VIII. INTENDANT OF THE BUILDING.
VIII. INTENDANT OF THE BUILDING.
IN this Degree you have been taught the important lesson, that none are
entitled to advance in the Ancient and Accepted Scottish Rite, who have not
by study and application made themselves familiar with Masonic learning and
jurisprudence. The Degrees of this Rite are not for those who are content
with the mere work and ceremonies, and do not seek to explore the mines of
wisdom that lie buried beneath the surface. You still advance toward the
Light, toward that star, blazing in the distance, which is an emblem of the
Divine Truth, given by God to the first men, and preserved amid all the
vicissitudes of ages in the traditions and teachings of Masonry. How far
you will advance, depends upon yourself alone. Here, as everywhere in the
world, Darkness struggles with Light, and clouds and shadows intervene
between you and the Truth.
When you shall have become imbued with the morality of Masonry, with which
you yet are, and for some time will be exclusively occupied,--when you
shall have learned to practice all the virtues which it inculcates; when
they become familiar to you as your Household Gods; then will you be
prepared to receive its lofty philosophical instruction, and to scale the
heights upon whose summit Light and Truth sit enthroned. Step by step men
must advance toward Perfection; and each Masonic Degree is meant to be one
of those steps. Each is a development of a particular duty; and in the
present you are taught charity and benevolence; to be to your brethren an
example of virtue; to correct your own faults; and to endeavour to correct
those of your brethren.
Here, as in all the degrees, you meet with the emblems and the names of
Deity, the true knowledge of whose character and attributes it has ever
been a chief object of Masonry to perpetuate. To appreciate His infinite
greatness and goodness, to rely implicitly upon His Providence, to revere
and venerate Him as the Supreme Architect, Creator, and Legislator of the
universe, is the first of Masonic duties.
The Battery of this Degree, and the five circuits which you made around the
Lodge, allude to the five points of fellowship, and are intended to recall
them vividly to your mind. To go upon a brother's errand or to his relief,
even barefoot and upon flinty ground; to remember him in your supplications
to the Deity; to clasp him to your heart, and protect him against malice
and evil speaking; to uphold him when about to stumble and fall; and to
give him prudent, honest, and friendly counsel, are duties plainly written
upon the pages of God's great code of law, and first among the ordinances
of Masonry.
The first sign of the Degree is expressive of the diffidence and humility
with which we inquire into the nature and attributes of the Deity; the
second, of the profound awe and reverence with which we contemplate His
glories; and the third, of the sorrow with which we reflect upon our
insufficient observance of our duties, and our imperfect compliance with
His statutes.
The distinguishing property of man is to search for and follow after truth.
Therefore, when relaxed from our necessary cares and concerns, we then
covet to see, to hear, and to learn somewhat; and we esteem knowledge of
things, either obscure or wonderful, to be the indispensable means of
living happily. Truth, Simplicity, and Candor are most agreeable to the
nature of mankind. Whatever is virtuous consists either in Sagacity, and
the perception of Truth; or in the preservation of Human Society, by giving
to every man his due, and observing the faith of contracts; or in the
greatness and firmness of an elevated and unsubdued mind; or in observing
order and regularity in all our words and in all our actions; in which
consist Moderation and Temperance.
Masonry has in all times religiously preserved that enlightened faith from
which flow sublime Devotedness, the sentiment of Fraternity fruitful of
good works, the spirit of indulgence and peace, of sweet hopes and
effectual consolations; and inflexibility in the accomplishment of the most
painful and arduous duties. It has always propagated it with ardor and
perseverance; and therefore it labours at the present day more zealously
than ever. Scarcely a Masonic discourse is pronounced, that does not
demonstrate the necessity and advantages of this faith, and especially
recall the two constitutive principles of religion, that make all
religion,-- love of God, and love of neighbour. Masons carry these
principles into the bosoms of their families and of society. While the
Sectarians of former times enfeebled the religious spirit, Masonry, forming
one great People over the whole globe, and marching under the great banner
of Charity and Benevolence, preserves that religious feeling, strengthens
it, extends it in its purity and simplicity, as it has always existed in
the depths of the human heart, as it existed even under the dominion of the
most ancient forms of worship, but where gross and debasing superstitions
forbade its recognition.
