THE SHORT TALK BULLETIN
The Masonic
Service Association
of the United States
VOL. 6 April 1928 NO. 4
The Working Tools
ENTERED APPRENTICE
The Common Gavel, used by operative Masons to break off
the corners of rough stones, is in speculative Freemasonry a symbol of power.
The Twenty-four-inch gauge is an instrument used by operative Masons to measure
and lay out their work, but in speculative Freemasonry we are taught by its
symbolism to divide our time into three equal parts, whereby are found eight
hours for refreshment and sleep, eight for our usual vocations and eight for the
service of God and humanity. There is an object in view and an end to be
attained. It is, therefore, a symbol of purpose.
Power is the ability to act so as to produce change land cause event. Purpose is
the idea or object kept before the mind as an end of effort or action.
Modern science has uncovered so much power that thoughtful men fear it will work
the destruction of civilization unless a commensurate humane purpose is
developed for its direction.
The day and generation in which we live pulsates with power, the world is held
in place by dynamic oppositions, the universe is vibrant with force and man is a
part of the divine energy. The greatest think in God's created universe is a
man. In him, according to the teachings of Freemasonry, is the eternal flame,
the indestructible image of the living God. The power of man cannot be defined,
cannot be fenced in, because it transcends all finite standards of measurement.
Power directed by a bad purpose is positive destruction. Alexander the Great was
the most powerful man of antiquity. With an army of 35,000 men he flung himself
against a Persian horde of over one million. He conquered the world, but could
not master himself. Intent on lust and luxury, dissipation and destruction, his
purposes were bad, and at the age of forty-two he died in a drunken fit.
Charles the First of England insisted on the divine right of kings. he had his
courts decree that the King could do no wrong, filled the Tower of London with
political prisoners, tortured and decapitated his enemies, claimed the right of
life and death over his subjects, and exercised the unlimited power of an
absolute monarch. His purposes were bad, and under Oliver Cromwell his career
was canceled, the executioner swung an axe and the head of Charles the first
rolled in the dust.
These were unusual men occupying exceptional positions, but the power of
destruction is terrific in the most ordinary life. Czolgoez, the polish
anarchist, was a man of a low order in the social scale, without wealth, without
influence, without education; from the casual viewpoint ignorant, insignificant
and weak. His mind was the breeding ground of crazy purposes, but he had
sufficient destructive power to shoot William McKinley and assassinate the Chief
Magistrate of the greatest nation on earth.
Power directed by a good purpose is constructive, and results in achievement. It
keeps the cars on the tracks and the wires in the air, it turns the wheels of
man's industry and carries the commerce of continents as upon a mighty shoulder.
Warren Hastings was born in 1732; his mother was a servant girl who died when
the baby was two days old; his father deserted him, so he grew up as a charity
child. He had a hungry mind and obtained an education as best he could. When
eighteen years of age he shipped for India, working his own passage. He had a
purpose in his life and there came a power that enabled him to establish the
Bengal Asiatic Society, to found colleges out of his own funds and in his own
name. Disraeli said English supremacy in India was the direct result of this
man's work. Today the memory of Warren Hastings is linked with the greatness of
the British Empire.
David Livingstone was a humble Scotchman, the son of a weaver and himself a
worker at the spinning wheel. Into his soul there came a great purpose of life,
and he went to South Africa as a missionary. He was frail of body, never
physically strong, but with the purpose there came to him a power to brave
danger and endure privations. For a period of twenty years he blazed a trail of
light through a dark continent, destroyed the slave trade in negroes, and
convinced the world that the salvation of Africa was a white man's job. In that
commission he surrendered his life on his knees in supplication to God. His body
was carried thousands of miles by a black man through jungles, over rivers,
across land and seas; last summer at Westminster Abbey I stood before his mortal
remains buried and honored in the sepulcher of Kings.
In his early manhood Abraham Lincoln stood before a slave market in New Orleans.
Upon the block was a young woman, stripped to the waist. he heard the auctioneer
describe her fine points and estimate her value. He became conscious, not simply
of a black form, but of life divinely given. His soul responded to the challenge
of a supreme purpose and he said, "If I have a chance to strike this
institution I will strike it hard." Through the years there came to him the
power to blaze out the path and light up the way for a new baptism of human
freedom, finally to seal that purpose with a martyr's blood and ascend to the
throne of God with four million broken fetters in his hands. Now the whole world
joins in a myriad-voiced chorus of love and honor to his memory. In every land
and under every clime he is exalted and glorified as a mighty champion of human
rights.
