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14°- Grand Elect, Perfect, and Sublime
Mason
Morals and Dogma
Albert Pike
It is for each individual Mason to discover the secret of
Masonry, by reflection upon its symbols and a wise consideration and analysis of
what is said and done in the work. Masonry does not inculcate her truths.
She states them, once and briefly; or hints them, perhaps, darkly; or
interposes a cloud between them and eyes that would be dazzled by them. "Seek,
and ye shall find," knowledge and the truth.
The practical object of Masonry is the physical and moral
amelioration and the intellectual and spiritual improvement of individuals and
society. Neither can be effected, except by the dissemination of truth. It is
falsehood in doctrines and fallacy in principles, to which most of the miseries
of men and the misfortunes of nations are owing. Public opinion is rarely right
on any point; and there are and always will be important truths to be
substituted in that opinion in the place of many errors and absurd and injurious
prejudices. There are few truths that public opinion has not at some time hated
and persecuted as heresies; and few errors that have not at some time seemed to
it truths radiant from the immediate presence of God. There are moral maladies,
also, of man and society, the treatment of which requires not only boldness, but
also, and more, prudence and discretion; since they are more the fruit of false
and pernicious doctrines, moral, political, and religious, than of vicious
inclinations.
Much of the Masonic secret manifests itself, without speech
revealing it, to him who even partially comprehends all the Degrees in
proportion as he receives them; and particularly to those who advance to the
highest Degrees of the Ancient and Accepted Scottish Rite. That Rite raises a
corner of the veil, even in the Degree of Apprentice; for it there declares that
Masonry is a worship.
Masonry labors to improve the social order by enlightening
men's minds, warming their hearts with the love of the good, inspiring them with
the great principle of human fraternity, and requiring of its disciples that
their language and actions shall con-form to that principle, that they shall
enlighten each other, control their passions, abhor vice, and pity the vicious
man as one afflicted with a deplorable malady.
It is the universal, eternal, immutable religion, such as God
planted it in the heart of universal humanity. No creed has ever been long-lived
that was not built on this foundation. It is the base, and they are the
superstructure. "Pure religion and undefiled before God and the Father is this,
to visit the fatherless and widows in their affliction, and to keep himself
unspotted from the world." "Is not this the fast that I have chosen? to
loose the bands of wickedness, to undo the heavy burdens, and to let the
oppressed go free, and that ye break every yoke?" The ministers of this religion
are all Masons who comprehend it and are devoted to it; its sacrifices to God
are good works, the sacrifices of the base and disorderly passions, the offering
up of self-interest on the altar of humanity, and perpetual efforts to attain to
all the moral perfection of which man is capable.
To make honor and duty the steady beacon-lights that shall
guide your life-vessel over the stormy seas of time; to do that which it is
right to do, not because it will insure you success, or bring with it a reward,
or gain the applause of men, or be "the best policy," more prudent or more
advisable; but because it is right, and therefore ought to be done; to
war incessantly against error, intolerance, ignorance, and vice, and yet to pity
those who err, to be tolerant even of intolerance, to teach the ignorant, and to
labor to reclaim the vicious, are some of the duties of a Mason.
A good Mason is one that can look upon death, and see its
face with the same countenance with which he hears its story; that can endure
all the labors of his life with his soul supporting his body, that can equally
despise riches when he hath them and when he hath them not; that is, not sadder
if they are in his neighbor's exchequer, nor more lifted up if they shine around
about his own walls; one that is not moved with good fortune coming to him, nor
going from him; that can look upon another man's lands with equanimity and
pleasure, as if they were his own; and yet look upon his own, and use them too,
just as if they were another man's; that neither spends his goods prodigally and
foolishly, nor yet keeps them avariciously and like a miser; that weighs not
benefits by weight and number, but by the mind and circumstances of him who
confers them; that never thinks his charity expensive, if a worthy person be the
receiver; that does nothing for opinion's sake, but everything for conscience,
being as careful of his thoughts as of his acting in markets and theatres, and
in as much awe of himself as of a whole assembly; that is, bountiful and
cheerful to his friends, and charitable and apt to forgive his enemies; that
loves his country, consults its honor, and obeys its laws, and desires and
endeavors nothing more than that he may do his duty and honor God. And such a
Mason may reckon his life to be the life of a man, and compute his months, not
by the course of the sun, but by the zodiac and circle of his virtues.
The whole world is but one republic, of which each nation is
a family, and every individual a child. Masonry, not in anywise derogating from
the differing duties which the diversity of states requires, tends to create a
new people, which, composed of men of many nations and tongues, shall all be
bound together by the bonds of science, morality, and virtue.
