Part 60 (1/2)
The three murderers of Khir-Om symbolize Pontius Pilate, Caiaphas the High-Priest, and Judas Iscariot: and the three blows given him are the betrayal by the last, the refusal of Roman protection by Pilate, and the condemnation by the High-Priest. They also symbolize the blow on the ear, the scourging, and the crown of thorns. The twelve fellow-crafts sent in search of the body are the twelve disciples, in doubt whether to believe that the Redeemer would rise from the dead.
The Master's word, supposed to be lost, symbolizes the Christian faith and religion, supposed to have been crushed and destroyed when the Saviour was crucified, after Iscariot had betrayed Him, and Peter deserted Him, and when the other disciples doubted whether He would arise from the dead; but which rose from His tomb and flowed rapidly over the civilized world; and so that which was supposed to be _lost_ was _found_. It symbolizes also the Saviour Himself; the WORD that was in the beginning--that was _with_ G.o.d, and that _was_ G.o.d; the Word of life, that was made flesh and dwelt among us, and was supposed to be lost, while He lay in the tomb, for three days, and His disciples ”as yet knew not the scripture that He must rise again from the dead,” and doubted when they heard of it, and were amazed and frightened and still doubted when He appeared among them.
The bush of acacia placed at the head of the grave of Khir-Om is an emblem of resurrection and immortality.
Such are the explanations of our Christian brethren; ent.i.tled, like those of all other Masons, to a respectful consideration.
CLOSING INSTRUCTION,
There is no pretence to infallibility in Masonry. It is not for us to dictate to any man what he shall believe. We have hitherto, in the instruction of the several Degrees, confined ourselves to laying before you the great thoughts that have found expression in the different ages of the world, leaving you to decide for yourself as to the orthodoxy or heterodoxy of each, and what proportion of truth, if any, each contained. We shall pursue no other course in this closing Philosophical instruction; in which we propose to deal with the highest questions that have ever exercised the human mind,--with the existence and the nature of a G.o.d, with the existence and the nature of the human soul, and with the relations of the divine and human spirit with the merely material Universe. There can be no questions more important to an intelligent being, none that have for him a more direct and personal interest; and to this last word of Scottish Masonry we invite your serious and attentive consideration. And, as what we shall now say will be but the completion and rounding-off of what we have already said in several of the preceding Degrees, in regard to the Old Thought and the Ancient Philosophies, we hope that you have noted and not forgotten our previous lessons, without which this would seem imperfect and fragmentary.
In its idea of rewarding a faithful and intelligent workman by conferring upon him a knowledge of the True Word, Masonry has perpetuated a very great truth, because it involves the proposition that the idea which a man forms of G.o.d is always the most important element in his speculative theory of the Universe, and in his particular practical plan of action for the Church, the State, the Community, the Family, and his own individual life. It will ever make a vast difference in the conduct of a people in war or peace, whether they believe the Supreme G.o.d to be a cruel Deity, delighting in sacrifice and blood, or a G.o.d of Love; and an individual's speculative theory as to the mode and extent of G.o.d's government, and as to the nature and reality of his own free-will and consequent responsibility, will needs have great influence in shaping the course of his life and conversation.
We see every day the vast influence of the popular idea of G.o.d. All the great historical civilizations of the race have grown out of the national ideas which were formed of G.o.d; or have been intimately connected with those ideas. The popular Theology, which at first is only an abstract idea in the heads of philosophers, by and by shows itself in the laws, and in the punishments for crime, in the churches, the ceremonies and the sacraments, the festivals and the fasts, the weddings, the baptisms and the funerals, in the hospitals, the colleges, the schools, and all the social charities, in the relations of husband and wife, parent and child, in the daily work and the daily prayer of every man.
As the world grows in its development, it necessarily _out_grows its ancient ideas of G.o.d, which were only temporary and provisional. A man who has a higher conception of G.o.d than those about him, and who denies that their conception _is_ G.o.d, is very likely to be called an Atheist by men who are really far less believers in a G.o.d than he. Thus the Christians, who said the Heathen idols were no G.o.ds, were accounted Atheists by the People, and accordingly put to death; and Jesus of Nazareth was crucified as an unbelieving blasphemer, by the Jews.
There is a mere formal Atheism, which is a denial of G.o.d in _terms_, but not in _reality_. A man says, There is no G.o.d; that is, no G.o.d that is self-originated, or that never originated, but always WAS and HAD BEEN, who is the cause of existence, who is the Mind and the Providence of the Universe; and so the order, beauty, and harmony of the world of matter and mind do not indicate any plan or purpose of Deity. But, he says, NATURE,--meaning by that the whole sum-total of existence,--_that_ is powerful, active, wise, and good; _Nature_ is self-originated, or always was and had been, the cause of its own existence, the mind of the Universe and the Providence of itself. There is obviously a plan and purpose whereby order, beauty, and harmony are brought about; but all that is the plan and purpose of nature.