A Masonic Lodge should resemble a bee-hive, in which all the members work
together with ardor for the common good. Masonry is not made for cold souls
and narrow minds, that do not comprehend its lofty mission and sublime
apostolate. Here the anathema against lukewarm souls applies. To comfort
misfortunes to popularize knowledge, to teach whatever is true and pure in
religion and philosophy, to accustom men to respect order and the
proprieties of life, to point out the way to genuine happiness, to prepare
for that fortunate period, when all the factions of the Human Family,
united by the bonds of Toleration and Fraternity, shall be but one
household,--these are labours that may well excite zeal and even enthusiasm.
We do not now enlarge upon or elaborate these ideas. We but utter them to
you briefly, as hints, upon which you may at your leisure reflect.
Hereafter, if you continue to advance, they will be unfolded, explained,
and developed.
Masonry utters no impracticable and extravagant precepts, certain, because
they are so, to be disregarded. It asks of its initiates nothing that it is
not possible and even easy for them to perform. Its teachings are eminently
practical; and its statutes can be obeyed by every just, upright, and
honest man, no matter what his faith or creed. Its object is to attain the
greatest practical good, without seeking to make men perfect. It does not
meddle with the domain of religion, nor inquire into the mysteries of
regeneration. It teaches those truths that are written by the finger of God
upon the heart of man, those views of duty which have been brought out by
the meditations of the studious, confirmed by the allegiance of the good
and wise, and stamped as sterling by the response they find in every
uncorrupted mind. It does not dogmatize, nor vainly imagine dogmatic
certainty to be attainable.
Masonry does not occupy itself with crying down this world, with its
splendid beauty, its thrilling interests, its glorious works, its noble and
holy affections; nor exhort us to detach our hearts from this earthly life,
as empty, fleeting, and unworthy, and fix them upon Heaven, as the only
sphere deserving the love of the loving or the meditation of the wise. It
teaches that man has high duties to perform, and a high destiny to fulfill,
on this earth; that this world is not merely the portal to another; and
that this life, though not our only one, is an integral one, and the
particular one with which we are here meant to be concerned; that the
Present is our scene of action, and the Future for speculation and for
trust; that man was sent upon the earth to live in it, to enjoy it, to
study it, to love it, to embellish it, to make the most of it. It is his
country, on which he should lavish his affections and his efforts. It is
here his influences are to operate. It is his house, and not a tent; his
home, and not merely a school. He is sent into this world, not to be
constantly hankering after, dreaming of, preparing for another; but to do
his duty and fulfill his destiny on this earth; to do all that lies in his
power to improve it, to render it a scene of elevated happiness to himself,
to those around him, to those who are to come after him. His life here is
part of his immortality; and this world, also, is among the stars.
And thus, Masonry teaches us, will man best prepare for that Future which
he hopes for. The Unseen cannot hold a higher place in our affections than
the Seen and the Familiar. The law of our being is Love of Life, and its
interests and adornments; love of the world in which our lot is cast,
engrossment with the interests and affections of earth. Not a low or
sensual love, not love of wealth, of fame, of ease, of power, of splendour.
Not low worldliness; but the love of Earth as the garden on which the
Creator has lavished such miracles of beauty; as the habitation of
humanity, the arena of its conflicts, the scene of its illimitable
progress, the dwelling-place of the wise, the good, the active, the loving,
and the dear; the place of opportunity for the development by means of sin
and suffering and sorrow, of the noblest passions the loftiest virtues, and
the tenderest sympathies.
They take very unprofitable pains, who endeavour to persuade men that they
are obliged wholly to despise this world, and all that is in it, even
whilst they themselves live here. God hath not taken all that pains in
forming and framing and furnishing and adorning the world, that they who
were made by Him to live in it should despise it. It will be enough, if
they do not love it too immoderately. It is useless to attempt to
extinguish all those affections and passions which are and always will be
inseparable from human nature. As long as he world lasts, and honour and
virtue and industry have reputation in the world, there will be ambition
and emulation and appetite in the best and most accomplished men in it; and
if there were not, more barbarity and vice and wickedness would cover every
nation of the world, than it now suffers under.
