Freemasonry As An Ethical Religion.

Deputy , and Aholiab and Beza ' eel as Grand Wardens . Others , again , ascribe its origin to the craftsmen who built the Solomonic Temple amid profound silence , or to Hiram , the contemporary ruler of Tyre . Yet other authorities , such as Dr . Churchward , in a book only published this month , endeavour to identify the Institution with the ancient religion and mysteries of Egypt , in the same way that many trace its connection with tbe Pythagorean , Eleusinian , and Essenian mysteres of the ancient world Yet

another writer , Dr . Oliver , from whom I have already quoted , boldly mik-is the Craft coeval with man . It was , he maintains , in effect the aboriginal , true religion practised by humanity in the days of its comparative innocency , and , therefore , all the above-mentioned mysteries of Greece and Rome and the East were so many corruptions of the original rites of Alasonry . Not Masonry , therefore , from Egypt , Palestine , orGreece , but thereligionsof these countries , one and ail , took their use in a corrupted form of thc positive truth revealed to man as Freemasonry .

Now , it is obvious > hat Dr . Oliver ' s zeal has outstripped his knowledge ; but he may be readily pardoned because he wrote in days before the evolutionary dispensation was revealed , else he could not have supposed that the perfect came before the imperfect , and that aboriginal humanity possessed that form of Ethical Symbolism and Religion , which we hold to be the goal towards which an advanced humanity is making to-day . Nor , it would seem , does there

appear to be any solid ground for assenting to the other theories put forward by various authorities because there really is no evidence actually available to establish them . The truth is that the origin of Freemasonry is undiscoverable because all origins are inscrutable . Felix qui reriini potnit cognoscere causas . wrote the Latin poet . The origin of life , intelligence , language , and still more , the origin of Being , that is , of existence itself , are

all alike inscrutable . It is the same of human institutions . People commonly think they can explain the Reformation by an off-hand reference to Luther and indulgences , liven Pope Leo X . himself ascribed it all to a squabble among his friars . The truth is that the man who would thoroughly understand the genesis of the religious revolt of the 16 th Century must master more than can be learned in a lifetime . It is much the same only

more so , of the Christian Church itself . To ascribe it to Christ might be satisfactory in a schoolboy—it could not be sufficient in a scholar . To affirm it to be a super-normal institution , with the unknown writer of Revelations—a city which has " come out of heaven from God "—is the old device oUheDens exMachinii which can rescue the desperate from any perplexity . To adequately explain a phenomenon of such extraordinary complexity as thc Christian Church , without having recourse to the peremptory

solution of a penny Church Catechism , that " God made it , " taxes the scholarship and research of this age to its utmost capacity . Every institution , we find , is rooted in the Past . It builds on what it finds and adds something thereto of ils own . There is nothing new under the sun . The world itself , and men , and all they do , are but fresh combinations of ancient elements and forces ; fresh presentations of some aboriginal Reality whose innermost nature is inscrutable .

Such probably is the genuine chararacter and origin of Freemasonry . No one c ? n say precisely when it began any more than one can say when the Christian Church began . Augustine declares emphatically that that which we call the Christian religion existed in the Pagan faiths , and Clement of Alexandria explains the phenomenon by the action of the Logos , or Word of God , which subsequently incarnated itself in Jesus , antecedently illuminating

the minds of Plato , Aristotle , and the nobler lights of antiquity . It is a most convenient doctrine for those who want to vindicate the originality of the orthodox creed . Thus , it is really original , Newman explains , because , although everyone of its tenets was taught and believed by pre-Christian peoples , they were not discovered by the unaided intelligence of man , but by the mysterious inspiration of the Deity through His Logos , anticipating

the world hc was subsequently to accomplish through Jesus Christ . In the same way Freemasonry is indissolubly associated with the past , and partakes of many of its distinguishing religious and philosophical elements . It is fundamentally a religion because it is a source of brotherhood ; a bond of union between man in its enforcement of the sovereign claims of moral ! ty . In fact , from all I can gather of its true innermost spirit , I think it must be

