Note: This text has been automatically extracted via Optical Character Recognition (OCR) software.
How I Was First Prepared To Be Made A Mason.
The entertainment from very early youth of such sentiments as I have above endeavoured to describe , will , I think , be admitted to be a very hopeful manner of enriching the soil for future Masonic production ; but on looking back and reflecting upon the matter , I think that I must have been prepared to be made a Mason by some such negative process as the Spartans are said to have employed to train up their sons in habits of temperance . Let me try to explain this . My first observations of the world external to my own family were formed at a
period in this century ' s history when the saying that the schoolmaster is abroad was common in every mouth . Considering what I remember of that time , reminiscencesthe accuracy of which any reader of middle-age has the means within his own memory of examining , I am disposed to think that the proposition was founded on truth ; but I am furthermore inclined to believe that the world would have been none the worse ,, but perhaps , on the whole , rather better , had that public officer been exercising his useful functions at home . Bo that as it may , —and this is not the placeto enter into such a disquisition , —my youthful mind was struck with a certain hardness , coldness , negation of emotion , in the rising school of
philosophersnot even now altogether absent from their profession—which disquieted , nay ,, revolted me . I knew intimately a man who used to absolutely set my teeth on edge with his wise saws ancl modern instances of what he was pleased to call good sense . The late Mr . Benjamin Franklin was this gentleman's model , and tohear him discourse you would have thought that our American brother—not that I knew anything about Masonic brotherhood then—never entertained a generous impulse or
experienced a warm emotion in his life . Brother Ben , I confess , when I came afterwards to recognise his craft fraternity , came down to me heavily handicapped , for in iny yoivth I hated Poor Richard and all his words and works as heartily as in my catechism I had been taught to hate a certain fallen Prince of the Powers of the air , who is not popularly supposed to be altogether averse from the inculcation of self-indulgence ancl worldliness . Do you require any further idea of the character of the worthy man who
was good enough in this matter to play the helot to my Spartan youth ? Because if you do , I can refer you to a little known novel called "Hard Times , " where the late Mr . Dickens has presented his fellow under the name of Mr . Gradgrind , ancl I commend the study to your serious attention , for thereby , although you may—mind I do not say you will—learn what worldly prudence is , you will certainly acquire some knowledge , perhaps no less useful , of what Freemasonry is not .
I gathered , then , that the cardinal and primary article of this creed , or cult , was contained in the saying so often quoted by its followers and believers , " Every man for himself , and God for us all . " It is a comprehensive proposition , if you come to think of it . For example , it satisfactorily relieves the professor from the inconvenient necessity of debarring himself from a single advantage or benefit—or it may be stretched so far as to say even any self-indulgence—that will not work apparent self-harm , for the purpose
of promoting the advantage , the benefit , or even the convenience of any other human being . I remember my friend used very sententiously to reconcile its meaning with the attainment of Bentham ' s famous aspiration , the greatest happiness of the greatest number ; I do not remember the process of this learned argument ; but it worked out soas to evince that the philosopher ' s desideratum would be found in the " survival of the fittest , " only Professor Huxley ' s since renowned saying had not then been uttered . I
can recall that I listened to , but was not convinced by , my instructor ' s contention ; but he was doing me good all the same , if only by leading my juvenile mind to ponder whether , after all , there were not more things in " Heaven and Earth than are dreamt of in your philosophy . " Now it must be remembered that I was a very little boy , that my mentor was a middle-aged and tolerably well-to-do mantherefore he had presumably put his theories
, into profitable practice—he had exemplified their soundness by a test which the world always regards as final , viz ., success . I should inform the reader , too , that I had been carefully brought up in strict , perhaps slightly exaggerated , ideas of the respect due to seniority , and so I did not attempt to argue , as the ingenuous youth of the present .
Note: This text has been automatically extracted via Optical Character Recognition (OCR) software.
How I Was First Prepared To Be Made A Mason.
The entertainment from very early youth of such sentiments as I have above endeavoured to describe , will , I think , be admitted to be a very hopeful manner of enriching the soil for future Masonic production ; but on looking back and reflecting upon the matter , I think that I must have been prepared to be made a Mason by some such negative process as the Spartans are said to have employed to train up their sons in habits of temperance . Let me try to explain this . My first observations of the world external to my own family were formed at a
period in this century ' s history when the saying that the schoolmaster is abroad was common in every mouth . Considering what I remember of that time , reminiscencesthe accuracy of which any reader of middle-age has the means within his own memory of examining , I am disposed to think that the proposition was founded on truth ; but I am furthermore inclined to believe that the world would have been none the worse ,, but perhaps , on the whole , rather better , had that public officer been exercising his useful functions at home . Bo that as it may , —and this is not the placeto enter into such a disquisition , —my youthful mind was struck with a certain hardness , coldness , negation of emotion , in the rising school of
philosophersnot even now altogether absent from their profession—which disquieted , nay ,, revolted me . I knew intimately a man who used to absolutely set my teeth on edge with his wise saws ancl modern instances of what he was pleased to call good sense . The late Mr . Benjamin Franklin was this gentleman's model , and tohear him discourse you would have thought that our American brother—not that I knew anything about Masonic brotherhood then—never entertained a generous impulse or
experienced a warm emotion in his life . Brother Ben , I confess , when I came afterwards to recognise his craft fraternity , came down to me heavily handicapped , for in iny yoivth I hated Poor Richard and all his words and works as heartily as in my catechism I had been taught to hate a certain fallen Prince of the Powers of the air , who is not popularly supposed to be altogether averse from the inculcation of self-indulgence ancl worldliness . Do you require any further idea of the character of the worthy man who
was good enough in this matter to play the helot to my Spartan youth ? Because if you do , I can refer you to a little known novel called "Hard Times , " where the late Mr . Dickens has presented his fellow under the name of Mr . Gradgrind , ancl I commend the study to your serious attention , for thereby , although you may—mind I do not say you will—learn what worldly prudence is , you will certainly acquire some knowledge , perhaps no less useful , of what Freemasonry is not .
I gathered , then , that the cardinal and primary article of this creed , or cult , was contained in the saying so often quoted by its followers and believers , " Every man for himself , and God for us all . " It is a comprehensive proposition , if you come to think of it . For example , it satisfactorily relieves the professor from the inconvenient necessity of debarring himself from a single advantage or benefit—or it may be stretched so far as to say even any self-indulgence—that will not work apparent self-harm , for the purpose
of promoting the advantage , the benefit , or even the convenience of any other human being . I remember my friend used very sententiously to reconcile its meaning with the attainment of Bentham ' s famous aspiration , the greatest happiness of the greatest number ; I do not remember the process of this learned argument ; but it worked out soas to evince that the philosopher ' s desideratum would be found in the " survival of the fittest , " only Professor Huxley ' s since renowned saying had not then been uttered . I
can recall that I listened to , but was not convinced by , my instructor ' s contention ; but he was doing me good all the same , if only by leading my juvenile mind to ponder whether , after all , there were not more things in " Heaven and Earth than are dreamt of in your philosophy . " Now it must be remembered that I was a very little boy , that my mentor was a middle-aged and tolerably well-to-do mantherefore he had presumably put his theories
, into profitable practice—he had exemplified their soundness by a test which the world always regards as final , viz ., success . I should inform the reader , too , that I had been carefully brought up in strict , perhaps slightly exaggerated , ideas of the respect due to seniority , and so I did not attempt to argue , as the ingenuous youth of the present .