IV. SECRET MASTER.
IV. SECRET MASTER.
IV. SECRET MASTER.
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.