described essentially as an Ethical Church . Ever since its records have been preserved , tne Craft has been a mystic witness , coming down through the ages of the theistic philosophy of the universe , embodied in its belief that Intelligence and Law are the sovereign facts of all existence It has borne equal witness to lhat which Emerson describes as the "Sovereignty of Ethics , " by asserting theaboiiginal claims of the moral law

on all rational beings . No Master is installed in the chair of any lodge until the Secretary of the same has charged him in such terms as evince the thoroughly Ethical character of this world wide Institution : " You agree to be a good man and true , and strictly to obey the Moral Law " —so the charge runs— " You agree to be a peaceable subject ; to conform to the laws of the country in which you reside ; to promote the general good of society ;

lo patiently submit to the decision of theSupreme Legislaiu e . " " You admit that no person can be regularly made a Freemason without previous notice and enquiry into his character . " " A Mason is particularly bound never to act against the dictates of his conscience . Masons unite with the virtuous of every persuasion in the ( inn and pleating bond of fraternal love ; they are taught to view the errors of mankind with compassion , and to strive , by the

purity of their own conduct , to demonstrate the superior excellence ol the faith they may possess . Thus Masonry is the centre ol the union between good men and true , and the happy means of conciliating friendship amongst those who must otherwise have remained at a perpetual distance . " This passage , from the official "Constitutions of F ' ree and Accepted Masons , " witnesses at once to the profoundly ethical and ancient character of the

great Craft . It shows us that long before Kant and Emerson formulated in a philosophic manner the Irtith of a Religion which is Morality , men who ware r either philosophers nor prophets , but possessed of a love of truth and lreedom of tnought , had emancipated itself from the en or of supposing the statements of the Old and New Testament were to be accepted as historical and literal facts , and with that , perceived the essential truth of which those statements were merely signs and symbols . In a word , Masonry had

arrived at the sovereign knowledge lhat the one solitary vital element in all the creeds and systems of pasl and present times was the imperishable truth of Ethic , without which not one of them could have endured a day . And since , in less enlightened times , it would have been perilous to have revealed such a doctrine , its upholders thought themselves justified , or rather bound , to teach their great doctrine in secret , or , at all events , to continue to veil il under a suitable symbolism . That symbolism is practically coeval with civilisation , even in ils rudimentary form : the oiigin of thc thing called Freemasonry is lost

Freemasonry As An Ethical Religion.

in the night of time . Its emblems are discernible amongst nations divided as the poles in language , creed , and character , and separated by a gulf of ages . On the Pyramids of Egypt , in the caves of Elephanta , on the walls and in the foundations of the classic temples of Greece , on the round towers of Ireland , in the Courts of the Alhambra , and in the architecture of minsters and cathedrals , always and everywhere the symbols and tokens of an order of Eternal Righteousness ,

established by the Controlling Mind , appropriately described by Masons as the Great Architect of the Universe . They are the sacraments of Morality , visible tokens whereby men may be led to remember that "justice is sovereign of the world . " At this very hour , as in the days of Pharaoh , they preach that essential religion which all creeds have endeavoured to embody , mingling it with baser elements inseparable from the stage of civilisation at which they were framed .

" Children of men ! the Unseen Power whose eye For ever doth accompany mankind , Hath looked on no religion scornfully That man could ever find . Which hath not taught weak wills how much they can , Which has not fallen on the dry heart like rain , Which has not cried to such self-weary man , Thou must be born again ? "

This purest essence of the Ethic Creed has been the inspiration of Masonic teaching . To build up that which is to the soul , what health is to the body —Character—this has been the aim of Freemasonry throughout the ages . To show men that they may make of themselves living stones wherbya pure , strong , self-reliant state may be raised ; to teach them that the keys of the Kingdom of Heaven are in the custody of no priest , corporation , or Church ,

but in each man's own hands ; that no religion can make or unmake him save his own native endeavours ; that he must be born again , not of water or absolutions , but by the arduous efforts and persistent determination of his own will ; that the battle of life is to those who are strong enough to abstain ; that clean living must tell , that " true worth is being , not seeming ; " that only the violent , that is the resolute , can carrv bv storm

the Kingdom of Heaven — for this and other solemn truths , Masonry has been a symbol and a witness ; and as long as such are the principles which it endeavours to inculcate , it must flourish like the mystic city whose "foundations were laid foursquare " and imperishable .

