IN MY HEART
"Why really does a man become a Mason?" asked the
Very New Brother of the
Old Past Master. "I know the prescribed answer to the question, of
course. And doubtless every man who makes it, thinks he tells the truth.
But I think he often lies!"
"Oh, no!" cried the Old Past Master. "He doesn't lie. Masonry
doesn't
make liars of men! But a man can tell something that isn't true without
prevaricating about it, you know. You don't know? Oh, well, you are
young.
"You worked pretty hard today, didn't you? Of course. You always do,
don't you? I thought I saw you over at the City Club this noon. Yes, I
know that gang of chaps; fine fellows gather there every day for a couple
of hours. Then you went up to the gymnasium, didn't you, and exercised
for an hour? And you read the paper this morning before you went at your
desk? That accounts for about four hours out of eight, but you'd swear
you 'worked very hard'! You don't mean to lie; you just forget, or
disremember, or are so used to calling that a hard day's work you don't
realize what an easy time you have!
"'Tis the same way with the man who tells where he first became convinced
he was to be a Mason! He means it, but he doesn't know or realize the
facts.
"Now, I've been a Mason for many, many years. I have seen men come and go
and hope to, some more. And I'll tell you that most men do not seek
Masonry 'because they have conceived a regard for the institution' or
'because they wish to benefit their fellowmen.' Most men become Masons
because other men whom they know, are Masons, or because their fathers
were Masons, or because they believe that Masonry means a certain patent
of worth, or because they are curious, or even because they believe a
Masonic membership will help them succeed.
"But those are not worthy motives," cried the Very New Mason.
"Perhaps not!" smiled the Old Past Master. "But we all do things
from
motives which are not worthy. You bought your wife a pair of theater
tickets tonight and patted yourself on the back for being generous. Yet
you know if you send her off to the theater with a friend she won't have
a word to say about your coming home late from lodge! Do you call that a
worthy motive? I call it a natural one, but St. Peter hasn't made a very
large mark against your generosity score for the act!
"Now it would be glorious if all men wanted to be Masons because of the
wonderful reputation which Masonry has among men. But if they did,
Masonry wouldn't have nearly so much to do. And many men who become
Masons for unworthy motives, remain to be taught to become very good
Masons, indeed. I remember when I was twenty-one years old- bank clerk, I
was- my boss said to me, 'Charlie, wasn't your father a Mason?' I said
'yes.' "Your father rose very rapidly in this business,' said the boss.
That's all. So I applied for the Degrees. I didn't know it wasn't a
worthy motive! I knew it as soon as became a Mason. And all my life I
have wished I had had a better motive. But I didn't let my ignorance stop
me from trying to be a good Mason.
"Many very good Masons take certain parts of Masonry more seriously than
they are intended to be taken. They are the chaps who think a misplaced
word in the ritual is an anathema and the forgetter a criminal! They will
tell you that any man who applies for Masonry for any other reason than a
reverent awe for the Order and a humble belief in its wonder also commits
a crime and should be excluded. It would be fine if it were so, but we'd
have about one candidate a year if we held to any such interpretation of
the law.
"If I find a young fellow who wants to be a Mason because his father was,
I say, 'Come on in and welcome home!' That's supposing he is otherwise
all right of course. If I find a young fellow who says very frankly, 'I
believe it will help me in business,' I don't condemn him to be a profane
forever. I try to find out what he means. If he wants to use Masonry to
bring customers to his store, I tell him to go and think it over and come
back in a year. But if he says, 'Why, all the Masons are clean-cut,
honest men and I need to know such men and a lot of them, that I, too,
can be clean-cut and honest, and it must help any man to succeed to be
associated with clean-cut and honest men, and I want to succeed so I can
bring up my boys to be good men too,' I can't see but that he is first
class material, supposing he's all right otherwise, of course.
"Look for the heart, boy, look for the heart! It's what's in the heart
that counts, not what's on the lips. And that in my opinion, is what that
question really means. "Where were you prepared to be a
Mason?' means, what sort of feeling have you in your heart? If it's a
good feeling, I don't care how you analyze it; he who has it is welcome.
If it's a bad feeling, then I don't care what fine words he mouths, it's
enough to keep him away. I have known more than one man who joined
through curiosity and yet became an ardent Mason. I have known more than
one man who slipped in to aid him in business, became Master of his lodge
and be a good one, too! Usually that man is the most insistent that all
candidates have what he calls 'a clean mind' about becoming a Mason! The
man who has had a change of heart after he gets in is always the most
insistent on the statutory answer to the question as to where the
candidate is first prepared to be a Mason! To me it is both funny and a
little pathetic.
"My young brother, human nature is pretty much the same everywhere. Men
are men in country and city, hamlet and metropolis. Most men make good
Masons. A few make fine ones. Still fewer make poor Masons. Most men have
quite human, ordinary, everyday reasons for wanting to be Masons. A few
have fine reasons, a few have bad reasons. If the majority of men have
just ordinary motives for becoming Masons, and yet the majority of men
make good Masons, it's proof, isn't it, that Masonry is stronger than the
motive, and it can change a man to her standards?
I've lived a long time and the longer I live the more sure I am of the
fertility of the soil in almost all good men's hearts, to the Masonic
seed, and so I don't care nearly so much now, as I did forty years or so
ago, why they want to be of us or where they were first prepared!
"Toleration, my brother, is a Masonic virtue. You'll feel that way too,
when you've worn the apron as long as I have, and found, every year, as
it grows closer to your heart, its strings of ritual and law and custom
need bind less tightly."
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