History preserves in the clear amber of immortality the record of men, who, set
on fire by some sublime purpose, dedicate the power of their lives to its
prosecution.
The lesson is definite and practical. The twenty-four-inch gauge and the common
gavel speak to every Mason the language of constructive purpose land personal
power. They mean that a Mason should cherish his ideals, the beauty that forms
in the mind, the music that stirs in his heart, the glory that drapes his purest
purpose, for out of these things he has the power to build for himself la new
world in which to live.
FELLOWCRAFT
The Level is an instrument used by operative Masons to
prove horizontals. It is trite to say that it is a symbol of equality. The
Declaration of American Independence proclaims that all men are "created
equal." With most of us this is a glittering generality, born of the fact
that we are all made of the same dust, share a common humanity and walk on the
level of time until the grim democracy of death blots out all distinctions, and
the scepter of the prince and the staff of the beggar are laid side by side. It
is apparent that men are not equal, and cannot be equal either in brain or
brawn. There is no common mold by which humanity can be reduced to a dead level.
The world has various demands requiring different powers; brains to devise great
and important undertakings; seers to dream dreams and behold visions; hands to
execute the designs laid down upon the trestle board; scientists to adorn the
mind and reveal the glories of the universe; poets to inspire the soul and play
music on human heart-strings; pioneers to blaze out the path, and prophets to
light up the way to a land where the rainbow never fades.
The equality of which the Level is a symbol is one of right and not one of gift
and endowment. It stands for the equal right of every man to life, liberty and
the pursuit of happiness; the equal right of every man to be free from
oppression in the development of his own faculties. It means the destruction of
special privilege and arbitrary limitation.
Freemasonry presided over the birth of our Republic and by the skill of its
leaders wrote into the organic law of this land the immutable truth of which the
Level is a symbol. In a Masonic lodge George Washington was taught that the
Level is a symbol of equality. In the darkest hour of the Colonial cause, the
soldiers, in a moment of despair and desperation, would have placed on
washington's head the crown of a king. Hayden says, "The overthrow of the
rump parliament by Cromwell, the breaking up of the imbecile directory by
Napoleon were difficult tasks compared to the ease with which the divided
Continental Congress could have been dispersed." Washington was not
fighting for royal rank, nor for coronation. As a champion of human rights, he
was fighting for exact justice and equality of opportunity, and so the kingship
and the crown were rejected with indignation and contempt.
This symbol means that in a Masonic lodge every man should count for one, and no
man should count for more than one. In a Masonic lodge the weak and the strong,
the rich and the poor, men of diverse creeds and capacity, meet upon the level,
close their eyes to arbitrary distinctions and reaffirm that Freemasonry regards
no man for his worldly wealth or honors, that the internal and not the external
qualifications of a man recommend him to Freemasonry.
Albert Pike said that Freemasonry was the first apostle of equality. The truth
of the Level is woven into the fabric of our free institutions. So by Craft and
country we are picked and pledged to the practice of this priceless principle.
The square is an instrument used by operative Masons to square their work. In
speculative Freemasonry it is a symbol of morality.
It is white with a nameless age. Centuries before the Christian era a negative
statement of the Golden Rule was called the principle of acting on the square.
Today the expression "upon the square" stands for truthful statement
and honest dealing.
In a superficial sense, morality is the verdict of the majority. The elements of
time and geography enter into the conception of moral standards. In some aspects
morality is relative; what is moral to one man may be immoral to another, what
is moral in one position may become immoral when conditions are changed. The
word is difficult of definition, but for everyday use, morality seems to be a
correct correspondence between conscience, circumstance and conduct. Within
definite limits men have a right to prescribe standards of morality for
themselves. In the eyes of the law there are two kinds of wrong. One is called
"malum in se," that is, an act which is evil in itself and by reason
of its inherent nature. The other is "malum prohibitum" that is, an
act which is not naturally an evil, but only so in consequence of its being
forbidden. Except where fundamentals are involved, it is dangerous for one man
to attempt the application of his standards of morality to another man's life.
I remember reading a story of the great flood that came upon the Ohio. In the
grey of the morning some men saw a house floating down the river and on its top
a human being. Going to the rescue, they found a woman whose life they wished to
save, but she said, "No! In this house I have three dead babies, I will not
desert; I am going out with them." To most of us that act would verge on
the immorality of suicide; to her it was the expression of a mother's love
deeper than despair and death; her conduct corresponded with her conscience. We
cannot place ourselves in her circumstances and in charity should refrain from
judgment.