Those only who feel a deep interest in, and affection for, this world, will
work resolutely for its amelioration. Those who undervalue this rife,
naturally become querulous and discontented, and lose their interest in the
welfare of their fellows. To serve them, and so to do our duty as Masons,
we must feel that the object is worth the exertion; and be content with
this world in which God has placed us, until He permits us to remove to a
better one. He is here with us, and does not deem this an unworthy world.
It a serious thing to defame and belie a whole world; to speak of it as the
abode of a poor, toiling, drudging, ignorant, contemptible race. You would
not so discredit your family, your friendly circle, your village, your
city, your country. The world is not a wretched and a worthless one; nor is
it a misfortune, but a thing to be thankful for, to be a man. If life is
worthless, so also is immortality.
In society itself, in that living mechanism of human relationships that
spreads itself over the world, there is a finer essence within, that as
truly moves it, as any power, heavy or expansive, moves the sounding
manufactory or the swift-flying car. The man-machine hurries to and fro
upon the earth, stretches out its hands on every side, to toil, to barter,
to unnumbered labours and enterprises; and almost always the motive, that
which moves it, is something that takes hold of the comforts, affections,
and hopes of social existence. True, the mechanism often works with
difficulty, drags heavily, grates and screams with harsh collision. True,
the essence of finer motive, becoming intermixed with baser and coarser
ingredients, often clogs, obstructs, jars, and deranges the free and noble
action of social life. But he is neither grateful nor wise, who looks
cynically on all this, and loses the fine sense of social good in its
perversions. That I can be a friend, that I can have a friend, though it
were but one in the world; that fact, that wondrous good fortune, we may
set against all the sufferings of our social nature. That there is such a
place on earth as a home, that resort and sanctuary of in-walled and
shielded joy, we may set against all the surrounding desolations of life.
That one can be a true, social man, can speak his true thoughts, amidst all
the Tanglings of controversy and the warring of opinions; that fact from
within, outweighs all facts from without.
In the visible aspect and action of society, often repulsive and annoying,
we are apt to lose the due sense of its invisible blessings. As in Nature
it is not the coarse and palpable, not soils and rains, nor even fields and
flowers, that are so beautiful, as the invisible spirit of wisdom and
beauty that pervades it; so in society, it is the invisible, and therefore
unobserved, that is most beautiful.
What nerves the arm of toil? If man minded himself alone, he would fling
down the spade and axe, and rush to the desert; or roam through the world
as a wilderness, and make that world a desert. His home, which he sees not,
perhaps, but once or twice in a day, is the invisible bond of the world. It
is the good, strong, and noble faith that men have in each other, which
gives the loftiest character to business, trade, and commerce. Fraud occurs
in the rush of business; but it is the exception. Honesty is the rule; and
all the frauds in the world cannot tear the great bond of human confidence.
If they could, commerce would furl its sails on every sea, and all the
cities of the world would crumble into ruins. The bare character of a man
on the other side of the world, whom you never saw, whom you never will
see, you hold good for a bond of thousands. The most striking feature of
the political state is not governments, nor constitutions, nor laws, nor
enactments, nor the judicial power, nor the police; but the universal will
of the people to be governed by the common weal. Take off that restraint,
and no government on earth could stand for an hour.
Of the many teachings of Masonry, one of the most valuable is, that we
should not depreciate this life. It does not hold, that when we reflect on
the destiny that awaits man on earth, we ought to bedew his cradle with our
tears; but, like the Hebrews, it hails the birth of a child with joy, and
holds that his birthday should be a festival.
It has no sympathy with those who profess to have proved this life, and
found it little worth; who have deliberately made up their minds that it is
far more miserable than happy; because its employments are tedious, and
their schemes often baffled, their friendships broken, or their friends
dead, its pleasures palled, and its honours faded, and its paths beaten,
familiar, and dull.
Masonry deems it no mark of great piety toward God to disparage, if not
despise, the state that He has ordained for us. It does not absurdly set up
the claims of another world, not in comparison merely, but in competition,
with the claims of this. It looks upon both as parts of one system. It
holds that a man may make the best of this world and of another at the same
time. It does not teach its initiates to think better of other works and
dispensations of God, by thinking meanly of these. It does not look upon
life as so much time lost; nor regard its employments as trifles unworthy
of immortal beings; nor tell its followers to fold their arms, as if in
disdain of their state and species; but it looks soberly and cheerfully
upon the world, as a theatre of worthy action, of exalted usefulness, and
of rational and innocent enjoyment.
