MORALS AND DOGMA by Albert Pike



X. ILLUSTRIOUS ELECT OF THE FIFTEEN.
   [Elu of the Fifteen ]

 THIS Degree is devoted to the same objects as those of the Elu of Nine;
and also to the cause of Toleration and Liberality against Fanaticism and
Persecution, political and religious; and to that of Education,
Instruction, and Enlightenment against Error,

Toleration, holding that every other man has the same right to his
opinion and faith that we have to ours; and liberality, holding that as no
human being can with certainty say, in the clash and conflict of hostile
faiths and creeds, what is truth, or that

No true Mason scoffs at honest convictions and an ardent zeal in the
cause of what one believes to be truth and justice. But he does absolutely
deny the right of any man to assume the prerogative of Deity, and condemn
another's faith and opinions as deserv

For he knows that such follies are often more calamitous than the
ambition of kings; and that intolerance and bigotry have been infinitely
greater curses to mankind than ignorance and error. Better any error than
persecution ! Better any opinion than the t

Masonry is not a religion. He who makes of it a religious belief,
falsifies and denaturalizes it. The Brahmin, the Jew, the Mahometan, the
Catholic, the Protestant, each professing his peculiar religion,
sanctioned by the laws, by time, and by climate, mus

But Masonry teaches, and has preserved in their purity, the cardinal
tenets of the old primitive faith, which underlie and are the foundation of
all religions. All that ever existed have had a basis of truth; and all
have overlaid that truth with errors. T

Mankind outgrows the sacrifices and the mythologies of the childhood of
the world. Yet it is easy for human indolence to linger near these helps,
and refuse to pass further on. So the unadventurous Nomad in the Tartarian
wild keeps his flock in the same cl

The latter is the true Mason; and the best and indeed the only good Mason
is he who with the power of business does the work of life; the upright
mechanic, merchant, or farmer, the man with the power of thought, of
justice, or of love, he whose whole life

The good Mason does the good thing which comes in his way, and because it
comes in his way; from a love of duty, and not merely because a law,
enacted by man or God, commands his will to do it. He is true to his mind,
his conscience, heart, and soul, and f

Not more naturally does the beaver build or the mocking-bird sing his own
wild, gushing melody, than the true Mason lives in this beautiful outward
life. So from the perennial spring swells forth the stream, to quicken the
meadow with new access of green,

The old theologies, the philosophies of religion of ancient times, will
not suffice us now. The duties of life are to be done; we are to do them,
consciously obedient to the law of God, not atheistically, loving only our
selfish gain. There are sins of tra

This Degree is chiefly devoted to TOLERATION; and it inculcates in the
strongest manner that great leading idea of the Ancient Art, that a belief
in the one True God, and a moral and virtuous life, constitute the only
religious requisites needed to enable

Masonry has ever the most vivid remembrance of the terrible and
artificial torments that were used to put down new forms of religion or
extinguish the old. It sees with the eye of memory the ruthless
extermination of all the people of all sexes and ages, b

The fires of Moloch in Syria, the harsh mutilations in the name of
Astarte, Cybele, Jehovah; the barbarities of imperial Pagan Torturers; the
still grosser torments which Roman-Gothic Christians in Italy and Spain
heaped on their brother-men; the fiendish

Man never had the right to usurp the unexercised prerogative of God, and
condemn and punish another for his belief. Born in a Protestant land, we
are of that faith. If we had opened our eyes to the light under the
shadows of St. Peter's at Rome, we should

What is truth to me is not truth to another. The same arguments and
evidences that convince one mind make no impression on another. This
difference is in men at their birth. No man is entitled positively to
assert that he is right, where other men, equally

The fancies of a lunatic are realities, to him. Our dreams are realities
while they last; and, in the Past, no more unreal than what we have acted
in our waking hours. No man can say that he hath as sure possession of the
truth as of a chattel. When men en

Therefore no man hath or ever had a right to persecute another for his
belief; for there cannot be two antagonistic rights; and if one can
persecute another, because he himself is satisfied that the belief of that
other is erroneous, the other has, for the

The truth comes to us tinged and coloured with our prejudices and our
preconceptions, which are as old as ourselves, and strong with a divine
force. It comes to us as the image of a rod comes to us through the water,
bent and distorted. An argument sinks i

The sincere Moslem has as much right to persecute us, as we to persecute
him; and therefore Masonry wisely requires no more than a belief in One
Great All-Powerful Deity, the Father and Preserver of the Universe.
Therefore it is she teaches her votaries th

No evil hath so affected the world as intolerance of religious opinion.
The human beings it has slain in various ways, if once and together
brought to life, would make a nation of people; left to live and increase,
would have doubled the population of the

No man truly obeys the Masonic law who merely tolerates those whose
religious opinions are opposed to his own. Every man's opinions are his
own private property, and the rights of all men to maintain each his own
are perfectly equal. Merely to tolerate, to

We may well be tolerant of each other's creed; for in every faith there
are excellent moral precepts. Far in the South of Asia, Zoroaster taught
this doctrine: "On commencing a journey, the Faithful should turn his
thoughts toward Ormuzd, and confess him,

And in the North of Europe the Druids taught devotion to friends,
indulgence for reciprocal wrongs, love of deserved praise, prudence,
humanity, hospitality, respect for old age, disregard of the future,
temperance, contempt of death, and a chivalrous defe

"If thou hast a friend, visit him often; the path will grow over with
grass, and the trees soon cover it, if thou dost not constantly walk upon
it. He is a faithful friend, who, having but two loaves, gives his friend
one. Be never first to break with thy

