficult because those who presented the
mysteries hedged themselves about by such sacred vows of secrecy as
most effectually held the initiated from revealing what was
imparted to them and if there were in those days those who because
of pique or with desire of personal gain, exposed the secrets,
their works were somehow suppressed and have disappeared from
history. There is enough, however, that has come down to us, to
give us a very definite idea of what the mysteries were in
substance and to show that almost without exception that most vital
in each concerned the deity and the life beyond the grave.

We will therefore consider first the mysteries of Osiris and Isis,
for the Egyptians are the most ancient people whose story is set
before us in the annals of the past. Herodotus, the father of
history, constantly alludes to these mysteries, but he always
speaks with extreme caution, since it is evident that he had
himself been initiated into the rites.

In the "Book of the Dead," that ancient collection of prayers and
hymns supposed to aid the soul in its journey to Amenti, there is
some aid to us, but in that work the myths are mostly taken for
granted as being well known, and therefore are not enlarged upon.
Most of our knowledge in this domain comes to us from Greece, to
which country, in an altered form, the mysteries were transplanted,
but it is sufficient to enable us to reconstruct the Osiriac myth
which was, in a sense, the model for all the other systems.

Osiris was the greatest of the Egyptian heroes and he was by his
devotees transformed from a mortal king to be an immortal god. It
was he who introduced civilization among the dwellers of the Nile,
and he went everywhere teaching the people agriculture and the
arts. During his wanderings his brother Typhon, who was a rival for
his throne, formed a conspiracy against him. He had a beautiful
carved chest made, inlaid with gold, and he promised to give it to
him whom it should fit when he should lie down in it. When Osiris
tried it Typhon closed the lid and made it secure and had the chest
thrown into the river where it floated along until cast ashore at
Byblos, in Phoenicia.

Isis, the sister and also the wife of Osiris, overcome with grief,
searched everywhere for the chest and at length found it, but
Typhon again obtained possession of the body which he cut into foul
teen parts and scattered about. Isis then searched for the
fragments and wherever she found one she buried it, and that was
the reason Egypt was so rich in the graves of Osiris. One part,
that of propagation, Isis could not find, and so she consecrated a
model thereof and the Phallus henceforth becomes associated with
the mystic rites. Afterwards, Osiris was resurrected, returned from
the region of shades, and was reunited with his consort.

This is the myth as nearly as we are able to recover it. It is
certain beyond question that the priests of Osiris were monotheists
and it may yet appear that it is to them rather than to the Hebrews
that we owe the first definite teaching of the doctrine of the one
and only God; while every mummy that they embalmed speaks to us of
their belief in immortality. Even if we do not know much concerning
the ceremonies of initiation as they took place in the land of the
Pharaohs, there is abundant light thrown upon our study from the
fact that these mysteries were transplanted to Greece somewhere
about the fourteenth century before Christ, and to other lands a
little later on, and here they assumed various forms, but all of
them bearing resemblance to each other. Here, however, as in Egypt,
there could be no greater crime than the betrayal of the secrets,
as is attested by a host of the classic writers such as Pindar and
Sophocles and Isocrates and Aeschylus (the last, because of what he
put into one of his plays, being obliged to flee to the altar of
Dionysus, where he escaped death only by legally proving that he
had never been initiated). Nevertheless, from one source and
another has come sufficient help to enable us to follow in detail
the forms and ceremonies and the mystic teaching of those ancient
peoples.

From earliest times there were secret cults and Mysteries in
Greece. Every clan had its sacred locality and ceremonies, from
which those of every other clan were excluded. Some of these rites
were crude and some were of a lewd character, but all together they
exerted a marvellous influence upon the people. Some of them were
even dedicated to the worship of infernal Pluto and others to
Demeter and Cora, but gradually, almost without exception, they
took on the hope of a bright hereafter beyond the vale of death.

At the time when the Persian Empire arose on the ruins of other
ancient monarchies it subjugated Lydia and the flourishing Greek
colonies of Asia Minor. It was then that Greece issued out of its
Middle Ages and Athens was enlarged by the incoming of new tribes,
became the capital of Attica, and laid the foundation for its
future greatness. One expression of its growing importance was the
spread of the influence of its mysteries until what had been its
special and particular cult, became dominant wherever the Greeks
held sway. The mysteries of Eleusis exhibited the greatest attempt
of Hellenic genius to construct a religion which would keep pace
with the growth of thought and civilization in Greece. That they
were related to the mysteries of Osiris and Isis we are well
assured, but the method of their transmission from Egypt and the
full process of their transformation into the elaborate system
which prevailed at Eleusis we do not know.

