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4°- SECRET MASTER
Morals and Dogma
Albert Pike
MASONRY is a succession of allegories, the mere vehicles of great lessons in
morality and philosophy. You will more fully appreciate its spirit, its object,
its purposes, as you advance in the different Degrees, which you will find to
constitute a great, complete, and harmonious system.
If you have been disappointed in the first three Degrees, as you have
received them, and if it has seemed to you that the performance has not come up
to the promise, that the lessons of morality are not new, and the scientific
instruction is but rudimentary, and the symbols are imperfectly explained,
remember that the ceremonies and lessons of those Degrees have been for ages
more and more accommodating themselves, by curtailment and sinking into
commonplace, to the often limited memory and capacity of the Master and
Instructor, and to the intellect and needs of the Pupil and Initiate; that they
have come to us from an age when symbols were used, not to reveal but to
conceal; when the commonest learning was confined to a select few, and the
simplest principles of morality seemed newly discovered truths; and that these
antique and simple Degrees now stand like the broken columns of a roofless
Druidic temple, in their rude and mutilated greatness; in many parts, also,
corrupted by time, and disfigured by modern additions and absurd
interpretations. They are but the entrance to the great Masonic Temple, the
triple columns of the portico.
You have taken the first step over its threshold, the first step toward the
inner sanctuary and heart of the temple. You are in the path that leads up the
slope of the mountain of Truth; and it depends upon your secrecy, obedience, and
fidelity, whether you will advance or remain stationary.
Imagine not that you will become indeed a Mason by learning what is commonly
called the "work," or even by becoming familiar with our traditions. Masonry has
a history, a literature, a philosophy. Its allegories and traditions will teach
you much; but much is to be sought elsewhere. The streams of learning that now
flow full and broad must be followed to their heads in the springs that well up
in the remote past, and you will there find the origin and meaning of Masonry.
A few rudimentary lessons in architecture, a few universally admitted maxims
of morality, a few unimportant traditions, whose real meaning is unknown or
misunderstood, will no longer satisfy the earnest inquirer after Masonic truth.
Let whoso is content with these, seek to climb no higher. He who desires to
understand the harmonious and beautiful proportions of Freemasonry must read,
study, reflect, digest, and discriminate. The true Mason is an ardent seeker
after knowledge; and he knows that both books and the antique symbols of Masonry
are vessels which come down to us full-freighted with the intellectual riches of
the Past; and that in the lading of these argosies is much that sheds light on
the history of Masonry, and proves its claim to be acknowledged the benefactor
of mankind, born in the very cradle of the race.
Knowledge is the most genuine and real of human treasures; for it is Light,
as Ignorance is Darkness. It is the development of the human soul, and its
acquisition the growth of the soul, which at the birth of man knows nothing, and
therefore, in one sense, may be said to be nothing. It is the seed, which has in
it the power to grow, to acquire, and by acquiring to be developed, as the seed
is developed into the shoot, the plant, the tree. "We need not pause at the
common argument that by learning man excelleth man, in that wherein man
excelleth beasts; that by learning man ascendeth to the heavens and their
motions, where in body he cannot come, and the like. Let us rather regard the
dignity and excellency of knowledge and learning in that whereunto man's nature
doth most aspire, which is immortality or continuance. For to this tendeth
generation, and raising of Houses and Families; to this buildings, foundations,
and monuments; to this tendeth the desire of memory, fame, and celebration, and
in effect the strength of all other human desires." That our influences shall
survive us, and be living forces when we are in our graves; and no merely that
our names shall be remembered; but rather that our works shall be read, our acts
spoken of, our names recollected an mentioned when we are dead, as evidences
that those influences live and rule, sway and control some portion of mankind
and of the world,--this is the aspiration of the human soul. "We see then how
far the monuments of genius and learning are more durable than monuments of
power or of the hands. For have not the verses of Homer continued twenty-five
hundred years or more, without the loss of a syllable or letter, during which
time infinite palaces, temples, castles, cities, have decayed and been
demolished? It is no possible to have the true pictures or statues of Cyrus,
Alexander Caesar, no, nor of the Kings or great personages of much late years;
for the originals cannot last, and the copies cannot but lose of the life and
truth. But the images of men's genius and knowledge remain in books, exempted
from the wrong of time, and capable of perpetual renovation. Neither are they
fitly to be called images, because they generate still, and cast their seeds in
the minds of others, provoking and causing infinite actions and opinions in
succeeding ages; so that if the invention of the ship was thought so noble,
which carrieth riches and commodities from place to place, and consociateth the
most remote regions in participation of their fruits, how much more are letters
to be magnified which, as ships, pass through the vast seas of time, and make
age so distant to participate of the wisdom, illumination, and inventions, the
one of the other."
To learn, to attain knowledge, to be wise, is a necessity for ever truly
noble soul; to teach, to communicate that knowledge, to share that wisdom with
others, and not churlishly to lock up his exchequer, and place a sentinel at the
door to drive away the needy, is equally an impulse of a noble nature, and the
worthies work of man.
