MORALS & DOGMA Albert Pike

 XIV

GRAND ELECT, PERFECT, AND SUBLIME
              MASON.

[Perfect Elu.]

    It is for each individual Mason to discover the secret of Ma- sonry,
by reflection upon its symbols and a wise consideration and analysis of
what is said and done in the work. Masonry does not inculcate her truths.
 She states them, once and briefly; or hints them, perhaps, darkly; or
interposes a cloud between them and eyes that would be dazzled by them.
"Seek, and ye shall find," knowledge and the truth.
    The practical object of Masonry is the physical and moral
amelioration and the intellectual and spiritual improvement of
individuals and society.  Neither can be effected, except by the
dissemination of truth.  It is falsehood in doctrines and fallacy in
principles, to which most of the miseries of men and the mis- fortunes of
nations are owing.  Public opinion is rarely right on any point; and
there are and always will be important truths to be substituted in that
opinion in the place of many errors and absurd and injurious prejudices.
There are few truths that public opinion has not at some time hated and
persecuted as heresies; and few errors that have not at some time seemed
to it truths radi- ant from the immediate presence of God. There are
moral mala- dies, also, of man and society, the treatment of which
requires not only boldness, but also, and more, prudence and discretion;
since they are more the fruit of false and pernicious doctrines, moral,
political, and religious, than of vicious inclinations.
    Much of the Masonic secret manifests itself, without speech
revealing it to him who even partially comprehends all the De- grees in
proportion as he receives them; and particularly to those who advance to
the highest Degrees of the Ancient and Accepted Scottish Rite.  That Rite
raises a corner of the veil, even in the Degree of Apprentice; for it
there declares that Masonry is a worship.
    Masonry labors to improve the social order by enlightening men's
minds, warming their hearts with the love of the good, in- spiring them
with the great principle of human fraternity, and requiring of its
disciples that their language and actions shall con- form to that
principle, that they shall enlighten each other, con- trol their
passions, abhor vice, and pity the vicious man as one afflicted with a
deplorable malady.
    It is the universal, eternal, immutable religion, such as God
planted it in the heart of universal humanity.  No creed has ever been
long-lived that was not built on this foundation.  It is the base, and
they are the superstructure.  "Pure religion and unde- filed before God
and the Father is this, to visit the fatherless and widows in their
affliction, and to keep himself unspotted from the world." "Is not this
the fast that I have chosen ? to loose the bands of wickedness, to undo
the heavy burdens, and to let the oppressed go free, and that ye break
every yoke ?" The ministers of this religion are all Masons who
comprehend it and are devoted to it; its sacrifices to God are good works,
the sacrifices of the base and disorderly passions, the offering up of
self-interest on the altar of humanity, and perpetual efforts to attain
to all the moral perfection of which man is capable.
    To make honor and duty the steady beacon-lights that shall guide
your life-vessel over the stormy seas of time; to do that which it is
right to do, not because it will insure you success, or bring with it a
reward, or gain the applause of men, or be "the best policy," more
prudent or more advisable; but because it is right, and therefore ought
to be done; to war incessantly against error, intolerance, ignorance, and
vice, and yet to pity those who err, to be tolerant even of intolerance,
to teach the ignorant, and to labor to reclaim the vicious, are some of
the duties of a Mason.
    A good Mason is one that can look upon death, and see its face with
the same countenance with which he hears its story; that can endure all
the labors of his life with his soul supporting his body, that can
equally despise riches when he hath them and when he hath them not;that
is, not sadder if they are in his neigh- bor's exchequer, nor more lifted
up if they shine around about his own walls; one that is not moved with
good fortune coming to him, nor going from him; that can look upon
another man's lands with equanimity and pleasure, as if they were his
own; and yet look upon his own, and use them too, just as if they were
another man's; that neither spends his goods prodigally and foolishly, nor
yet keeps them avariciously and like a miser; that weighs not benefits by
weight and number, but by the mind and circumstances of him who confers
them; that never thinks his charity expen- sive, if a worthy person be
the receiver; that does nothing for opinion's sake, but everything for
conscience, being as careful of his thoughts as of his acting in markets
and theatres, and in as much awe of himself as of a whole assembly; that
is, bountiful and cheerful to his friends, and charitable and apt to
forgive his enemies; that loves his country, consults its honor, and
obeys its laws, and desires and endeavors nothing more than that he may
do his duty and honor God. And such a Mason may reckon his life to be the
life of a man, and compute his months, not by the course of the sun, but
by the zodiac and circle of his vir- tues.
