more light #277
Divesting Our Hearts – And Consciences
by Ed Halpaus
Grand Lodge Education Officer
Grand Lodge of A. F. & A. M. of Minnesota
Dear Masonic Student,
Here is another fine Masonic Essay from M.W. Brother Dewey H. Wollstein;
PGM of the Grand Lodge of Georgia
Divesting our Hearts – and Consciences
by Dewey H. Wollstein
Thought is the process of addition and subtraction. Every person is indebted
to the ages for his own thoughts since some part of the material he uses came
from thinkers of the past. Our responsibility to the future is the proper
handling of the material that has been inherited. To add to the ages all that we
are capable of in order to improve the thought of the past and to subtract all
that we may evaluate as false, is the aim and purpose of all who look upon life
as a serious undertaking.
Moral education, too, is a process of additions and subtraction. Man is the
product of god and bad thinking. He has attained undreamed of glories in the
realm of spirituality and also undreamed of depths in the realm of evil.
Thus it is: Whenever Masonry speaks of Heaven, it also points to earth.
Contemplation of the Speculative is worthy according to its value to the real.
If the Universe is moving toward something better, it must have for its goal the
transplanting of Spiritual Ideals upon Earth. We know that the approach to such
a condition is the process of adding all that makes life wholesome and good, and
the subtracting all that makes life a miserable experience.
Let us say that we may use the Square, the Level and the Plumb to add with,
but in case of error, we have the Common Gavel with which to make corrections.
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