Essentially philanthropic, philosophical, and progressive, it
has for the basis of its dogma a firm belief in the existence of God and his
providence, and of the immortality of the soul; for its object, the
dissemination of moral, political, philosophical, and religious truth, and the
practice of all the virtues. In every age, its device has been, "Liberty,
Equality, Fraternity," with constitutional government, law, order,
discipline, and subordination to legitimate authority--government
and not anarchy.
But it is neither a political party nor a religious sect. It
embraces all parties and all sects, to form from among them all a vast fraternal
association. It recognizes the dignity of human nature, and man's right to such
freedom as he is fitted for; and it knows nothing that should place one man
below another, except ignorance, debasement, and crime, and the necessity of
subordination to lawful will and authority.
It is philanthropic; for it recognizes the great truth that
all men are of the same origin, have common interests, and should co-operate
together to the same end.
Therefore it teaches its members to love one another, to give
to each other mutual assistance and support in all the circumstances of life, to
share each other's pains and sorrows, as well as their joys and pleasures; to
guard the reputations, respect the opinions, and be perfectly tolerant of the
errors, of each other, in matters of faith and beliefs.
It is philosophical, because it teaches the great Truths
concerning the nature and existence of one Supreme Deity, and the existence and
immortality of the soul. It revives the Academy of Plato, and the wise teachings
of Socrates. It reiterates the maxims of Pythagoras, Confucius, and Zoroaster,
and reverentially enforces the sublime lessons of Him who died upon the Cross.
The ancients thought that universal humanity acted under the
influence of two opposing Principles, the Good and the Evil: of which the Good
urged men toward Truth, Independence, and Devotedness; and the Evil toward
Falsehood, Servility, and Selfishness. Masonry represents the Good Principle and
constantly wars against the evil one. It is the Hercules, the Osiris, the
Apollo, the Mithras, and the Ormuzd, at everlasting and deadly feud with the
demons of ignorance, brutality, baseness, falsehood, slavishness of soul,
intolerance, superstition, tyranny, meanness, the insolence of wealth, and
bigotry.
When despotism and superstition, twin-powers of evil and
darkness, reigned everywhere and seemed invincible and immortal, it invented, to
avoid persecution, the mysteries, that is to say, the allegory, the symbol, and
the emblem, and transmitted its doctrines by the secret mode of initiation. Now,
retaining its ancient symbols, and in part its ancient ceremonies, it displays
in every civilized country its banner, on which in letters of living light its
great principles are written; and it smiles at the puny efforts of kings and
popes to crush it out by excommunication and interdiction.
Man's views in regard to God, will contain only so much
positive truth as file human mind is capable of receiving; whether that truth is
attained by the exercise of reason, or communicated by revelation. It must
necessarily be both limited and alloyed, to bring it within the competence of
finite human intelligence. Being finite, we can form no correct or adequate idea
of the Infinite; being material, we can form no clear conception of the
Spiritual. We do believe in and know the infinity of Space and Time, and the
spirituality of the Soul; but the idea of that infinity and spirituality
eludes us. Even Omnipotence cannot infuse infinite conceptions into finite
minds; nor can God, without first entirely changing the conditions of our being,
pour a complete and full knowledge of His own nature and attributes into the
narrow capacity of a 'human soul. Human intelligence could not grasp it, nor
human language express it. The visible is, necessarily, the measure of the
invisible.
The consciousness of the individual reveals itself
alone. His knowledge cannot pass beyond the limits of his own being. His
conceptions of other things and other beings are only his conceptions.
They are not those things or beings themselves. The living principle of a
living Universe must be INFINITE; while all our ideas and conceptions are
finite, and applicable only to finite beings.
The Deity is thus not an object of knowledge, but of
faith; not to be approached by the understanding, but by the
moral sense; not to be conceived, but to be felt. All attempts
to embrace the Infinite in the conception of the Finite are, and must be only
accommodations to the frailty of man. Shrouded from human comprehension in an
obscurity from which a chastened imagination is awed back, and Thought retreats
in conscious weakness, the Divine Nature is a theme on which man is little
entitled to dogmatize. Here the philosophic Intellect becomes most painfully
aware of its own insufficiency.
And yet it is here that man most dogmatizes, classifies and
describes God's attributes, makes out his map of God's nature, and his inventory
of God's qualities, feelings, impulses, and passions; and then hangs and burns
his brother, who, as dogmatically as he, makes out a different map and
inventory. The common understanding has no humility. Its God is an
incarnate Divinity. Imperfection imposes its own limitations on the
Illimitable, and clothes the Inconceivable Spirit of the Universe in forms that
come within the grasp of the senses and the intellect, and are derived from that
infinite and imperfect nature which is but God's creation.
