THE BUILDER MAY 1926

ROSE CROIX

UNDOUBTEDLY, were a census taken, it would found that a very large
majority of Masons the world over are at least nominal adherents of
Christian faith, yet it certainly is not a Christian institution.
The declaration in the Constitutions of 1723 made that point
sufficiently clear. But it may be argued that this was no very
revolutionary step, that though in the old MS. records mention is
made of the Trinity and of the church, and Masons are exhorted to
keep clear of heresy in the same breath as they are enjoined to be
loyal to the King, it meant no more than that to them the church
and religion, like King and parliament, lodging houses, taverns,
rough layers and employers were all part of their world which it
never occurred to them to question.

Yet it was inevitable that reflection should lead to a comparison
being made between the two, just as in the Compagnonage in France,
there was a strong tendency towards symbolizing in the ceremonies
of admission the details of the death of Jesus Christ. There is no
doubt that in the Royal Arch, for example, are veiled references to
the doctrine of the Trinity, and these are far more obvious in the
English ritual of the degree. The chivalric orders also had a
Christian character; it could hardly have been otherwise, seeing
they assumed to be survivals or revivals of definitely Christian
orders of men who were monks as well as soldiers. But it was in
that degree, or order, which in most rites is numbered eighteen,
that the most thoroughgoing essay was made to interpret Masonry in
a Christian sense. So far as can be judged this was the original
idea. It was the third degree over again, regarded as a Christian
allegory, stripped of the veils that hid its meaning so that none
could mistake. So deeply was this character stamped upon it that it
has remained in spite of many modifications; neither those of the
Grand Orient nor those of Albert Pike have been able to efface it.
But these changes were not the first, the name Rose Croix was from
the beginning confused with that of the Rosicrucians, and occult
and mystical elements were attached to it. In the latter part of
the eighteenth century men were seeking in Freemasonry wondrous
secrets, words of magical power, recipes for making gold, the
philosopher's stone, the elixir of life, the foretelling the
future, communication with spirits, the control of fate, and all
the rest of the fantastic expectations men had from knowledge
before scientific knowledge had come to birth. We may smile today
at those who traveled long distances to obtain some new degree they
had heard of in the hope that at last they would come at the real
secrets of Masonry, at the ease with which charlatans and impostors
duped men, educated, and no fools. Men were seeking for what was
not there, but this they did not know, and like prospectors for
gold they went here and there and everywhere, always seeking.

Physical science since then has produced wonders even greater than
those then looked for though not perhaps of the same kind, or
produced in the way expected. Yet it is not clear that the seeking
has been ended. Men no longer invent new degrees, but they write
books instead, and curiously enough the books are bought and read.
In them the same kind of visions are set forth, though now less
concerned with the ability to produce physical marvels; but instead
stress is laid on the mystical and occult. Some mysterious secret
behind the veils, through which if we can once attain it the riddle
of the universe will be solved, a word, a formula that will explain
and make clear all the mysteries of life and death. And these
Mosaic writers, like the founders of new rites and degrees before
them, are at one in despising the trite moralities of symbolical
Masonry, of the simple straightforward charges of the three first
degrees. The tendency is not unnatural--the young man who came by
night to Jesus did not like the advice to sell all he had and give
to the poor; neither did he understand how he could be born again.
The Scribes and Pharisees asked for a sign, but none was given
them. So certain men expect to find something in Masonry, they know
not what, but at least something different and above the
commonplaces of every-day life. Two things happen with such
initiates--either they lose interest at once and drop out, or they
go seeking further, and speak of the wisdom and knowledge of past
ages, enshrined in a symbolic system the meaning of which its
possessors have forgotten.

It is a constant tendency in humanity. The people of ancient Greece
ascribed the Cyclopean walls of Tyryns and Mycenae to the Titans.
Here and there were tales of how this or that city or temple were
magically built, by the power of divine music, the lyre of Apollo,
or Orpheus, which could move men and mountains. Music in Greek
thought came near to being an exact equivalent to the Word of Power
in the Kabbalah and elsewhere. A Rabbinical tale, quite well known,
tells how Solomon built the temple by magical means. Yet nothing is
more certain that all these wonders were built by patient toil and
good craftsmanship. Blow by blow the stones were wrought, in sweat
and weariness from day to day. Magic there was, the magic of
genius, of skill, of human persistence in striving to realize an
end long imagined and desired. Is not this itself a parable?

We despise the simple moralities of the Craft--they are no secrets,
we knew them before. Brotherhood? We had friends before we were
Masons. Relief and Truth? What of that, Masonry has no monopoly. So
we look for something else--and do not find it. We look for some
great thing to do, and despise the little things at hand.

What of all the wonders of our age? To another generation they
would have been miracles--we pride ourselves on them, we are at the
summit of knowledge, all who went before and the things they were
and did are out of date--"back numbers." Yet what are these things?
Merely modes and methods of doing what men have done from the
first. Automobiles, wireless, moving pictures, poison gas, high
explosives, aeroplanes, do nothing especially new; we communicate,
travel, kill with greater expedition, that is all. Viewed
dispassionately from the outside, such things only affect our lives
with less or more of what has always been in the life of mankind.
And so it remains that the fundamentals, truth and justice,
friendship and morality are still the great things in the world as
they have been from the beginning.

Thus it seems that the great secret is open before us, only we
overlook it; the treasure is at our feet, and not in some far field
at the foot of the rainbow. Every day we have to do with the little
things--in our own symbolism the use of gavel and gauge, of square
and level--and in the end a temple is built. Will it happen that
those who come after will say of our work that the builders had the
true word and no substituted secrets ?