In such cases, the absolute denial of G.o.d is only formal and not real.
The _qualities_ of G.o.d are admitted, and affirmed to be real; and it is a mere change of name to call the possessor of those qualities, _Nature_, and not _G.o.d_. The real question is, whether such Qualities exist, as we call G.o.d; and not, by what particular name we shall designate the Qualities. One man may call the sum total of these Qualities, Nature; another, Heaven; a third, Universe, a fourth, Matter; a fifth, Spirit; a sixth, G.o.d, Theos, Zeus, Alfadir, Allah, or what he pleases. All admit the existence of the Being, Power, or ENS, thus diversely named. The name is of the smallest consequence.
_Real_ Atheism is the denial of the existence of _any_ G.o.d, of the actuality of all possible ideas of G.o.d. It denies that there is _any_ Mind, Intelligence, or ENS, that is the Cause and Providence of the Universe, and of any Thing or any Existence, Soul, Spirit, or Being, that _intentionally_ or _intelligently_ produces the Order, Beauty, and Harmony thereof, and the constant and regular modes of operation therein. It must necessarily deny that there is any law, order, or harmony in existence, or any constant mode of operation in the world; for it is utterly impossible for any human creature to conceive, however much he may _pretend_ to do so, of either of these, except as a consequence of the action of Intelligence; which is, indeed, that otherwise unknown thing, the existence of which these alone prove; otherwise than as the cause of these, not a thing at all; a mere _name_ for the wholly uncognizable cause of these.
The _real_ atheist must deny the existence of the Qualities of G.o.d, deny that there is any mind of or in the Universe, any self-conscious Providence, any Providence at all. He must deny that there is any Being or Cause of Finite things, that is self-consciously powerful, wise, just, loving, and faithful to itself and its own nature. He must deny that there is any _plan_ in the Universe or any part of it. He must hold, either that matter is eternal, or that it originated itself, which is absurd, or that it was originated by an Intelligence, or at least by a Cause; and then he admits a G.o.d. No doubt it is beyond the reach of our faculties to imagine _how_ matter originated,--how it began to _be_, in s.p.a.ce where before was nothing, or G.o.d only. But it is equally beyond the reach of our faculties to imagine it eternal and _un_originated. To hold it to be eternal, without thought or will; that the specific forms of it, the seed, the rock, the tree, the man, the solar system, all came with no forethought planning or producing them, by ”chance” or ”the fortuitous concourse of atoms” of matter that has no thought or will; and that they indicate no mind, no plan, no purpose, no providence, is absurd. It is not to deny the _existence_ of what we understand by mind, plan, purpose, Providence; but to insist that these words shall have some other meaning than that which the human race has ever attached to them: shall mean some unknown thing, for which the human race has no _name_, because it has of such a thing no possible idea. Either there never was any such thing as a ”plan,” and the word is nonsense, or the Universe exists in conformity to a plan. The _word_ never meant, and never can mean, any other _thing_ than that which the Universe exhibits.
So with the word ”_purpose_;” so with the word ”_Providence_.” They mean nothing, or else only what the Universe proves.
It was soon found that the denial of a Conscious Power, the cause of man and of his life, of a Providence, or a Mind and Intelligence arranging man in reference to the world, and the world in reference to man, would not satisfy the instinctive desires of _human_ nature, or account for the facts of _material_ nature. It did not long answer to say, if it ever _was_ said, that the Universe was drifting in the void inane, and neither it, nor any mind within or without it, knew of its whence, its whither, or its whereabouts; that man was drifting in the Universe, knowing little of his whereabouts, nothing of his whence or whither; that there was no Mind, no Providence, no Power, that knew any better; nothing that guided and directed man in his drifting, or the Universe in the weltering waste of Time. To say to man and woman, ”your heroism, your bravery, your self-denial all comes to nothing: your n.o.bleness will do you no good: you will die, and your n.o.bleness will do mankind no service; for there is no plan or order in all these things; everything comes and goes by the fortuitous concourse of atoms;” did not, nor ever will, long satisfy the human mind.