    The whole world is but one republic, of which each nation is a
family, and every individual a child.  Masonry, not in anywise derogating
from the differing duties which the diversity of states requires, tends
to create a new people, which, composed of men of many nations and
tongues, shall all be bound together by the bonds of science, morality,
and virtue.
    Essentially philanthropic, philosophical, and progressive, it has
for the basis of its dogma a firm belief in the existence of God and his
providence, and of the immortality of the soul; for its object, the
dissemination of moral, political, philosophical, and religious truth, and
the practice of all the virtues.  In every age, its device has been,
"Liberty, Equality, Fraternity," with constitu- tional government, law,
order, discipline, and subordination to legitimate authority--government
and not anarchy.
    But it is neither a political party nor a religious sect.  It braces
all parties and all sects, to form from among them all a vast fraternal
association.  It recognizes the dignity of human nature, and man's right
to such freedom as he is fitted for; and it knows nothing that should
place one man below another, except ignorance, debasement, and crime, and
the necessity of subordina- tion to lawful will and authority.
    It is philanthropic; for it recognizes the great truth that all men
are of the same origin, have common interests, and should co-operate
together to the same end.
    Therefore it teaches its members to love one another, to give to
each other mutual assistance and support in all the circumstances of
life, to share each other's pains and sorrows, as well as their joys and
pleasures; to guard the reputations, respect the opinions, and be
perfectly tolerant of the errors, of each other, in matters of faith and
beliefs.
    It is philisophical because it teaches the great Truths concern- ing
the nature and existence of one Supreme Deity, and the exist- ence and
immortality of the soul.  It revives the Academy of Plato and the wise
teachings of Socrates. It reiterates the max- ims of Pythagoras,
Confucius, and Zoroaster, and reverentially enforces the sublime lessons of
Him who died upon the Cross.
    The ancients thought that universal humanity acted under the
influence of two opposing Principles, the Good and the Evil: of which the
Good urged men toward Truth, Independence, and De- votedness and the Evil
toward Falsehood, Servility, and Selfish- ness. Masonry represents the
Good Principle and constantly wars against the evil one. It is the
Hercules, the Osiris, the Apollo, the Mithras, and the Ormuzd, at
everlasting and deadly feud with the demons of ignorance, brutality,
baseness, falsehood, slavish- ness of soul, intolerance, superstition,
tyranny, meanness, the in- solence of wealth, and bigotry.
    When despotism and superstition, twin-powers of evil and dark- ness,
reigned everywhere and seemed invincible and immortal, it invented, to
avoid persecution, the mysteries, that is to say, the allegory, the
symbol, and the emblem, and transmitted its doc- trines by the secret
mode of initiation. Now, retaining its ancient symbols, and in part its
ancient ceremonies, it displays in every civilized country its banner, on
which in letters of living light its great principles are written; and it
smiles at the puny efforts of kings and popes to crush it out by
excommunication and inter- diction.
    Man's views in regard to God, will contain only so much posi- tive
truth as the human mind is capable of receiving; whether that truth is
attained by the exercise of reason, or communicated by revelation. It
must necessarily be both limited and alloyed, to bring it within the
competence of finite human intelligence. Be- ing finite, we can form no
correct or adequate idea of the Infinite; being material, we can form no
clear conception of the Spiritual. We do believe in and know the infinity
of Space and Time, and the spirituality of the Soul; but the idea of that
infinity and spirituality eludes us.  Even Omnipotence cannot infuse
infinite conceptions into finite minds; nor can God, without first
entirely changing the conditions of our being, pour a complete and full
knowledge of His own nature and attributes into the narrow capacity of a
human soul.  Human intelligence could not grasp it, nor human language
express it. The visible is, necessarily, the measure of the invisible.
    The consciousness of the individual reveals itself alone.  His
knowledge cannot pass beyond the limits of his own being. His conceptions
of other things and other beings are only his concep- tions. They are not
those things or beings themselves. The living principle of a living
Universe must be INFINITE; while all our ideas and conceptions are
finite, and applicable only to finite beings.