"There was a little city," says the Preacher, the son of David "and few men
within it; and there came a great King against it and besieged it, and built
great bulwarks against it. Now there was found in it a poor wise man, and he by
his wisdom delivered the city; yet no man remembered that same poor man. Then
said I, wisdom is better than strength nevertheless, the poor man's wisdom is
despised, and his words are not heard." If it should chance to you, my brother,
to do mankind good service, and be rewarded with indifference and forgetfulness
only, still be not discouraged, but remember the further advice of the wise
King. "In the morning sow the seed, and in the evening withhold not thy hand;
for thou knowest not which shall prosper, this or that, or whether both shall be
alike good." Sow you the seed, whoever reaps. Learn, that you may be enabled to
do good; and do so because it is right, finding in the act itself ample reward
and recompense.
To attain the truth, and to serve our fellows, our country, and mankind--
this is the noblest destiny of man. Hereafter and all your life it is to be your
object. If you desire to ascend to that destiny, advance! If you have other and
less noble objects, and are contented with a lower flight, halt here ! let
others scale the heights, and Masonry fulfill her mission.
If you will advance, gird up your loins for the struggle ! for the way is
long and toilsome. Pleasure, all smiles, will beckon you on the one hand, and
Indolence will invite you to sleep among the flowers, upon the other. Prepare,
by secrecy, obedience, and fidelity, to resist the allurements of both !
Secrecy is indispensable in a Mason of whatever Degree. It is the first and
almost the only lesson taught to the Entered Apprentice. The obligations which
we have each assumed toward every Mason that lives, requiring of us the
performance of the most serious and onerous duties toward those personally
unknown to us until they demand our aid,-- duties that must be performed, even
at the risk of life, or our solemn oaths be broken and violated, and we be
branded as false Masons and faithless men, teach us how profound a folly it
would be to betray our secrets to those who, bound to us by no tie of common
obligation, might, by obtaining them, call on us in their extremity, when the
urgency of the occasion should allow us no time for inquiry, and the peremptory
mandate of our obligation compel us to do a brother's duty to a base impostor.
The secrets of our brother, when communicated to us, must be sacred, if they
be such as the law of our country warrants us to keep. We are required to keep
none other, when the law that we are called on to obey is indeed a law, by
having emanated from the only source of power, the People. Edicts which emanate
from the mere arbitrary will of a despotic power, contrary to the law of God or
the Great Law of Nature, destructive of the inherent rights of man, violative of
the right of free thought, free speech, free conscience, it is lawful to rebel
against and strive to abrogate.
For obedience to the Law does not mean submission to tyranny nor that, by a
profligate sacrifice of every noble feeling, we should offer to despotism the
homage of adulation. As every new victim falls, we may lift our voice in still
louder flattery. We may fall at the proud feet, we may beg, as a boon, the
honour of kissing that bloody hand which has been lifted against the helpless.
We may do more we may bring the altar and the sacrifice, and implore the God not
to ascend too soon to Heaven. This we may do, for this we have the sad
remembrance that beings of a human form and soul have done. But this is all we
can do. We can constrain our tongues to be false, our features to bend
themselves to the semblance of that passionate adoration which we wish to
express, our knees to fall prostrate; but our heart we cannot constrain. There
virtue must still have a voice which is not to be drowned by hymns and
acclamations; there the crimes which we laud as virtues, are crimes still, and
he whom we have made a God is the most contemptible of mankind; if, indeed, we
do not feel, perhaps, that we are ourselves still more contemptible.
But that law which is the fair expression of the will and judgment of the
people, is the enactment of the whole and of every individual. Consistent with
the law of God and the great law of nature, consistent with pure and abstract
right as tempered by necessity and the general interest, as contra-distinguished
from the private interest of individuals, it is obligatory upon all, because it
is the work of all, the will of all, the solemn judgment of all, from which
there is no appeal.
In this Degree, my brother, you are especially to learn the duty of obedience
to that law. There is one true and original law, conformable to reason and to
nature, diffused over all, invariable, eternal, which calls to the fulfillment
of duty and to abstinence from injustice, and calls with that irresistible voice
which is felt l in all its authority wherever it is heard. This law cannot be
abrogated or diminished, or its sanctions affected, by any law of man. A whole
senate, a whole people, cannot dissent from its paramount obligation. It
requires no commentator to render it distinctly intelligible nor is it one thing
at Rome, another at Athens; one thing now, and another in the ages to come; but
in all times and in all nations, it is, and has been, and will be, one and
everlasting;--one as that God, its great Author and Promulgator, who is the
Common Sovereign of all mankind, is Himself One. No man can disobey it without
flying, as it were, from his own bosom, and repudiating his nature; and in this
very act he will inflict on himself the severest of retributions, even though he
escape what is regarded as punishment.