It holds that, with all its evils, life is a blessing. To deny that is to
destroy the basis of all religion, natural and revealed. The very
foundation of all religion is laid on the firm belief that God is good; and
if this life is an evil and a curse, no such belief can be rationally
entertained. To level our satire at humanity and human existence, as mean
and contemptible; to look on this world as the habitation of a miserable
race, fit only for mockery and scorn; to consider this earth as a dungeon
or a prison, which has no blessing to offer but escape from it, is to
extinguish the primal light of faith and hope and happiness, to destroy the
basis of religion, and Truth's foundation in the goodness of God. If it
indeed be so, then it matters not what else is true or not true;
speculation is vain and faith is vain; and all that belongs to man's
highest being is buried in the ruins of misanthropy, melancholy, and despair.
Our love of life; the tenacity with which, in sorrow and suffering, we
cling to it; our attachment to our home, to the spot that gave us birth, to
any place, however rude, unsightly, or barren, on which the history of our
years has been written, all show how dear are the ties of kindred and
society. Misery makes a greater impression upon us than happiness; because
the former is not the habit of our minds. It is a strange, unusual guest,
and we are more conscious of its presence. Happiness lives with us, and we
forget it. It does not excite us, nor disturb the order and course of our
thoughts. A great agony is an epoch in our life. We remember our
afflictions, as we do the storm and earthquake, because they are out of the
common course of things. They are like disastrous events, recorded because
extraordinary; and with whole and unnoticed periods of prosperity between.
We mark and signalize the times of calamity; but many happy days and
unnoted periods of enjoyment pass, that are unrecorded either in the book
of memory, or in the scanty annals of our thanksgiving. We are little
disposed and less able to call up from the dim remembrances of our past
years, the peaceful moments, the easy sensations, the bright thoughts, the
quiet reveries, the throngs of kind affections in which life flowed on,
bearing us almost unconsciously upon its bosom, because it bore us calmly
and gently.
Life is not only good; but it has been glorious in the experience of
millions. The glory of all human virtue clothes it. The splendours of
devotedness, beneficence, and heroism are upon it; the crown of a thousand
martyrdoms is upon its brow. The brightness of the soul shines through this
visible and sometimes darkened life; through all its surrounding cares and
labours. The humblest life may feel its connection with its Infinite
Source. There is something mighty in the frail inner man; something of
immortality in this momentary and transient being. The mind stretches away,
on every side, into infinity. Its thoughts flash abroad, far into the
boundless, the immeasurable, the infinite; far into the great, dark,
teeming future; and become powers and influences in other ages. To know its
wonderful Author, to bring down wisdom from the Eternal Stars, to bear
upward its homage, gratitude, and love, to the Ruler of all worlds, to be
immortal in our influences projected far into the slow-approaching Future,
makes life most worthy and most glorious.
Life is the wonderful creation of God. It is light, sprung from void
darkness; power, waked from inertness and impotence; being created from
nothing; and the contrast may well enkindle wonder and delight. It is a
rill from the infinite, overflowing goodness; and from the moment when it
first gushes up into the light, to that when it mingles with the ocean of
Eternity, that Goodness attends it and ministers to it. It is a great and
glorious gift. There is gladness in its infant voices; joy in the buoyant
step of its youth; deep satisfaction in its strong maturity; and peace in
its quiet age. There is good for the good; virtue for the faithful; and
victory for the valiant. There is, even in this humble life, an infinity
for those whose desires are boundless. There are blessings upon its birth;
there is hope in its death; and eternity in its prospect. Thus earth, which
binds many in chains, is to the Mason both the starting-place and goal of
immortality, Many it buries in the rubbish of dull cares and wearying
vanities; but to the Mason it is the lofty mount of meditation, where
Heaven, and Infinity and Eternity are spread before him and around him. To
the lofty-minded, the pure, and the virtuous, this life is the beginning of
Heaven, and a part of immortality.