There are two great institutions which glory in the proud boast of Semper Eadein—Ever the same—Freemasonry and the Roman Catholic Church . The great Ecclesiastical corporation , the Church of Rome , has taken up a position of uncompromising hostility towards its rival , and under no circumstances will it tolerate its adherents associating themselves with the Craft . But the Semper Emlem ol the Church is a millstone of dogmas

, tying it up inexorably to a past from which the progressive people of the world have long departed . A valiant attempt in this direction was made in America by the late Father Meeker , a man of foresight , and impressed with the painful contrast between the modern spirit as illustrated in the life of his adopted country , and the aged ideals of his Church and her creeds . His attempts at reform , or at some sort of harmony between the ioth and medievalism

century , have been given to the world in his biography published a few years ago . An intestinal conflict instantly arose in America , and the matter was referred to Rome for solution , which , as everyone now knows , has repudiated the Americanism of Father Hecker , and in particular condemned the action that the passive virtues of submissivism , of voluntary self-immolation to the point of the abdication of one ' s own personality , are not suitable for a modern commonwealth . The Semper

Eadem of dogma is ever a source of disunion because advancing peoples will not be content to sit patiently under the stigma of apparent retrogression , even where their religion is concerned . But the Semper Eadein of Ethic is a root source of unity , binding and lasting as the adamantine laws that hold the spheres together , and the symbolism and imagery which illustrates its truth are an inspiration and a source of esprit de corps of quite incalculable value .

The symbols of Masonry might be adopted in an Ethical Temple , for in what does the ideal of Emerson differ from that of the wise men in all ages—a church rooted and grounded in Moral S : ience alone ? Only in the absence of the symbols , only in the venerable and historic asociations of the body , do we differ from it , but the spirit animating both is the same—the spirit of reason , as opposed to separation ; the

spirit of freedom , as opposed to mental servitude , - the spirit of brotherhood , as opposed to narrow nationalism and sectarianism . The lamp in the sanctuary of both temples , is the unfailing light of Duty , and the man who has once grasped the significance of its inspiring gospel , stands thenceforth and for ever on the broad breezy plains of Universal Humanity , the friend and the kinsman of mankind . *

Let there be no illusions about the Future . So sure as our manhood is strong within us ; so sure as thc tone of national life is healthy and strong , so sure is it that the emasculating practices of ancient faiths will fade away , for the simple reason that they are unfit to survive . I hear and I read that the attempted resuscitation of the idols of the medi ; eval market place , is emptying the churches of the establishment

of men ; that where there was once a division between men and women , the method of classification has now to be abandoned for the simple reason that the men attend no more . They no longer go to Church . Who can wonder ? You cannot live in a theatre , and if you attempt it , you will pay the penalty with an inexpressible ennui ; and so men weary of what does not satisfy the mind , or appeal to the higher emotions than the merely

sensuous . " The faith of an intellectual age must be intellectual " says the prophet , and with the continued advance of women ' s education ; with the multiplication of halisand colleges at university centres , more and more will the belaled survivals of a superstitious past fail to appeal to the intelligent members of the community . Let there be no illusion . A temporary degeneracy cannot successfully contest thc path of progress , 'l'he world is too rooted

and grounded in reason lo permit the triumph of such a conspiracy against morality and truth . Therefore , we are fully prepared to accept the forecast offered in the writings of Masonic authors , such as Pearson , that the inherent tendency of their religion is lo supersede and supplant orthodoxy and to become the one sole religion of humanity . We believe this inherent

tendency , because we see with Emerson , that " the mind of this age has fallen away fiom theology lo morals" which falling away he rightly considers " an advance . " And if we consider the Masonic symbols in detail we perceive fresh evidence of the essentially Ethical character of the Craft . The symbols and emblems of Masonry are well known—that is lo say many of them