True, the theory of Atheism has been uttered. It has been said, ”Death is the end: this is a world without a G.o.d: you are a body without a soul: there is a Here, but no Hereafter for you; an Earth, but no Heaven. Die, and return to your dust. Man is bones, blood, bowels, and brain; mind is matter: there is no soul in the brain, nothing but nerves. We can see all the way to a little star in the nebula of Orion's belt; so distant that it will take light a thousand millions of years to come from it to the earth, journeying at the rate of twelve millions of miles a minute. There is no Heaven this side of that: you see all the way through: there is not a speck of Heaven; and do you think there is any beyond it; and if so, when would you reach it? There is no Providence. Nature is a fortuitous concourse of atoms; thought is a fortuitous function of matter, a fortuitous result of a fortuitous result, a chance-shot from the great wind-gun of the Universe, accidentally loaded, pointed at random, and fired off by chance. Things _happen_; they are not _arranged_. There is luck, and there is ill-luck; but there is no Providence. Die you into dust!” Does all this satisfy the human instinct of immortality, that makes us ever long, with unutterable longing, to join ourselves again to our dear ones who have gone away before us, and to mankind, for eternal life? Does it satisfy our mighty hungering and thirst for immortality, our anxious longing to come nearer to, and to know more of, the Eternal Cause of all things?
Men never could be content to believe that there was no mind that thought for man, no conscience to enact eternal laws, no heart to love those whom nothing of earth loves or cares for, no will of the Universe to marshal the nations in the way of wisdom, justice, and love. History is not--thank G.o.d! we _know_ it is not,--the fortuitous concourse of events, or Nature that of atoms. We cannot believe that there is no plan nor purpose in Nature, to guide our going out and coming in: that there is a mighty going, but it goes nowhere; that all beauty, wisdom, affection, justice, morality in the world, is an accident, and may end to-morrow.
All over the world there is heroism unrequited, or paid with misery; vice on thrones, corruption in high places, n.o.bleness in poverty or even in chains, the gentle devotion of woman rewarded by brutal neglect or more brutal abuse and violence; everywhere want, misery, over-work, and under-wages. Add to these the Atheist's creed,--a body without a soul, an earth without a Heaven, a world without a G.o.d; and what a Pandemonium would we make of this world!
The intellect of the Atheist would find matter everywhere; but no Causing and Providing Mind: his moral sense would find no Equitable Will, no Beauty of Moral Excellence, no Conscience enacting justice into the unchanging law of right, no spiritual Order or spiritual Providence, but only material Fate and Chance. His affections would find only finite things to love; and to them the dead who _were_ loved and who died yesterday, are like the rainbow that yesterday evening lived a moment and then pa.s.sed away. His soul, flying through the vast Inane, and feeling the darkness with its wings, seeking the Soul of all, which at once is Reason, Conscience, and the Heart of all that is, would find no G.o.d, but a Universe all disorder; no Infinite, no Reason, no Conscience, no Heart, no Soul of things; nothing to reverence, to esteem, to love, to wors.h.i.+p, to trust in; but only an Ugly Force, alien and foreign to us, that strikes down those we love, and makes us mere worms on the hot sand of the world. No voice would speak from the Earth to comfort him.
It is a cruel mother, that great Earth, that devours her young,--a Force and nothing more. Out of the sky would smile no kind Providence, in all its thousand starry eyes; and in storms a malignant violence, with its lightning-sword, would stab into the darkness, seeking for men to murder.
No man ever was or ever can be content with that. The evidence of G.o.d has been ploughed into Nature so deeply, and so deeply woven into the texture of the human soul, that Atheism has never become a faith, though it has sometimes a.s.sumed the shape of theory. Religion is natural to man. Instinctively he turns to G.o.d and reverences and relies on Him. In the Mathematics of the Heavens, written in gorgeous diagrams of fire, he sees law, order, beauty, harmony without end: in the ethics of the little nations that inhabit the ant-hills he sees the same; in all Nature, animate and inanimate, he sees the evidences of a Design, a Will, an Intelligence, and a G.o.d,--of a G.o.d beneficent and loving as well as wise, and merciful and indulgent as well as powerful.
To man, surrounded by the material Universe, and conscious of the influence that his material environments exercised upon his fortunes and his present destiny;--to man, ever confronted with the splendors of the starry heavens, the regular march of the seasons, the phenomena of sunrise and moonrise, and all the evidences of intelligence and design that everywhere pressed upon and overwhelmed him, all imaginable questions as to the nature and cause of these phenomena constantly recurred, demanding to be solved, and refusing to be sent away unanswered. And still, after the lapse of ages, press upon the human mind and demand solution, the same great questions--perhaps still demanding it in vain.
Advancing to the period when man had ceased to look upon the separate parts and individual forces of the Universe as G.o.ds,--when he had come to look upon it as a whole, this question, among the earliest, occurred to him, and insisted on being answered: ”Is this material Universe self-existent, or was it created? Is it eternal, or did it originate?”
And then in succession came crowding on the human mind these other questions:
”Is this material Universe a mere aggregate of fortuitous combinations of matter, or is it the result and work of intelligence, acting upon a plan?
”If there _be_ such an Intelligence, what and where is it? Is the material Universe _itself_ an Intelligent being? Is it like man, a body and a soul? Does Nature act upon itself, or is there a Cause beyond it that acts upon it?