God hath appointed one remedy for all the evils in the world; and that is a
contented spirit. We may be reconciled to poverty and a low fortune, if we
suffer contentedness and equanimity to make the proportions. No man is poor
who doth not think himself so; but if, in a full fortune, with impatience
he desires more, he proclaims his wants and his beggarly condition. This
virtue of contentedness was the sum of all the old moral philosophy, and is
of most universal use in the whole course of our lives, and the only
instrument to ease the burdens of the world and the enmities of sad
chances. It is the great reasonableness of complying with the Divine
Providence, which governs all the world, and hath so ordered us in the
administration of His great family. It is fit that God should dispense His
gifts as He pleases; and if we murmur here, we may, at the next melancholy,
be troubled that He did not make us to be angels or stars.
We ourselves make our fortunes good or bad; and when God lets loose a
Tyrant upon us, or a sickness, or scorn, or a lessened fortune, if we fear
to die, or know not how to be patient, or are proud, or covetous, then the
calamity sits heavy on us. But if we know how to manage a noble principle,
and fear not death so much as a dishonest action, and think impatience a
worse evil than a fever, and pride to be the greatest disgrace as well as
the greatest folly, and poverty far preferable to the torments of avarice,
we may still bear an even mind and smile at the reverses of fortune and the
ill-nature of Fate.
If thou hast lost thy land, do not also lose thy constancy; and if thou
must die sooner than others, or than thou didst expect, yet do not die
impatiently. For no chance is evil to him who is content, and to a man
nothing is miserable unless it be unreasonable. No man can make another man
to be his slave, unless that other hath first enslaved himself to life and
death, to pleasure or pain, to hope or fear; command these passions, and
you are freer than the Parthian Kings.
When an enemy reproaches us, let us look on him as an impartial relator of
our faults; for he will tell us truer than our fondest friend will, and we
may forgive his anger, whilst we make use of the plainness of his
declamation. The ox, when he is weary, treads truest; and if there be
nothing else in abuse, but that it makes us to walk warily, and tread sure
for fear of our enemies, that is better than to be flattered into pride and
carelessness.
If thou fallest from thy employment in public, take sanctuary in an honest
retirement, being indifferent to thy gain abroad, or thy safety at home.
When the north wind blows hard, and it rains sadly, we do not sit down in
it and cry; but defend ourselves against it with a warm garment, or a good
fire and a dry roof. So when the storm of a sad mischance beats upon our
spirits, we may turn it into something that is good, if we resolve to make
it so; and with equanimity and patience may shelter ourselves from its
inclement pitiless pelting. If it develop our patience, and give occasion
for heroic endurance, it hath done us good enough to recompense us
sufficiently for all the temporal affliction; for so a wise man shall
overrule his stars; and have a greater influence upon his own content, than
all the constellations and planets of the firmament.
Compare not thy condition with the few above thee, but to secure thy
content, look upon those thousands with whom thou wouldst not, for any
interest, change thy fortune and condition. A soldier must not think
himself unprosperous, if he be not successful as Alexander or Wellington;
nor any man deem himself unfortunate that he hath not the wealth of
Rothschild; but rather let the former rejoice that he is not lessened like
the many generals who went down horse and man before Napoleon, and the
latter that he is not the beggar who, bareheaded in the bleak winter wind
holds out his tattered hat for charity. There may be many who are richer
and more fortunate; but many thousands who are very miserable, compared to
thee.
After the worst assaults of Fortune, there will be something left to us,--a
merry countenance, a cheerful spirit, and a good conscience, the Providence
of God, our hopes of Heaven, our charity for those who have injured us;
perhaps a loving wife, and many friends to pity, and some to relieve us;
and light and air, and all the beauties of Nature; we can read, discourse,
and meditate; and having still these blessings, we should be much in love
with sorrow and peevishness to lose them all, and prefer to sit down on our
little handful of thorns.
Enjoy the blessings of this day, if God sends them, and the evils of it
bear patiently and calmly; for this day only is ours: we are dead to
yesterday, and we are not yet born to the morrow. When our fortunes are
violently changed, our spirits are unchanged, if they always stood in the
suburbs and expectation of sorrows and reverses. The blessings of immunity,
safeguard, liberty, and integrity deserve the thanksgiving of a whole life.