We are all of us, though not all equally, mistaken. The
cherished dogmas of each of us are not, as we fondly suppose, the pure truth of
God; but simply our own special form of error, our guesses at truth, the
refracted and fragmentary rays of light that have fallen upon our own minds. Our
little systems have their day, and cease to be; they are but broken lights of
God; and He is more than they. Perfect truth is not attainable anywhere. We
style this Degree that of Perfection; and yet what it teaches is imperfect and
defective. Yet we are not to relax in the pursuit of truth, nor contentedly
acquiesce in error. It is our duty always to press forward in the search; for
though absolute truth is unattainable, yet the amount of error in our views is
capable of progressive and perpetual diminution; and thus Masonry is a continual
struggle toward the light.
All errors are not equally innocuous. That which is most
injurious is to entertain unworthy conceptions of the nature and attributes of
God; and it is this that Masonry symbolizes by ignorance of the True Word. The
true word of a Mason is, not the entire, perfect, absolute truth in regard to
God; but the highest and noblest conception of Him that our minds are capable of
forming; and this word is Ineffable, because one man cannot communicate
to another his own conception of Deity; since every man's conception of God must
be proportioned to his mental cultivation, and intellectual powers, and moral
excellence. God is, as man conceives Him, the reflected image of man himself.
For every man's conception of God must vary with his mental
cultivation and mental powers. If any one contents himself with any lower
image than his intellect is capable of grasping, then he contents himself with
that which is false to him, as well as false in fact. If lower
than he can reach, he must needs feel it to be false. And if we, of the
nineteenth century after Christ, adopt the conceptions of the nineteenth century
before Him; if our conceptions of God are those of the ignorant,
narrow-minded, and vindictive Israelite; then we think worse of God, and have a
lower, meaner, and more limited view of His nature, than the faculties which He
has bestowed are capable of grasping. The highest view we can form is nearest to
the truth. If we acquiesce in any lower one, we acquiesce in an untruth. We feel
that it is an affront and an indignity to Him, to conceive of Him as cruel,
short-sighted, capricious, and unjust; as a jealous, an angry, a vindictive
Being. When we examine our conceptions of His character, if we can conceive of a
loftier, nobler, higher, more beneficent, glorious, and magnificent character,
then this latter is to us the true conception of Deity; for nothing can be
imagined more excellent than He.
Religion, to obtain currency and influence with the great
mass of mankind, must needs be alloyed with such an amount of error as to place
it far below the standard attainable by the higher human capacities. A religion
as pure as the loftiest and most cultivated human reason could discern, would
not be comprehended by, or effective over, the less educated portion of mankind.
What is Truth to the philosopher, would not be Truth, nor have the effect of
Truth, to the peasant. The religion of the many must necessarily be more
incorrect than that of the refined and reflective few, not so much in its
essence as in its forms, not so much in the spiritual idea which lies latent at
the bottom of it, as in the symbols and dogmas in which that idea is embodied.
The truest religion would, in many points, not be comprehended by the ignorant,
nor consolatory to them, nor guiding and supporting for them. The doctrines of
the Bible are often not clothed in the language of strict truth, but in that
which was fittest to convey to a rude and ignorant people the practical
essentials of the doctrine. A perfectly pure faith, free from all extraneous
admixtures, a system of noble theism and lofty morality, would find too little
preparation for it in the common mind and heart, to admit of prompt reception by
the masses of mankind; and Truth might not have reached us, if it had not
borrowed the wings of Error.
The Mason regards God as a Moral Governor, as well as an
Original Creator; as a God at hand, and not merely one afar off in the distance
of infinite space, and in the remoteness of Past or Future Eternity. He
conceives of Him as taking a watchful and presiding interest in the affairs of
the world, and as influencing the hearts and actions of men.
To him, God is the great Source of the World of Life and
Matter; and man, with his wonderful corporeal and mental frame, His direct work.
He believes that God has made men with different intellectual capacities; and
enabled some, by superior intellectual power, to see and originate truths which
are hidden from the mass of men. He believes that when it is His will that
mankind should make some great step forward, or achieve some pregnant discovery,
He calls into being some intellect of more than ordinary magnitude and power, to
give birth to new ideas, and grander conceptions of the Truths vital to
Humanity.