And thus said the Indian books: "Honour thy father and mother. Never
forget the benefits thou hast received. Learn while Thou art young. Be
submissive to the laws of thy country. Seek the company of virtuous men.
Speak not of God but with respect. Live on

Twenty-four centuries ago these were the Chinese Ethics:

"The Philosopher [Confucius] said, 'SAN ! my doctrine is simple, and easy
to be understood.' THSENG-TSEU replied, 'that is certain.' The Philosopher
having gone out, the disciples asked what their master had meant to say.
THSENG-TSEU responded, 'The doctri

About a century later, the Hebrew law said, "If any man hate his
neighbour . . . then shall ye do unto him, as he had thought to do unto
his brother . . . Better is a neighbour that is near, than a brother afar
off . . . Thou shalt love thy neighbour as th

In the same fifth century before Christ, SOCRATES the Grecian said, "Thou
shalt love thy neighbour as thyself."

Three generations earlier, ZOROASTER had said to the Persians: "Offer up
thy grateful prayers to the Lord, the most just and pure Ormuzd, the supreme
and adorable God, who thus declared to his Prophet Zerdusht: 'Hold it not
meet to do unto others what thou

The same doctrine had been long taught in the schools of Babylon,
Alexandria, and Jerusalem. A Pagan declared to the Pharisee HILLEL that he
was ready to embrace the Jewish religion, if he could make known to him in
a few words a summary of the whore law o

"Nothing is more natural," said CONFUCIUS, "nothing more simple, than the
principles of that morality which I endeavour, by salutary maxims, to
inculcate in you . . . It is humanity; which is to say, that universal
charity among all of our species, without

To diffuse useful information, to further intellectual refinement, sure
forerunner of moral improvement, to hasten the coming of the great day,
when the dawn of general knowledge shall chase away the lazy, lingering
mists of ignorance and error, even from

The highest intellectual cultivation is perfectly compatible with the
daily cares and toils of working-men. A keen relish for the most sublime
truths of science belongs alike to every class of mankind. And, as
philosophy was taught in the sacred groves of

Real knowledge never permitted either turbulence or unbelief; but its
progress is the forerunner of liberality and enlightened toleration. Whoso
dreads these may well tremble; for he may be well assured that their day
is at length come, and must put to spe

Whenever we come to treat with entire respect those who conscientiously
differ from ourselves, the only practical effect of a difference will be, to
make us enlighten the ignorance on one side or the other, from which it
springs, by instructing them, if it

The Elu of Fifteen ought therefore to take the lead of his
fellow-citizen, not in frivolous amusements, not in the degrading pursuits
of the ambitious vulgar; but in the truly noble task of enlightening the
mass of his countrymen, and of leaving his own na

We say to him, in the words of the great Roman: "Men in no respect so
nearly approach to the Deity, as when they confer benefits on men. To
serve and do good to as many as possible,--there is nothing greater in
your fortune than that you should be able, an

Masonry requires of its Initiates and votaries nothing that is
impracticable. It does not demand that they should undertake to climb to
those lofty and sublime peaks of a theoretical and imaginary unpractical
virtue, high and cold and remote as the eternal

But it does require and expect every man of us to do something, within
and according to his means; and there is no Mason who cannot do some
thing, if not alone, then by combination and association.

If a Lodge cannot aid in founding a school or an academy it can still do
something. It can educate one boy or girl, at least, the child of some
poor or departed brother. And it should never be forgotten, that in the
poorest unregarded child that seems aban

For we never know the importance of the act we do. The daughter of
Pharaoh little thought what she was doing for the human race, and the vast
unimaginable consequences that depended on her charitable act, when she
drew the little child of a Hebrew woman fr

How often has an act of charity, costing the doer little, given to the
world a great painter, a great musician, a great inventor! How often has
such an act developed the ragged boy into the benefactor of his race! On
what small and apparently unimportant c

But the opportunity to effect a great good does not often occur to ally
one. It is worse than folly for one to lie idle and inert, and expect the
accident to befall him, by which his influences shall live forever. He can
expect that to happen, only in cons

For it is, in all instances, by steady labour, by giving enough of
application to our work, and having enough of time for the doing of it, by
regular pains-taking, and the plying of constant assiduities, and not by
any process of legerdemain, that we secur

It is a most erroneous opinion that those who have left the most
stupendous monuments of intellect behind them, were not differently
exercised from the rest of the species, but only differently gifted; that
they signalized themselves only by their talent,

We must not imagine it to be a vulgarizing of genius, that it should be
lighted up in any other way than by a direct inspiration from Heaven; nor
overlook the steadfastness of purpose, the devotion to some single but
great object, the unweariedness of labo

We must not overlook these elements, to which genius owes the best and
proudest of her achievements; nor imagine that qualities so generally
possessed as patience and pains-taking, and resolute industry, have no
share in upholding a distinction so illustri

We must not forget that great results are most ordinarily produced by an
aggregate of many contributions and exertions; as it is the invisible
particles of vapour, each separate and distinct from the other, that,
rising from the oceans and their bays and g

And so Masonry can do much, if each Mason be content to do is share, and
if their united efforts are directed by wise counsels to a common purpose.
"It is for God and for Omnipotency to do mighty things in a moment; but by
degrees to grow to greatness the

If Masonry will but be true to her mission, and Masons to their promises
and obligations--if, re-entering vigorously upon a career of beneficence,
she and they will but pursue it earnestly and unfalteringly, remembering
that our contributions to the cause