We are quit from a thousand calamities, every one of which, if it were upon
us, would make us insensible of our present sorrow, and glad to receive it
in exchange for that other greater affliction.
Measure your desires by your fortune and condition, not your fortunes by
your desires: be governed by your needs, not by your fancy; by nature, not
by evil customs and ambitious principles. It is no evil to be poor, but to
be vicious and impatient. Is that beast better, that hath two or three
mountains to graze on, than the little bee that feeds on dew or manna, and
lives upon what falls every morning from the store-houses of Heaven, clouds
and Providence ?
There are some instances of fortune and a fair condition that cannot stand
with some others; but if you desire this, you must lose that, and unless
you be content with one, you lose the comfort of both. If you covet
learning, you must have leisure and a retired life; if honours of State and
political distinctions, you must be ever abroad in public, and get
experience, and do all men's business, and keep all company, and have no
leisure at all. If you will be rich, you must be frugal; if you will be
popular, you must be bountiful; if a philosopher, you must despise riches.
If you would be famous as Epaminondas, accept also his poverty, for it
added lustre to his person, and envy to his fortune, and his virtue without
it could not have been so excellent. If you would have the reputation of a
martyr, you must needs accept his persecution; if of a benefactor of the
world, the world's injustice; if truly great, you must expect to see the
mob prefer lesser men to yourself.
God esteems it one of His glories, that He brings good out of evil; and
therefore it were but reason we should trust Him to govern His own world as
He pleases; and that we should patiently wait until the change cometh, or
the reason is discovered.
A Mason's contentedness must by no means be a mere contented selfishness,
like his who, comfortable himself, is indifferent to the discomfort of
others. There will always be in this world wrongs to forgive, suffering to
alleviate, sorrow asking for sympathy, necessities and destitution to
relieve, and ample occasion for the exercise of active charity and
beneficence. And he who sits unconcerned amidst it all, perhaps enjoying
his own comforts and luxuries the more, by contrasting them with the hungry
and ragged destitution and shivering misery of his fellows, is not
contented, but selfish and unfeeling.
It is the saddest of all sights upon this earth, that of a man lazy and
luxurious, or hard and penurious, to whom want appeals in vain, and
suffering cries in an unknown tongue. The man whose hasty anger hurries him
into violence and crime is not half so unworthy to live. He is the
faithless steward, that embezzles what God has given him in trust for the
impoverished and suffering among his brethren. The true Mason must be and
must have a right to be content with himself; and he can be so only when he
lives not for himself alone, but for others also, who need his assistance
and have a claim upon his sympathy.
"Charity is the great channel," it has been well said, "through which God
passes all His mercy upon mankind. For we receive absolution of our sins in
proportion to our forgiving our brother. This is the rule of our hopes and
the measure of our desire in this world; and on the day of death and
judgment, the great sentence upon mankind shall be transacted according to
our alms, which is the other part of charity. God himself is love; and very
degree of charity that dwells in us is the participation of the divine nature."
These principles Masonry reduces to practice. By them it expects you to be
hereafter guided and governed. It especially inculcates them upon him who
employs the labour of others, forbidding him to discharge them, when to
want employment is to starve; or to contract for the labour of man or woman
at so low a price that by over-exertion they must sell him their blood and
life at the same time with the labour of their hands.
These Degrees are also intended to teach more than morals. The symbols and
ceremonies of Masonry have more than one meaning. They rather conceal than
disclose the Truth. They hint it only, at least; and their varied meanings
are only to be discovered by reflection and study. Truth is not only
symbolized by Light, but as the ray of light is separable into rays of
different colours, so is truth separable into kinds. It is the province of
Masonry to teach all truths--not moral truth alone, but political and
philosophical, and even religious truth, so far as concerns the great and
essential principles of each. The sphynx was a symbol. To whom has it
disclosed its inmost meaning? Who knows the symbolic meaning of the pyramids?
You will hereafter learn who are the chief foes of human liberty symbolized
by the assassins of the Master Khurum; and in their fate you may see
foreshadowed that which we earnestly hope will hereafter overtake those
enemies of humanity, against whom Masonry has struggled so long.