Jean Valjean was a great hulk of a man, young and strong, ignorant and big
hearted, tramping the streets of Paris in search of work, trying to care for a
widowed sister and her family of seven little ones. there was no work to be had.
He could not bear to hear the voices of starving children so be came home late
at night, thinking they would be asleep. But hunger gnawed, and when he came in
they were wide-awake and cried, "Oh, Uncle Jean, have you any work? Oh,
Uncle Jean, we are so hungry!" Madness seized the man; he went to the
nearest bakery, broke the window and stole a loaf of bread. Jean was arrested
and sent to Toulon as a galley slave. In the eyes of the law he had committed
the immoral act of theft. But his eyes saw pinched-up faces, his ears heard
cries of hunger and, regardless of consequences, his conduct corresponded with
his conscience in a deed of moral heroism.
Back of all the temporary circumstances and conditions of men and the transitory
moral codes evolved by human minds are certain positive standards of morality
which the Divine Intelligence has impressed on every particle of matter and
every pulsation of energy. They are the same for all mankind, regardless of
place, time, race or religion. Of these standards the trysquare is the Masonic
mouthpiece. Freemasonry is defined as a beautiful system of morality. It is a
woven tapestry of great moral principles and purposes. Whenever a Mason fails to
live up to the best that is in him, whenever he blots out the divine light of
his conscience, whenever he is recreant to right as God gives him to see the
right, he is false to the trying square of his profession, but by this symbol
Freemasonry teaches a morality that masters manners, molds mind and makes mighty
manhood.
The plumb is an instrument used by operative Masons to try perpendiculars. In
speculative Freemasonry it is a symbol of righteousness, that is, an upright
life before God and man.
Righteousness is not a sanctimonious word. It means rectitude of conduct,
integrity of character, and deathless devotion to truth. The Psalmist asked,
"Lord, who shall abide in thy Tabernacle?" and this was the answer:
"He that walketh uprightly, and worketh righteousness and speaketh the
truth in his heart." When correctly understood, the truth symbolized by the
Plumb constitutes a challenge to courage.
In the Sixteenth century Giordazo Bruno taught a plurality of worlds; for this
he was accused of heresy. He was tried, convicted and imprisoned in a dungeon
for seven years. He was offered his liberty if he would recant, but Burno
refused to stain the sanctity of his soul by denying that which he believed to
be true. He was taken from his cell and led to the place of his execution, clad
in a robe on which representations of devils had been painted. He was chained to
a stake, about his body wood was piled, fagots were lighted and on the spot in
Rome where a monument now stands to his memory he was consumed by the flames.
Without the hope of heaven or the fear of hell he suffered death for the naked
truth that was in him.
The Great Light of Freemasonry contains this promise: "The righteous shall
be in everlasting remembrance." Men of tremendous power, men of creative
genius, have passed into oblivion, but the righteousness of a pure and noble
character, of an unselfish and divinely inspired life finds perpetuation in the
clear amber of immortality. Of that righteousness the Plumb is a symbol in
Freemasonry.
Unrighteousness has wrought the destruction of peoples and civilizations, but
"righteousness exalteth a Nation."
Symbols are not academic playthings, they are intended to provoke and sustain
thought.
Fellowcraft Working Tools present to the mind basic ideas of equality, morality
and righteousness.
MASTER MASON
All the implements of Masonry are assigned to the
use of a Master Mason. The principal one is the Trowel, an instrument used by
operative Masons to spread the cement which unites the building into one common
mass. In speculative Freemasonry it is a symbol of Brotherhood.
Paul stood on Mars Hill and said to the Athenians, "God hath made of one
blood every nation of men." That is not an expression of sentiment but the
announcement of a fact, whether men desire or deny it, whether men cherish it in
their hearts or crucify it. Man's ignorance does not change the laws of nature
nor vary their irresistible march. God's laws vindicate themselves; they crush
all who oppose and break into pieces everything that is not in harmony with
their purpose. In the light of this truth it can be safely asserted that no
nation, no civilization can long endure which does violence to the divine fact
of human brotherhood.
Fraternity is the basis of all important movements for the common good and the
general welfare of society.
Freemasonry has been called a "society of friends and brothers employing
symbols to teach the truth." The trowel is a Masonic symbol of love, and
with it we are to spread the cement of brotherly affection. Next to faith in
God, the greatest landmark in Freemasonry is the "Brotherhood of man."
