THE BUILDER NOVEMBER 1915

HEW TO THE LINE

BY BRO. J. N. SAUNDERS, G. S. W., KENTUCKY

THE chief tendency of the students of Masonry, manifested by almost
all of them, is to create a mysticism to which is given a forced
interpretation by which they attempt to connect, as of simultaneous
origin, the symbols of Masonry with incidents of the pre-Christian
era.

The men who do this assemble isolated facts, assume as true
whatever links are needed to complete the chain and in ecstacy of
delight exclaim--I have found it! I have found it!!

To the thoughtful man, who declines to follow blindly, but demands
to be shown, this species of Masonic interpretation and this class
of Masonic history is indeed laughable. An apt illustration is
found in the blindly accepted interpretation given as the Masonic
lesson of the forty-seventh proposition of Euclid-- that
Pythagoras, an illustrious member of the Order, upon discovering
the square described upon the hypotenuse of a right angle triangle
is equal to the sum of the squares described upon the other two
sides, sacrificed an hundred oxen. This the lesson, in substantial
entirety, as usually taught is both meaningless and historically
incorrect.

Pythagoras was born about 582 B.C., and there is no historical
inference that justifies intelligent conjecture of the origin of
Masonry for more than a thousand years after that time, unless such
assumptions are indulged as would discredit the verity of all
history.

Pythagoras was a scholar and a traveller, and is due the honor of
having raised mathematics to the rank of a science. He had no
connection with Masonry, for Masonry did not exist. He did belong
to a brotherhood based upon the ideal of abstinence and hardihood
and even community of goods, but by no justifiable stretch of the
imagination can it be in any way connected with any fact which
leads even to reasonable supposition that he was a Mason, or that
Masonry, or any antecedent organization from which it was derived,
existed at that time.

How much more satisfying to the man of thoughtful intelligence is
it to discard all such patch work combinations of fact, deduction,
imagination, fabrication and sheer nonsense, and look the facts
squarely in the face. Masonry is a noble institution, the gradual
outgrowth of the divinely implanted social instinct by which men of
similar tastes have been drawn together into what is now a powerful
and cohesive organization, but the growth of which has been
gradual, and made possible by men who have themselves left no data
by which to judge with accuracy the place and period of its origin.
Its growth was a slow development which did not attract the
attention of the writers of history until its full attainment. The
symbols now employed to convey its precepts have been of gradual
adoption, and are but the result of the love of all men for
figurative expression of truth. Why not let us seek a direct
approach to the reason for the symbols employed ? The reason that
addresses itself, in simplicity, to the open mind is more to be
relied upon than that which requires genius to conceive and pages
to express, and whose line of reasoning is so occult as to addle
the brain and bewilder the understanding of the plain man who in
plain way seeks plain facts in plain fields of plain truth.

The geometric diagram alluded to but reveals the fact that in a
right angle triangle the square of the base line added to the
square of the line of altitude is equal to the square of the line
connecting their terminal points and on which line depends the
perfect angle.

How simple the application of this figure to the very object of
Masonry--the perfect character in man. The square of the foundation
or base line represents the physical efforts of man, the square of
the line of altitude represents the intellectual and moral uplift
of man, and the sum of his physical efforts added to. the sum of
his intellectual and moral aspirations form his character. As the
square of the level base line added to the square of the upright
altitude equals the square of the line on which depends the perfect
angle, so the sum of man's physical efforts if level with industry
and honesty added to the sum of his intellectual and moral
aspiration, if upright, collectively form the character on which
depends the perfect man.

Why then does not the geometric diagram serve as a symbol to
portray the perfect man rather than to recall the fabled butchery
of beef cattle by a man who had no connection with our Order ? It
is a more satisfying explanation to me, and the same objection
prevails to many of our strained interpretations of strained
coincidences upon which some base the conclusion that Solomon had
really felt our grip and heard our secret pass word.

THE WINDS OF GOD

Across the azure spaces,
Athwart the vasts of sky,
With winnowing of mighty wings
The winds of God go by.

Above the meres and mountains,
With unseen sandals shod,
Above the plains, with choric strains,
Sweep by the winds of God.

"Peace !--in His name !" they murmur;
"Peace--in His name ~" they cry--
"Oh, men, give ear ! Do ye not hear
The winds of God go by
--Clinton Scollard.

