Part 15 (1/2)

I

If we examine the foundations of Masonry, we find that it rests upon the most fundamental of all truths, the first truth and the last, the sovereign and suprees every man, whether prince or peasant, is asked to confess his faith in God the Father Alhty, the Architect and Master-Builder of the Universe[175] That is not a mere form of words, but the deepest and most solemn affirmation that human lips can reatest of all realities, that upon which the aspiration of hu passion of desire No institution that is du of life and the character of the universe, can last It is a house built upon the sand, doomed to fall when the winds blow and floods beat upon it, lacking a sure foundation No human fraternity that has not its inspiration in the Fatherhood of God, confessed or unconfessed, can long endure; it is a rope of sand, weak as water, and its fine sentis and think in the drift of its deeper conclusions, to one God as the ground of the world, and upon that ground Masonry lays her corner-stone Therefore, it endures and grows, and the gates of hell cannot prevail against it!

While Masonry is theocratic in its faith and philosophy,[176] it does not limit its conception of the Divine, much less insist upon any one name for ”the Nameless One of a hundred na than its age-long quest of the Lost Word,[177] the Ineffable Na the while that every name is inadequate, and all words are but syreat for words--every letter of the alphabet, in fact, having been evolved fronal of the faith and hope of huht of God, is ever vision of theof the universe, now luminous and lovely, now dark and terrible; and it invites all men to unite in the quest--

/P One in the freedom of the Truth, One in the joy of paths untrod, One in the soul's perennial Youth, One in the larger thought of God

P/

Truly the human consciousness of fellowshi+p with the Eternal, under whatever naunition, is the only thing inized, the fault reat experience, and before long kindred spirits will join in the _Universal Prayer_ of Alexander Pope, hie, In every clie, Jehovah, Jove, or Lord!

P/

With eloquent unanimity our Masonic thinkers proclaim the unity and love of God--whence their vision of the ultireat truth of the Masonic philosophy; the unity of God and the immortality of the soul[178] Amidst polytheisms, dualisreat mission of Masonry to preserve these precious truths, beside which, in the long result of thought and faith, all else fades and grows dim Of this there is no doubt; and science has co the unity of the universe with overwhel emphasis Unquestionably the universe is an inexhaustible wonder

Still, it is a wonder, not a contradiction, and we can never find its rhyths in God Other clue there is none Down to this deep foundation Masonry digs for a basis of its temple, and builds securely If this be false or unstable, then is

/P The pillar'd firmament rottenness, And earth's base built on stubble

P/

Upon the altar of Masonry lies the open Bible which, despite the changes and advances of the ages, rereatest Modern Book--the es, through the sh ”the forest of the Psal the dreaospels and epistles is heard the everlasting truth of one God who is love, and who requires of men that they love one another, do justly, be merciful, keep themselves unspotted by evil, and walk hureat hand they stand There we read of the Man of Galilee who taught that, in the far distances of the divine Fatherhood, all in, duty, and destiny Therefore we are to relieve the distressed, put the wanderer into his way, and divide our bread with the hungry, which is but the way of doing good to ourselves; for we are all reat family, and the hurt of one means the injury of all

This profound and reverent faith fro, flow heroic devotedness, moral self-respect, authentic sentiments of fraternity, inflexible fidelity in life and effectual consolation in death, Masonry has at all tiated it through the centuries, and never e Scarcely a Masonic discourse is pronounced, or a Masonic lesson read, by the highest officer or the humblest lecturer, that does not earnestly teach this one true religion which is the very soul of Masonry, its basis and apex, its light and power Upon that faith it rests; in that faith it lives and labors; and by that faith it will conquer at last, when the noises and confusions of today have followed the tangled feet that rows, by inevitable logic, the philosophy which Masonry teaches in signs and symbols, in pictures and parables

Stated briefly, stated vividly, it is that behind the pageant of nature, in it and over it, there is a Supreme Mind which initiates, impels, and controls all That behind the life of man and its pathetic story in history, in it and over it, there is a righteous Will, the intelligent Conscience of the Most High In short, that the first and last thing in the universe isis conscience, and that the final reality is the absoluteness of love

Higher than that faith cannot fly; deeper than that thought cannot dig

/P No deep is deep enough to show The springs whence being starts to flow

No fastness of the soul reveals Life's subtlest io; But whence or whither who can know?

Unemptiable, unfillable, It's all in that one syllable-- God! Only God God first, God last

God, infinitesimally vast; God who is love, love which is God, The rootless, everflowering rod!

P/

There is but one real alternative to this philosophy It is not atheism--which is seldom more than a revulsion from superstition--because the adherents of absolute atheism are so few, if any, and its intellectual position is too precarious ever to be a menace An atheist, if such there be, is an orphan, a andering the ht streets of tinosticis ht, when, indeed, it is not a confession of intellectual bankruptcy, or a labor-saving device to escape the toil and fatigue of high thinking It trembles in perpetual hesitation, like a donkey equi-distant between two bundles of hay, starving to death but unable to make up its mind No; the real alternative is e a part in philosophy fifty years ago, and which, defeated there, has betaken itself to the field of practical affairs

This is the dread alternative of a denial of the great faith of huh aspirations and ideals of the race According to this dogs in the universe are atorowth All mind, all will, all emotion, all character, all love is incidental, transitory, vain The sovereign fact is mud, the final reality is dirt, and the decree of destiny is ”dust unto dust!”

Against this ultie Masonry has stood as a witness for the life of the spirit In the war of the soul against dust, in the choice between dirt and Deity, it has allied itself on the side of the great idealisms and optimisms of humanity It takes the spiritual view of life and the world as being s of right reason, and the voice of conscience In other words, it dares to read the hest inthat the soul is akin to the Eternal Spirit, and that by a life of righteousness its eternal quality is revealed[180] Upon this philosophy Masonry rests, and finds a rock beneath:

/P On Him, this corner-stone we build, On Him, this edifice erect; And still, until this work's fulfilled, May He the workman's ways direct

P/

Now, consider! All our huion, rests for its validity upon faith in the kinshi+p of man with God If that faith be false, the teht falls to wreck, and behold! we know not anything and have no way of learning But the fact that the universe is intelligible, that we can follow its forces, trace its laws, andthe infinite even in the infinitesimal, shows that the mind of man is akin to the Mind that made it Also, there are two aspects of the nature of man which lift him above the brute and bespeak his divine heredity They are reason and conscience, both of which are oftheir source, satisfaction, and authority in an unseen, eternal world That is to say,who, if not actually i to live as if he were i neither rhyme nor reason, the soul of h faith

Consider, too, what it hty soul of s It means that we are not shapes of h, citizens of eternity, deathless as God our Father is deathless; and that there is laid upon us an abiding obligation to live in a nity of the soul It , the character of his activity and career are of vital and ceaseless concern to the Eternal Here is a philosophy which lights up the universe like a sunrise, confir out of s out the colors of hu est, broken at its best--with enduring significance and beauty It gives to each of us, however humble and obscure, a place and a part in the stupendous historical enterprise; makes us felloorkers with the Eternal in His rede of humanity, and binds us to do His will upon earth as it is done in heaven It subdues the intellect; it softens the heart; it begets in the will that sense of self-respect without which high and heroic living cannot be Such is the philosophy upon which Masonry builds; and from it flow, as froht streah and water this human world of ours