We hold that God has so ordered matters in this beautiful and
harmonious, but mysteriously-governed Universe, that one great mind after
another will arise, from time to time, as such are needed, to reveal to men the
truths that are wanted, and the amount of truth than can be borne. He so
arranges, that nature and the course of events shall send men into the world,
endowed with that higher mental and moral organization, in which grand truths,
and sublime gleams of spiritual light will spontaneously and inevitably arise.
These speak to men by inspiration.
Whatever Hiram really was, he is the type, perhaps an
imaginary type, to us, of humanity in its highest phase; an exemplar of what man
may and should become, in the course of ages, in his progress toward the
realization of his destiny; an individual gifted with a glorious intellect, a
noble soul, a fine organization, and a perfectly balanced moral being; an
earnest of what humanity may be, and what we believe it will hereafter be in
God's good time; the possibility of the race made real.
The Mason believes that God has arranged this glorious but
perplexing world with a purpose, and on a plan. He holds that every man sent
upon this earth, and especially every man of superior capacity, has a duty to
perform, a mission to fulfill, a baptism to be baptized with; that every great
and good man possesses some portion of God's truth, which he must proclaim to
the world, and which must bear fruit in his own bosom. In a true and simple
sense, he believes all the pure, wise, and intellectual to be inspired, and to
be so for the instruction, advancement, and elevation of mankind. That kind of
inspiration, like God's omnipresence, is not limited to the few writers claimed
by Jews, Christians, or Moslems, but is co-extensive with the race. It is the
consequence of a faithful use of our faculties. Each man is its subject, God is
its source, and Truth its only test. It differs in degrees, as the intellectual
endowments, the moral wealth of the soul, and the degree of cultivation of those
endowments and faculties differ. It is limited to no sect, age, or nation. It is
wide as the world and common as God. It was not given to a few men, in the
infancy of mankind, to monopolize inspiration, and bar God out of the soul. We
are not born in the dotage and decay of the world. The stars are beautiful as in
their prime; the most ancient Heavens
are fresh and strong. God is still everywhere in nature. Wherever a
heart beats with love, wherever Faith and Reason utter their oracles, there is
God, as formerly in the hearts of seers and prophets. No soil on earth is so
holy as the good man's heart; nothing is so full of God. This inspiration is not
given to the learned alone, not alone to the great and wise, but to every
faithful child of God. Certain as the open eye drinks in the light, do the pure
in heart see God; and he who lives truly, feels Him as a presence within the
soul. The conscience is the very voice of Deity.
Masonry, around whose altars the Christian, the Hebrew, the
Moslem, the Brahmin, the followers of Confucius and Zoroaster, can assemble as
brethren and unite in prayer to the one God who is above all the Baalim,
must needs leave it to each of its Initiates to look for the foundation of his
faith and hope to the written scriptures of his own religion. For itself it
finds those truths definite enough, which are written by the finger of God upon
the heart of man and on the pages of the book of nature. Views of religion and
duty, wrought out by the meditations of the studious, confirmed by the
allegiance of the good and wise, stamped as sterling by the response they find
in every uncorrupted mind, commend themselves to Masons of every creed, and may
well be accepted by all.
The Mason does not pretend to dogmatic certainty, nor vainly
imagine such certainty attainable. He considers that if there were no written
revelation, he could safely rest the hopes that animate him and the principles
that guide him, on the deductions of reason and the convictions of instinct and
consciousness. He can find a sure foundation for his religious belief, in these
deductions of the intellect and convictions of the heart. For reason proves to
him the existence and attributes of God; and those spiritual instincts which he
feels are the voice of God in his soul, infuse into his mind a sense of his
relation to God, a conviction of the beneficence of his Creator and Preserver,
and a hope of future existence; and his reason and conscience alike unerringly
point to virtue as the highest good, and the destined aim and purpose of man's
life.
He studies the wonders of the Heavens, the frame-work and
revolutions of the Earth, the mysterious beauties and adaptations of animal
existence, the moral and material constitution of the human creature, so
fearfully and wonderfully made; and is satisfied
that God IS; and that a Wise and Good Being is the author of the
starry Heavens above him, and of the moral world within him; and his mind finds
an adequate foundation for its hopes, its worship, its principles of action, in
the far-stretching Universe, in the glorious firmament, in the deep, full soul,
bursting with unutterable thoughts.