It was my good fortune a few years ago to visit the scenes where
those elaborate ceremonials took place. I followed the route of the
pageants that went out from Athens and lingered at the many shrines
at which the devotees paused to pay their tribute and wandered
among the ruins of the great temple at Eleusis--which was the
largest sacred edifice of those old Greeks-- begun, it is said, by
Eurnolpus, the first priest of the cult, in 1356 B.C. Naturally, I
endeavored to learn as much as possible concerning the ancient
Greeks and to lay hold, if I could, upon what was really the heart
of what they thought and the motive which prompted them to those
spectacular exhibitions. And as it is from the rites of Eleusis
that we derive the larger part of our knowledge of the mysteries in
general, it will be my aim to give you a fairly adequate conception
of what they were like.

In the first place, they were in honor of the goddess Demeter, the
patroness of agriculture, and they dealt much with the procreative
power of nature. Later they turned to the deeper problems of life
and death and the great beyond. From the Homeric hymn to Demeter we
learn that she was the daughter of Kronos and that she gave to Zeus
a daughter, Persephone (or Cora.) One day when Cora was gathering
flowers she was abducted by Pluto, the God of Hades, and with the
consent of her father, Zeus, who was a brother of Pluto, she was
carried to the infernal regions.

Demeter arrived too late to assist her daughter, but after
searching for her for nine days and nights with torch in hand she
learned from Helios (the sun) the name of her seducer and also that
of his accomplice (Zeus). Incensed at her husband, she left Olympus
and the gods, and disguised as an old woman she determined to scour
the earth to find her daughter.

Arriving at Eleusis she was discovered by Keleos (the ruler of the
realm) sitting upon a stone, in tears. He took pity upon her, and
she entered his family as a nurse to the queen's son. Wishing to
make the boy immortal, she annointed him by day with ambrosia and
hid him by night in fire, but his mother discovered what was being
done and, not understanding the import of it all, she was terrified
and the boy was rescued by his sisters.

After that the bestowal of immortality was impossible and Demeter
left the house, but she revealed herself to King Keleos and by her
direction he built a temple that she might initiate the Eleusinians
into her mysteries. To that temple Demeter retired, but her grief
for the loss of her daughter was limitless and she vowed vengeance
against gods and men. For a year she spread sterility over the
earth. Zeus sought in vain to appease the wrath of Demeter and
finally he sent Hermes to Pluto ordering him to restore Cora to her
mother. This Pluto was obliged to do but before her departure he
gave her secretly a sweet pip of a pomegranate which compelled her
to return periodically to the nether world forevermore and
henceforth she spent a third of the year there and two-thirds in
the world above.

By the return of her daughter, the wrath of Demeter was appeased,
but as she was ordered to return to Olympus, before doing so she
called the princes of the realm together and initiated them into
the rites which assured them of honor after death; and at Eleusis,
the place of her sufferings, she founded the cult which should keep
her faith in remembrance.

Now the meaning of this myth is quite apparent and it is often set
forth in the Greek classics. It is that the soul originated from
the immortal and it is led astray by what is transitory. It lives
alternately above and below. It cannot abide permanently upon the
heights of the divine. It is never-dying, but is doomed to
recurring transformation by birth and death until it is reunited
with the source from whence it sprung, and the temple service
instituted by Demeter was to help establish its votaries as far as
possible in the divine life.

This was the beginning of the mystic system at Eleusis which later
developed to such proportions that it became a wonderful influence
in the Grecian life and transcended all other similar rites in
brilliancy of presentation. It was in great part a revival of the
ancient established religion of the realm and this conduced to its
adoption as the state religion, but it was reinforced by foreign
elements, namely, the introduction of gods who did not inhabit
Olympus and who had suffered and had found consolation.

These mysteries were supposed to enshrine a primitive revelation of
divine truth, and it is maintained by Pindar and Sophocles and
Plutarch (and their contemporaries and successors) that they
exercised a healthy and saving effect upon their votaries, and
although in the time of Diogenes they lost their religious
character and became simply a splendid ceremony and under the
Romans they degenerated to mere superstition, yet they endured with
power for nearly a thousand years, coming to an end during the
reign of Theodosius II. Let me as briefly as possible portray to
you what took place and the significance of the rites as I
interpret them.

Every device of painting and sculpture, of architecture and music
and dancing, of gorgeous costumes and alternating darkness and
dazzling light was called into being to make an impression upon the
initiate, and he was taught that by what was to be imparted he was
to have an advantage in the future world. The novitiate was
subjected to a special preparation, his mind was wrought up to a
breathless expectation, and he was disqualified if he had committed
murder and had not made reparation therefor.

There were what were called the Lesser Mysteries, which were
celebrated at Athens on the hill of Agra, near the Stadium, in the
month of February, but these were but a preparation for the rites
which were to follow. The novitiate was subjected to a most sacred
vow of secrecy and was only admitted to the vestibule of the
sanctuary of Demeter. He had to wait a year before he could advance
to what was designated as the Greater Mysteries.