We call each other "Brother", but we sometimes fail to realize that
brotherhood is a reciprocal relationship. It means that if I am to be a brother
to you, then you must be a brother to me. It is exceedingly practical; it is not
only for grateful gifts and happy hours, but for me when the soul is sad, when
the heart is pierced and pained, when the road is rough and ragged, and the way
seems desolate and drear.
The sentiment of Brotherhood in a man's heart is a futile thing unless he can
find avenues for its external expression. So far as I have been able to
discover, there are three such avenues.
The first is sympathy. Note intellectual sympathy that passes by on the other
side of the street and expresses sorrow, but a red-blooded sympathy that lifts a
man up who has fallen down and speaks the light of a new hope into his face. Dr.
Hillis said that sympathy is the measure of a man's intellectual power. Sympathy
is more than this; it is the measure of a man's heart-throb and soul vision. The
great painters, poets, preachers, physicians, and patriots, whose names
illuminate the pages of history, excelled their contemporaries in this one
quality of human sympathy.
The second avenue is service. I have read somewhere, most likely in one of the
writings of Dr. Joseph Fort Newton, a statement that all over the vast temple of
Freemasonry, from foundation stone to the highest pinnacle, is inscribed in
letters of living light the divine truth that labor is love, that work is
worship, and that not indolence but industry is the crowning glory of a man's
life whether he be rich or poor. In all the annals of human progress the men who
have accomplished works which have lived after them, which have come up through
cycles of time a blessing to succeeding generations, had not before their eyes
gold or fame or selfish aims or sordid gain, but had hung upon the walls of
their minds great ideals of human service to which they remained devoted until
the light faded and the day closed.
The third avenue is sacrifice, the most radiant word in the history of our race.
The sacrifices of father and mother for the education of the child, the
sacrifices of son and daughter for the old folks back home, the sacrifices of
the patriot for the homeland and the Flag, the sacrifices of the great servants
of humanity, have through the ages made music in the souls of men. He who would
take sacrifice out of human life would steal from maternity its sacred
sweetness, expunge the wrinkles from the face of Abraham Lincoln, and obliterate
the stripes of red in our National Flag.
Every advance in civilization involves a victim. Before the progress of the
world stands an altar and on it a sacrifice.
Back in the centuries Socrates, with a cup of hemlock poison pressed to his
lips, offered himself upon the altar of human sacrifice for the divine right of
liberty in man.
The words of Patrick Henry before the Virginia Assembly: "The next gale
that blows from the north will bring to our ears the resounding clash of arms. I
know not what course others may take, but as for me, give me liberty or give me
death," lifted the soul of Colonial America up to the coronation of a
supreme sacrifice and made this Republic of the West a possibility.
In the world crisis, American soldiers and sailors, as the champions of
civilization, laid their all, their hopes, their aspirations, their ambitions,
their home ties and affections upon the altar of human sacrifice to insure our
national safety, defend our national honor, and vindicate the ideals of American
Independence on the battle fields of Flanders and of France.
In a little country school I was taught that our National Flag stands for the
graves of men and the tears of women, for untrammeled conscience and free
institutions, for sacred memories and great ideals; that its red stands for the
blood that bought it, its white for the purity of the motive that caused it to
be shed, its blue for loyalty ascending to the sky, and its stars for deeds of
bravery brighter than the stars of faultless night, But when I think of George
Washington and Gen. Joseph Warren, and Capt. John Paul Jones, and that heroic
band of Masonic patriots in the American Revolution and cast the utility of our
Craft against the background of its history, I can see its stripes of red
baptized in the sacrificial blood of our Fraternity, and its stars of glory
illuminated By the deathless light that shines from a Masonic Altar.
In Freemasonry we are familiar with the ancient drama of sacrifice made in the
name of faith, fortitude and fidelity.
These three, sympathy, service, sacrifice, are the avenues for the external
expression of the sentiment of brotherhood in man's heart.
In proportion as we are inspired by this ideal and use these avenues of
expression, our Fraternity will contribute to human good and happiness and
answer the end of its institution.
Tools have been called "The evangelists of a new day." They are
teachers not less than college and cathedral. Just as the Twenty-four-inch gauge
and Common Gavel stand for purpose and power, and the Level, Square and Plumb
present basic ideas of equality, morality and righteousness, so the Trowel is
Freemasonry's symbol of unity and brotherhood among men.