These are truths which every reflecting mind will
unhesitatingly receive, as not to be surpassed, nor capable of improvement; and
fitted, if obeyed, to make earth indeed a Paradise, and man only a little lower
than the angels. The worthlessness of ceremonial observances, and the necessity
of active virtue; the enforcement of purity of heart as the security for purity
of life, and of the government of the thoughts, as the originators and
forerunners of action; universal philanthropy, requiring us to love all men, and
to do unto others that and that only which we should think it right, just, and
generous for them to do unto us; forgiveness of injuries; the necessity of
self-sacrifice in the discharge of duty; humility; genuine sincerity, and
being that which we seem to be; all these sublime precepts need no
miracle, no voice from the clouds, to recommend them to our allegiance, or to
assure us of y their divine origin. They command obedience by virtue of their
inherent rectitude and beauty; and have been, and are, and will be the law in
every age and every country of the world. God revealed them to man in the
beginning.
To the Mason, God is our Father in Heaven, to be Whose
especial children is the sufficient reward of the peacemakers, to see Whose face
the highest hope of the pure in heart; Who is ever at hand to strengthen His
true worshippers; to Whom our most fervent love is due, our most humble and
patient submission; Whose most acceptable worship is a pure and pitying heart
and a beneficent life; in Whose constant presence we live and act, to Whose
merciful disposal we are resigned by that death which, we hope and believe, is
but the entrance to a better life; and Whose wise decrees forbid a man to lap
his soul in an elysium of mere indolent content.
As to our feelings toward Him and our conduct toward man,
Masonry teaches little about which men can differ, and little from which they
can dissent. He is our Father; and we are all brethren. This much
lies open to the most ignorant and busy, as fully as to those who have most
leisure and are most learned. This needs no Priest to teach it, and no authority
to indorse it; and if every
man did that only which is consistent with it, it would exile barbarity,
cruelty, intolerance, uncharitableness, perfidy, treachery, revenge,
selfishness, and all their kindred vices and bad passions beyond the confines of
the world.
The true Mason, sincerely holding that a Supreme God created
and governs this world, believes also that He governs it by laws, which, though
wise, just, and beneficent, are yet steady, unwavering, inexorable. He believes
that his agonies and sorrows are ordained for his chastening, his
strengthening, his elaboration and development; because they are the
necessary results of the operation of laws, the best that could be devised for
the happiness and purification of the species, and to give occasion and
opportunity for the practice of all the virtues, from the homeliest and most
common, to the noblest and most sublime; or perhaps not even that, but the best
adapted to work out the vast, awful, glorious, eternal designs of the Great
Spirit of the Universe. He believes that the ordained operations of nature,
which have brought misery to him, have, from the very unswerving tranquility of
their career, showered blessings and sunshine upon many another path; that the
unrelenting chariot of Time, which has crushed or maimed him in its allotted
course, is pressing onward to the accomplishment of those serene and mighty
purposes, to have contributed to which, even as a victim, is an honor and a
recompense. He takes this view of Time and Nature and God, and yet bears his lot
without murmur or distrust; because it is a portion of a system, the best
possible, because ordained by God. He does not believe that God loses sight of
him, while superintending the march of the great harmonies of the
Universe; nor that it was not foreseen, when the Universe was created, its laws
enacted, and the long succession of its operations pre-ordained, that in the
great march of those events, he would suffer pain and undergo calamity. He
believes that his individual good entered into God's consideration, a, well as
the great cardinal results to which the course of all things is tending.
Thus believing, he has attained an eminence in virtue, the
highest, amid passive excellence, which humanity can reach. He finds his
reward and his support in the reflection that he is an unreluctant and
self-sacrificing co-operator with the Creator of the Universe; and in the noble
consciousness of being worthy and capable of so sublime a conception, yet so sad
a destiny. He is then truly
entitled to be called a Grand Elect, Perfect, and Sublime Mason. He is content
to fall early in the battle, if his body may but form a stepping-stone for the
future conquests of humanity.
It cannot be that God, Who, we are certain, is perfectly
good, can choose us to suffer pain, unless either we are ourselves to receive
from it an antidote to what is evil in ourselves, or else as such pain is a
necessary part in the scheme of the Universe, which as a whole is good. In
either case, the Mason receives it with submission. He would not suffer unless
it was ordered so. What-ever his creed, if he believes that God is, and that He
cares for His creatures, he cannot doubt that; nor that it would not have been
so ordered, unless it was either better for himself, or for some other persons,
or for some things. To complain and lament is to murmur against God's will, and
worse than unbelief.