These Greater Mysteries occupied nine days in their presentation,
from the fifteenth to the twenty third of September. Two months
previous to that time heralds from the priestly families went forth
to announce the coming of the celebration and a holy armistice was
declared for those who were waging war, so that all might be free
to travel in safety.

As the date set for the beginning of the ceremonies drew near the
novitiate was subjected to a fast which lasted for nine days and
then he was ready for initiation. We are told by many writers of
the terror in the minds of those who were about to pass through the
ordeal and it is often compared to the preparation for death.

On the fourteenth of the month, at full moon, the priests of
Eleusis, headed by the hierophant (who was dressed to represent the
governor of the universe), removed from their repository the Sacred
Objects, and, followed by the populace, carried them in procession
to Athens. All the Athenians went out to meet them, the youths from
eighteen to twenty years of age formed a guard of honor around the
sacred objects, and they were deposited at the foot of the
Acropolis, the announcement of their arrival was solemnly made to
the priestess of Pallas Athena, the tutelary goddess of Athens, and
the high festival began.

The following morning the novitiates were taught that they could
not participate unless their lives were clean and they could speak
with intelligible voice. Next day, the sixteenth, was the feast of
Purification when they bathed in the sea that their minds might be
pure and undefiled. On the seventeenth was the sacrifice of
Soteria, which was for the salvation of the Senate, the citizens of
Athens, and their wives and children.

On the eighteenth there was a sacrifice in honor of Aesculapius,
and the next morning the multitude started on the procession back
to Eleusis. There were altars and shrines all along the way and a
pause was made and offerings bestowed at each of these. It was
night before the pilgrimage was completed, so that torches were
lit. Everyone from Eleusis came out to meet the worshippers and
they finished their journey with chanting and a wandering in the
dark along the shores and plains in search of the lost daughter of
Demeter.

The next twenty-four hours were spent in rest and in preparation
for the great initiation which took place on the twenty-first and
twenty-second of the month, and was representative of the lives of
the deities by whom the mysteries were instituted and developed.
All that could be accomplished by dazzling lights and gorgeous
costumes and strange apparitions and wonderful voices and every
possible spectacular device was called into operation to produce an
impression upon the novitiates.

After their credentials were examined, they were crowned with
myrtle and admitted to the mystical enclosure where a priest
proposed certain questions to which the answers were to be returned
in a set and particular form. Then they underwent further
purification and were specially prepared by partaking of a sacred
draught, after which they were allowed to kiss the holy treasures
of the temple, and then they approached the supreme moment of their
exaltation. From the profound darkness of the night they were
suddenly ushered into the midst of transcendent and overpowering
light. On every hand issued loud cries for help and laments of
agony. Frightful noises came as from earth and heaven. Flames burst
from the surrounding walls and were extinguished by invisible
hands. The lightning flashed with blinding brilliance and peal
after peal of thunder rent the air. The place shook and vibrated
and whirled and strange and amazing objects appeared everywhere
around. As they advanced there were flambeau bearers representing
the Sun and near an altar was the Adorer symbolizing the Moon, and
there was Mercury, the messenger of the gods, and a multitude of
similar characters most gorgeously attired.

As the candidate approached, he saw a spacious habitation replete
with glittering gems. Above him, the roof was resplendent with
stars, and he was raised up into a place burning with fire. When
they pleased those around him assumed the likeness of men, and when
they desired they gleamed as gods and appeared or vanished at will.
All around him the lightning hissed and flashed, terrestrial demons
with every device to excite the human passions waited all along his
path, and if he yielded he was plunged into an abyss of darkness
and suffering.

All this was continued until the eighth day of the festival, when
the ceremonies were completed and the candidates fully initiated,
when they either remained to participate in the sports which
followed or returned to Athens in somewhat the same spectacular way
in which they had come, excepting that they no longer preserved a
serious and solemn mien, but engaged in all sorts of chaffing and
buffoonery.

Such were the famous Mysteries of Eleusis, in which, as is clearly
to be seen, the legend of Osiris is transformed into that of
Demeter, but with the same fundamental teaching of immortality and
a reaching after a being behind and transcending the gods whom the
people ignorantly worshipped and as Athens came in course of time
to dominate Greece, her ceremonies served in a large measure as a
pattern for others wherever the Greeks extended their influence.

Mackey tells us that the Dionysian mysteries were very old and that
previous to the building of Solomon's temple the inhabitants of
Attica had conquered Asia Minor and there they introduced these
mysteries before they were corrupted by the Athenians, and in them
was presented the death of the demigod Dionysus, the search for his
body and his restoration to life. The same historian informs us
that Hiram Abiff was initiated into these rites and that later his
own death and resurrection were substituted in place of that of
Dionysus.

