
UNDERSTANDING

The Old Past Master  by Carl Claudy -1924

UNDERSTANDING

"I have been a Mason for a year now," remarked the Young Brother to the
Old Past Master "and while I find a great deal in Masonry to enjoy, and
like the fellows and all that, I am more or less in the dark as to what
good Masonry really is in the world. I don't mean that I can't appreciate
its charity, or its fellowship, but it seems to me that I don't get much
out of it; I can't really see why it has any function outside of that
relationship we enjoy in the lodge room and the little charitable acts we
do."

"I think I could win an argument about you," smiled the Old Past
Master.

"An argument about me?"

"Yes. You say you have been a Master Mason for a year. I think I could
prove to the satisfaction of a jury of your peers who would <italic>not
</italic>need to be Master Masons; that while you are a lodge member in
good standing; you are not a Master Mason."

"I don't think I quite understand," puzzled the Young Mason. "I was quite
surely initiated, passed and was raised. I have my certificate and my
good standing card. I attend lodge regularly. I do what work I am
assigned. If that isn't being a Master Mason, what is?"

"You have the body but not the spirit," retorted the Old Past Master.
"You eat the husks and disregard the kernel. You know the ritual and fail
to understand its meaning. You carry the documents but for you they
attest but an empty form. You do not understand the first underlying
principle which makes Masonry the great force that she is. And yet, in
spite of it, you enjoy her blessings... which is one of her miracles,
that a man may love and profit by what he does not comprehend."

"Why....I...I just don't understand you at all. I am sure I am a good
Mason..."

"No man is a good Mason who thinks the fraternity has no function beyond
pleasant association in the lodge, and charity. Man, there are thousands
of Masons who never see the inside of a lodge and therefore, perforce,
miss the fellowship. There are thousands who never need her charity and
so come never in contact with one of its many features. Yet these may
take freely and largely from the treasure house which is Masonry.

"Masonry, my young friend, is an opportunity. It gives a man a chance to
do and to be, among the world of men, something he otherwise could not
attain. No man kneels at the Altar of Masonry and rises again the same
man. At the Altar something is taken from him never to return; his
feelings of living for himself alone. Be he never so selfish, never so
self-centered, never so much an individualist, at the Altar he leaves
behind him some of the dross of his purely profane make-up.

"No man kneels at the Altar of Masonry and rises the same man, because,
in the place where the dross and selfish was, is put a little of the most
Divine spark which men may see. Where was the self-interest is put an
interest in others. Where was the egotism is put love for one's fellow
man.

"You say that the "fraternity has no function." Man, the fraternity
performs the greatest function of any institution at work among men, in
that it provides a common meeting ground where all of us, be our creed,
our social position, our wealth, our ideas, our station in life what they
may, may meet and understand one another.

"What was the downfall of Rome? Class hatred. What caused the Civil war?
Failure of one people to understand another, and an unequality of men
which this country could not endure. What caused the Great War? Class
hatred. What is the greatest leveler of class in the world? Masonry.
Where is the only place in which a capitalist and laborer, socialist and
democrat, fundamentalist and modernist, Jew and Gentile, gentle and
simple alike meet and forget their differences? In a Masonic lodge, boy,
through the influence of Masonry...Masonry, which opens her portals to
men because they <italic>are </italic>men, not because they are wealthy
or wise or foolish or great or small but because they seek the
brotherhood which only she can give.

"Masonry has no function? Why, son, the function of charity, great as it
is, is the <italic>least </italic>of the things Masonry does; the
fellowship in the lodge room, beautiful as it is, is at best not much
more than one can get in any good club, association, organization. These
are the beauties of Masonry, but they are also beauties of other
organizations. The great fundamental beauty of Masonry is all her own.
She, and only she, stretches a kindly and loving hand around the world,
uniting millions in a bond too strong for breaking. Time has demonstrated
that Masonry is too strong for war; too strong for hate, too strong for
jealousy and fear; the worst of men have used the strongest of means and
have but pushed Masonry to one side for the moment; not all their efforts
have broken her, or ever will!

"Masonry gives us all a chance to do and to be; to do a little, however
humble the part, in making the world better; to be a little larger, a
little fuller in our lives, a little nearer to the G.A.O.T.U. And unless
a man understands this, and believe it, and take it to his heart and live
it in his daily life, and strive to show it forth to others in his every
act; unless he live and love and labor in his Masonry, I say he is no
Master Mason; aye, though he belong to all Rites and carry all cards,
though he be hung as a Christmas tree with jewels and pins, though he be
an officer in all bodies. But the man who has it in his heart, and sees
in Masonry the chance to be in reality what he has sworn he would be, a
brother to his fellow Masons, is a Master Mason though he be raised but
tonight, belongs to no organization but his Blue Lodge and be too poor to
buy and wear a single pin."

The Young Brother, looking down, unfastened the emblem from his coat
label and handed it to the Old Past Master.

"Of course, you are right," he said, lowly.  "Here is my pin. Don't give
it back to me until you think I am worthy to wear it."

The Old Past Master smiled. "I think you would better put it back now,"
he answered gently. "None are more fit to wear the square and compass
than those who know themselves unworthy, for they are those who strive to
be real Masons."