The Mason, whose mind is cast in a nobler mould than those of
the ignorant and unreflecting, and is instinct with a diviner life,--who loves
truth more than rest, and the peace of Heaven rather than the peace of Eden,--to
whom a loftier being brings severer cares,--who knows that man does not live by
pleasure or content alone, but by the presence of the power of God,--must cast
behind him the hope of any other repose or tranquillity, than that which is the
last reward of long agonies of thought; he must relinquish all prospect of any
Heaven save that of which trouble is the avenue and portal; he must gird up his
loins, and trim his lamp, for a work that must be done, and must not be
negligently done. If he does not like to live in the furnished lodgings of
tradition, he must build his own house, his own system of faith and thought, for
himself,
The hope of success, and not the hope of reward, should be
our stimulating and sustaining power. Our object, and not ourselves, should be
our inspiring thought. Selfishness is a sin, when temporary, and for time. Spun
out to eternity, it does not become celestial prudence. We should toil and die,
not for Heaven or Bliss, but for Duty.
In the more frequent cases, where we have to join our efforts
to those of thousands of others, to contribute to the carrying forward of a
great cause; merely to till the ground or sow the seed for a very distant
harvest, or to prepare the way for the future advent of some great amendment;
the amount which each one contributes to the achievement of ultimate success,
the portion of the price
which justice should assign to each as his especial production, can never be
accurately ascertained. Perhaps few of those who have ever labored, in the
patience of secrecy and silence, to bring about some political or social change,
which they felt convinced would ultimately prove of vast service to humanity,
lived to see the change effected, or the anticipated good flow from it. Fewer
still of them were able to pronounce what appreciable weight their several
efforts contributed to the achievement of the change desired. Many will doubt,
whether, in truth, these exertions have any influence whatever; and,
discouraged, cease all active effort.
Not to be thus discouraged, the Mason must labor to elevate
and purify his motives, as well as sedulously cherish the conviction,
assuredly a true one, that in this world there is no such thing as effort thrown
away; that in all labor there is profit; that all sincere exertion, in a
righteous and unselfish cause, is necessarily followed, in spite of all
appearance to the contrary, by an appropriate and proportionate success; that
no bread cast upon the waters can be wholly lost; that no seed
planted in the ground can fail to quicken in due time and measure; and that,
however we may, in moments of despondency, be apt to doubt, not only whether our
cause will triumph, but whether, if it does, we shall have contributed to its
triumph,--there is One, Who has not only seen every exertion we have made, but
Who can assign the exact degree in which each soldier has assisted to gain the
great victory over social evil. No good work is done wholly in vain,
The Grand Elect, Perfect, and Sublime Mason will in nowise
deserve that honorable title, if he has not that strength, that will, that
self-sustaining energy; that Faith, that feeds upon no earthly hope, nor ever
thinks of victory, but, content in its own consummation, combats because it
ought to combat, rejoicing fights, and still rejoicing falls.
The Augean Stables of the World, the accumulated uncleanness
and misery of centuries, require a mighty river to cleanse them thoroughly away;
every drop we contribute aids to swell that river and augment its force, in a
degree appreciable by God, though not by man; and he whose zeal is deep and
earnest, will not be over-anxious that his individual drops should be
distinguishable amid the mighty mass of cleansing and fertilizing
waters; far less that, for the sake of distinction, it should flow in
ineffective singleness away.
The true Mason will not be careful that his name should be
inscribed upon the mite which he casts into the treasury of God. It suffices him
to know that if he has labored, with purity of purpose, in any good cause, he
must have contributed to its success; that the degree in which he has
contributed is a matter of infinitely small concern; and still more, that the
consciousness of having so contributed, however obscurely and unnoticed, is his
sufficient, even if it be his sole, reward. Let every Grand Elect, Perfect, and
Sublime Mason cherish this faith. It is a duty. It is the brilliant and
never-dying light that shines within and through the symbolic pedestal of
alabaster, on which reposes the perfect cube of agate, symbol of duty, inscribed
with the divine name of God. He who industriously sows and reaps is a good
laborer, and worthy of his hire. But he who sows that which shall be reaped by
others, by those who will know not of and care not for the sower, is a laborer
of a nobler order, and, worthy of a more excellent reward.
The Mason does not exhort others to an ascetic undervaluing
of this life, as an insignificant and unworthy portion of existence; for that
demands feelings which are unnatural, and which, therefore, if attained, must be
morbid, and if merely professed, insincere; and teaches us to look rather to a
future life for the compensation of social evils, than to this life for their
cure; and so does injury to the cause of virtue and to that of social progress.