There were also Mysteries of Mithras embellished by the wonderful
teachings of Zoroaster and the contest between the hosts of Ahriman
and those of Ormuzd. There were again the Samothracian and Orphic
Mysteries which had their special characteristics, but all with the
same underlying principles and teaching. There was something also
of the same manifestation in our older scriptures where the Jews
pictured Jehovah as dwelling in the thick darkness, and in the fact
that they never voiced the sacred name of deity, and again in the
New Testament in our book of Revelation.

In all ages, therefore, we find man instinctively erecting-altars,
reaching out after God if haply he might and him and looking on
beyond the grave to a life that is endless. And it were folly to
think that Masonry has had its place through the long centuries and
among such varied peoples without appropriating to itself something
of what was so vital to mankind. Indeed the more I study its
history, the more I am persuaded that what we have found to be the
heart of the ancient mysteries was also the heart and soul of
Masonry in days gone by, as it is, in my thought, in this day and
generation.

Not that we in our fraternity are banded together as religious
sect. Thank God we have no creed, but we meet strictly upon the
level, and we ask of no man what church he attends or whether he
remains outside them all. But on the threshold of our lodge rooms
we do demand that those who would unite with us shall declare their
faith in God, and except such is his conviction, none may pass
through our ceremonies and sit with us in our circle of fraternity,
and furthermore, he who does not learn from our third degree the
lesson of immortality has not yet apprehended its true
significance.

We are not only one with those who carved the sphinx and erected
the statue of Memnon and with those who embellished the Acropolis
with that series of temples that even in their ruin are the wonder
and delight of all who look upon them, but we are also one with
those who by what seem to us crude and often barbarous rites and
ceremonies sought to impart to man an apprehension of deity and a
surety that death is but an incident in an endless career.

We might, as Masons, cherish a just pride in an institution which
reaches back through so many centuries of the long ago, even if we
conceive of it as embodying only good fellowship and affording its
members the means for travelling in foreign countries with the
assurance of receiving a Master's pay. But this would place it in
the same category with a thousand other gilds or trade unions which
men have devised for their personal emolument, and to see no more
than this in the work and teachings of the Craft would be to
overlook what to me is our transcendent glory. To minister to our
bodily comforts and our social enjoyment is assuredly a worthy
mission, yet it needs but little apprehension of that which
constitutes the real man--the deeper needs, the higher joys, the
supreme longings of our race--to perceive that those who contribute
to this nobler part of our nature are our truest benefactors.

And of such have been those who through the ages have gathered
within the sacred circle of Freemasonry and radiated from its altar
the inspiration that comes from the recognition of a Supreme Being
and the certainty of immortality.

How far the Craft have been allied with those who in so many lands
and ages rose above the popular religions there and then in vogue
and laid hold upon the one God and the unending tomorrow we may not
be arbitrary in affirming, but that our operative forebears, while
imparting the knowledge of the science of architecture, held also
among their secrets these same priceless convictions it is not
difficult to substantiate.

And in my judgment it was not because of the working of blind
chance that we find such to have been the case, but rather we may
believe that Masonry is one of the ordained instruments by which
the Infinite Artificer of the Universe is to transform the rough
ashlar of barbarism into smooth and polished and completed manhood,
it is one of the means by which we are to advance by regular and
upright steps to the attainment of our individual perfection and
that of our human race.

Mark ye, brethren, the destiny of nations and the secret of their
downfall! It is written on every page of history ! They grew in
wealth and power but they forgot the demands of righteousness and
they forsook the altars of the Most High.

Today, as never before in the annals of time, the world is being
devastated by war and cursed by a philosophy which is
materialistic. The very foundations of society are threatened with
overthrow. Our only hope is in God and in the dissemination of the
spirit of brotherhood--the recognition of our obligations as
members together of one great family.

Amid the turmoil and doubt and strife stands the fraternity of
which we are a part, and within our lodges we are taught to live
together in unity and to put our trust in one who is unconquerable,
and by the light which gleams upon us when we are raised to the
sublime degree of a Master Mason we recognize the indestructibility
of the human soul. Surely it is a privilege and an honor which is
ours, but I would call it to your minds that it also imposes vital
obligations. It may yet be proved that as Masons we are standing
between mankind and its reversion to barbarism and it is possible
that a greater and more glorious future than that of which we have
ever dreamed awaits the Craft.

Everything depends upon the shaping of our organization and our
discharge of the duty that devolves upon us. If the word I have
voiced in this hour shall have waked in any of you who have
listened so patiently a higher conception of the significance and
mission of Masonry and a firmer fidelity to its demands I shall
have been abundantly repaid for the effort that I have put forth in
your behalf.