It is our duty to obey the laws of our country, and to be careful that
prejudice or passion, fancy or affection, error and illusion, be not mistaken
for conscience. Nothing is more usual than to pretend conscience in all the
actions of man which are public and cannot be concealed. The disobedient refuse
to submit to the laws, and they also in many cases pretend conscience; and so
disobedience and rebellion become conscience, in which there is neither
knowledge nor revelation, nor truth nor charity, nor reason nor religion.
Conscience is tied to laws. Right or sure conscience is right reason reduced to
practice, and conducting moral actions, while perverse conscience is seated in
the fancy or affections--a heap of irregular principles and irregular defects--
and is the same in conscience as deformity is in the body, or peevishness in the
affections. It is not enough that the conscience be taught by nature; but it
must be taught by God, conducted by reason, made operative by discourse,
assisted by choice, instructed by laws and sober principles; and then it is
right, and it may be sure. All the general measures of justice, are the laws of
God, and therefore they constitute the general rules of government for the
conscience; but necessity also hath a large voice in the arrangement of human
affairs, and the disposal of human relations, and the dispositions of human
laws; and these general measures, like a great river into little streams, are
deduced into little rivulets and particularities, by the laws and customs, by
the sentences and agreements of men, and by the absolute despotism of necessity,
that will not allow perfect and abstract justice and equity to be the sole rule
of civil government in an imperfect world; and that must needs be law which is
for the greatest good of the greatest number.
When thou vowest a vow unto God, defer not to pay it. It is better thou
shouldest not vow than thou shouldest vow and not pay. Be not rash with thy
mouth, and let not thine heart be hasty to utter anything before God for God is
in Heaven, and thou art upon earth; therefore let thy words be few. Weigh well
what it is you promise; but once the promise and pledge are given remember that
he who is false to his obligation will be false to his family, his friends, his
country, and his God.
Fides servailda est Faith plighted is ever to be kept, was a maxim and an
axiom even among pagans. The virtuous Roman said, either let not that which
seems expedient be base, or if it be base, let it not seem expedient. What is
there which that so-called expediency can bring, so valuable as that which it
takes away, if it deprives you of the name of a good man and robs you of your
integrity and honour? In all ages, he who violates his plighted word has been
held unspeakably base. The word of a Mason, like the word of a knight in the
times of chivalry, once given must be sacred; and the judgment of his brothers,
upon him who violates his pledge, should be stern as the judgments of the Roman
Censors against him who violated his oath. Good faith is revered among Masons as
it was among the Romans, who placed its statue in the capitol, next to that of
Jupiter Maximus Optimus; and we, like them, hold that calamity should always be
chosen rather than baseness; and with the knights of old, that one should always
die rather than be dishonoured.
Be faithful, therefore, to the promises you make, to the pledges you give,
and to the vows that you assume, since to break either is base and dishonourable.
Be faithful to your family, and perform all the duties of a good father, a
good son, a good husband, and a good brother.
Be faithful to your friends; for true friendship is of a nature not only to
survive through all the vicissitudes of life, but to continue through an endless
duration; not only to stand the shock of conflicting opinions, and the roar of a
revolution that shakes the world, but to last when the heavens are no more, and
to spring fresh from the ruins of the universe.
Be faithful to your country, and prefer its dignity and honour to any degree
of popularity and honour for yourself; consulting its interest rather than your
own, and rather than the pleasure and gratification of the people, which are
often at variance with their welfare.
Be faithful to Masonry, which is to be faithful to the best interests of
mankind. Labour, by precept and example, to elevate the standard of Masonic
character, to enlarge its sphere of influence, to popularize its teachings, and
to make all men know it for the Great Apostle of Peace, Harmony, and Good-will
on earth among men; of Liberty, Equality, and Fraternity.
Masonry is useful to all men to the learned, because it affords them the
opportunity of exercising their talents upon subjects eminently worthy of their
attention; to the illiterate, because it offers them important instruction; to
the young, because it presents them with salutary precepts and good examples,
and accustoms them to reflect on the proper mode of living; to the man of the
world, whom it furnishes with noble and useful recreation; to the traveller,
whom it enables to find friends and brothers in countries where else he would be
isolated and solitary; to the worthy man in misfortune, to whom it gives
assistance; to the afflicted, on whom it lavishes consolation; to the charitable
man, whom it enables to do more good, by uniting with those who are charitable
like himself; and to all who have souls capable of appreciating its importance,
and of enjoying the charms of a friendship founded on the same principles of
religion, morality, and philanthropy.
A Freemason, therefore, should be a man of honour and of conscience,
preferring his duty to everything beside, even to his life; independent in his
opinions, and of good morals, submissive to the laws, devoted to humanity, to
his country, to his family; kind and indulgent to his brethren, friend of all
virtuous men, and ready to assist his fellows by all means in his power.
Thus will you be faithful to yourself, to your fellows, and to God, and thus
will you do honour to the name and rank of SECRET MASTER; which, like other
Masonic honours, degrades if it is not deserved.
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