Life is real, and is earnest, and it is full of duties to be performed. It is
the beginning of our immortality. Those only who feel a deep interest and
affection for this world will work resolutely for its amelioration; those whose
affections are transferred to Heaven, easily acquiesce in the miseries of earth,
deeming them hopeless, befitting, and ordained; and console themselves with the
idea of the amends which are one day to be theirs. It is a sad truth, that those
most decidedly given to spiritual contemplation, and to making religion rule in
their hearts, are often most apathetic toward all improvement of this world's
systems, and in many cases virtual conservatives of evil, and hostile to
political and social reform, as diverting men's energies from eternity.
The Mason does not war with his own instincts, macerate the
body into weakness and disorder, and disparage what he sees to be
beautiful, knows to be wonderful, and feels to be unspeakably dear
and fascinating. He does not put aside the nature which God has given him, to
struggle after one which He has not bestowed. He knows that man is sent into the
world, not a spiritual, but a composite being, made up of body and mind, the
body having, as is fit and needful in a material world, its full, rightful, and
allotted share. His life is guided by a full recognition of this fact. He does
not deny it in bold words, and admit it in weaknesses and inevitable failings.
He believes that his spirituality will come in the next stage of his being, when
he puts on the spiritual body; that his body will be dropped at death; and that,
until then, God meant it to be commanded and controlled, but not neglected,
despised, or ignored by the soul, under pain of, heavy consequences.
Yet the Mason is not indifferent as to the fate of the soul,
after its present life, as to its continued and eternal being, and the character
of the scenes in which that being will be fully developed. These are to him
topics of the profoundest interest, and the most ennobling and refining
contemplation. They occupy much of his leisure; and as he becomes familiar with
the sorrows and calamities of this life, as his hopes are disappointed and his
visions of happiness here fade away; when life has wearied him in its race of
hours; when the is harassed and toil-worn, and the burden of his years weighs
heavy on him, the balance of attraction gradually inclines in favor of another
life; and he clings to his lofty speculations with a tenacity of interest which
needs no in-junction, and will listen to no prohibition. They are the consoling
privilege of the aspiring, the wayworn, the weary, and the bereaved.
To him the contemplation of the Future lets in light upon the
Present, and develops the higher portions of his nature. He endeavors rightly to
adjust the respective claims of Heaven and earth upon his time and thought, so
as to give the proper proportions thereof to performing the duties and entering
into the interests of this world, and to preparation for a better; to the
cultivation and purification of his own character, and to the public service of
his fellow-men.
The Mason does not dogmatize, but entertaining and uttering
his own convictions, he leaves every one else free to do the same; and only
hopes that the time will cone, even if after the lapse of ages, when all men
shall form one great family of brethren, and one law alone, the law of love,
shall govern God's whole Universe.
Believe as you may, my brother; if the Universe is not, to
you, without a God, and if man is not like the beast that perishes, but hath an
immortal soul, we welcome you among us, to wear, as we wear, with humility, and
conscious of your demerits and short-comings, the title of Grand Elect, Perfect,
and Sublime Mason.
It was not without a secret meaning, that twelve was
the number of the Apostles of Christ, and seventy-two that of his
Disciples: that John addressed his rebukes and menaces to the Seven
churches, the number of the Archangels and the Planets. At Babylon were the
Seven Stages of Bersippa, a pyramid of Seven stories, and at Ecbatana Seven
concentric inclosures, each of a different color. Thebes also had Seven gates,
and the same number is repeated again and again in the account of the flood. The
Sephiroth, or Emanations, ten in number, three in one class, and seven in
the other, repeat the mystic numbers of Pythagoras. Seven Amschaspands or
planetary spirits were invoked with Ormuzd: Seven inferior Rishis of Hindustan
were saved with the head of their family in an ark: and Seven ancient personages
alone returned with the British just man, Hu, from the dale of the grievous
waters. There were Seven Heliadæ, whose father Hellas, or the Sun, once crossed
the sea in a golden cup; Seven Titans, children of the older Titan, Kronos or
Saturn; Seven Corybantes; and Seven Cabiri, sons of Sydyk; Seven primeval
Celestial spirits of the Japanese, and Seven Karfesters who escaped from the
deluge and began to be the parents of a new race, on the summit of Mount Albordi.
Seven Cyclopes, also, built the walls of Tiryus.
Celsus, as quoted by Origen, tells us that the Persians
represented by symbols the two-fold motion of the stars, fixed and planetary,
and the passage of the Soul through their successive spheres. They erected in
their holy caves, in which the mystic rites of the Mithriac initiations were
practised, what he denominates a high ladder, on the Seven steps of which
were Seven gates or portals, according to the number of the Seven principal
heavenly bodies. Through these the aspirants passed, until they reached the
summit of the whole; and this passage was styled a transmigration through the
spheres.
Jacob saw in his dream a ladder planted or set on the
earth, and its top reaching to Heaven, and the Malaki Alohim ascending and
descending on it, and above it stood INUH, declaring Himself to be Ihuh-Alhi
Abraham. The word translated ladder, is סלם Salam, from סלל, Salal,
raised, elevated, reared up, exalted, piled up into a heap, Aggeravit.
סללה Salalah, means a heap, rampart, or other accumulation of earth or
stone, artificially made; and סלע, Salaa or Salo, is a rock or
cliff or boulder, and the name of the city of Petra. There is no ancient Hebrew
word to designate a pyramid.
The symbolic mountain Meru was ascended by Seven steps or
stages; and all the pyramids and artificial tumuli and hillocks thrown up in
fiat countries were imitations of this fabulous and mystic mountain, for
purposes of worship. These were the "High Places" so often mentioned in the
Hebrew books, on which the idolaters sacrificed to foreign gods.
The pyramids were sometimes square, and sometimes round. The
sacred Babylonian tower [מגדל, Magdol], dedicated to the great Father Bal, was
an artificial hill, of pyramidal shape, and Seven stages, built of brick, and
each stage of a different color, representing the Seven planetary spheres by the
appropriate color of each planet. Meru itself was said to be a single mountain,
terminating in three peaks, and thus a symbol of the Trimurti. The great Pagoda
at Tanjore was of six stories, surmounted by a temple as the seventh, and on
this three spires or towers. An ancient pagoda at Deogur was surmounted by a
tower, sustaining the mystic egg and a trident. Herodotus tells us that the
Temple of Bal at Babylon was a tower composed of Seven towers, resting on an
eighth that served as basis, and successively diminishing in size from the
bottom to the top; and Strabo tells us it was a pyramid.
Faber thinks that the Mithriac ladder was really a
pyramid with Seven stages, each provided with a narrow door or aperture, through
each of which doors the aspirant passed, to reach the summit, and then descended
through similar doors on the opposite side of the pyramid; the ascent and
descent of the Soul being thus represented.
Each Mithriac cave and all the most ancient temples were
intended to symbolize the Universe, which itself was habitually called the
Temple and habitation of Deity. Every temple was the world in miniature; and so
the whole world was one grand temple. The most ancient temples were roofless;
and therefore the Persians, Celts, and Scythians strongly disliked artificial
covered edifices. Cicero says that Xerxes burned the Grecian temples, on the
express ground that the whole world was the Magnificent Temple and Habitation of
the Supreme Deity. Macrobius says that the entire Universe was judiciously
deemed by many the Temple of God. Plato pronounced the real Temple of the Deity
to be the world; and Heraclitus declared that the Universe, variegated with
animals and plants and stars was the only genuine Temple of the Divinity.
How completely the Temple of Solomon was symbolic, is
manifest, not only from the continual reproduction in it of the sacred numbers
and of astrological symbols in the historical descriptions of it; but also, and
yet more, from the details of the imaginary reconstructed edifice, seen by
Ezekiel in his vision. The Apocalypse completes the demonstration, and shows the
kabalistic meanings of the whole. The Symbola Architectonica are found on the
most ancient edifices; and these mathematical figures and instruments, adopted
by the Templars, and identical with those on the gnostic seals and abraxæ,
connect their dogma with the Chaldaic, Syriac, and Egyptian Oriental philosophy.
The secret Pythagorean doctrines of numbers were preserved by the monks of
Thibet, by the Hierophants of Egypt and Eleusis, at Jerusalem, and in the
circular Chapters of the Druids; and they are especially consecrated in that
mysterious book, the Apocalypse of Saint John.
All temples were surrounded by pillars, recording the number
of the constellations, the signs of the zodiac, or the cycles of the planets;
and each one was a microcosm or symbol of the Universe, having for roof or
ceiling the starred vault of Heaven.
All temples were originally open at the top, having for roof
the sky. Twelve pillars described the belt of the zodiac. Whatever the number of
the pillars, they were mystical everywhere. At Abury, the Druidic temple
reproduced all the cycles by its columns. Around the temples of Chilminar in
Persia, of Baalbec, and of Tukhti Schlomoh in Tartary, on the frontier of China,
stood forty pillars. On each side of the temple at Pæstum were fourteen,
recording the Egyptian cycle of the dark and light sides of the moon, as
described by Plutarch; the whole thirty-eight that surrounded them recording the
two meteoric cycles so often found in the Druidic temples.
The theatre built by Scaurus, in Greece, was surrounded by
360 columns; the Temple at Mecca, and that at Iona in Scotland, by 360 stones.
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