    The Deity is thus not an object of knowledge, but of faith; not to
be approached by the understanding, but by the moral sense; not to be
conceived, but to be felt. All attempts to embrace the Infinite in the
conception of the Finite are, and must be only ac- commodations to the
frailty of man. Shrouded from human com- prehension in an obscurity from
which a chastened imagination is awed back, and Thought retreats in
conscious weakness, the Divine Nature is a theme on which man is little
entitled to dog- matize.  Here the philosophic Intellect becomes most
painfully aware of its own insufficiency.
    And yet it is here that man most dogmatizes, classifies and de-
scribes God's attributes, makes out his map of God's nature, and his
inventory of God's qualities, feelings, impulses, and passions; and then
hangs and burns his brother, who, as dogmatically as he, makes out a
different map and inventory.  The common under- standing has no humility.
Its God is an incarnate Divinity. Im- perfection imposes its own
limitations on the Illimitable, and clothes the Inconceivable Spirit of
the Universe in forms that come within the grasp of the senses and the
intellect, and are derived from that infinite and imperfect nature which
is but God's creation.
    We are all of us, though not all equally, mistaken. The cher- ished
dogmas of each of us are not, as we fondly suppose, the pure truth of
God; but simply our own special form of error, our guesses at truth, the
refracted and fragmentary rays of light that have fallen upon our own
minds.  Our little systems have their day, and cease to be; they are but
broken lights of God; and He is more than they. Perfect truth is not
attainable anywhere. We style this Degree that of Perfection; and yet
what it teaches is imperfect and defective.  Yet we are not to relax in
the pursuit of truth, nor contentedly acquiesce in error. It is our duty
always to press forward in the search; for though absolute truth is
unat- tainable, yet the amount of error in our views is capable of pro-
gressive and perpetual diminution; and thus Masonry is a con- tinual
struggle toward the light.
    All errors are not equally innocuous.  That which is most in-
jurious is to entertain unworthy conceptions of the nature and attributes
of God; and it is this that Masonry symbolizes by igno- rance of the True
Word.  The true word of a Mason is, not the entire, perfect, absolute
truth in regard to God; but the highest and noblest conception of Him
that our minds are capable of forming; and this word is Ineffable,
because one man cannot communicate to another his own conception of
Deity; since every man's conception of God must be proportioned to his
mental cul- tivation and intellectual powers, and moral excellence. God
is, as man conceives Him, the reflected image of man himself.
    For every man's conception of God must vary with his mental
cultivation and mental powers.  If any one contents himself with any
lower image than his intellect is capable of grasping, then he contents
himself with that which is false to him, as well as false in fact. If
lower than he can reach, he must needs feel it to be false. And if we, of
the nineteenth century after Christ, adopt the con- ceptions of the
nineteenth century before Him; if our conceptions of God are those of the
ignorant, narrow-minded, and vindictive Israelite; then we think worse of
God, and have a lower, meaner, and more limited view of His nature, than
the faculties which He has bestowed are capable of grasping.  The highest
view we can form is nearest to the truth.  If we acquiesce in any lower
one, we acquiesce in an untruth. We feel that it is an affront and an
indignity to Him, to conceive of Him as cruel, short-sighted, ca-
pricious, and unjust; as a jealous, an angry, a vindictive Being. When we
examine our conceptions of His character, if we can conceive of a
loftier, nobler, higher, more beneficent, glorious, and magnificent
character, then this latter is to us the true conception of Deity; for
nothing can be imagined more excellent than He.
    Religion, to obtain currency and influence with the great mass of
mankind, must needs be alloyed with such an amount of error as to place
it far below the standard attainable by the higher human capacities. A
religion as pure as the loftiest and most cul- tivated human reason could
discern, would not be comprehended by, or effective over, the less
educated portion of mankind. What is Truth to the philosopher, would not
be Truth, nor have the effect of Truth, to the peasant.  The religion of
the many must necessarily be more incorrect than that of the refined and
reflective few, not so much in its essence as in its forms, not so much
in the spiritual idea which lies latent at the bottom of it, as in the
sym- bols and dogmas in which that idea is embodied.  The truest religion
would, in many points, not be comprehended by the igno- rant, nor
consolatory to them, nor guiding and supporting for them.  The doctrines
of the Bible are often not clothed in the language of strict truth, but
in that which was fittest to convey to a rude and ignorant people the
practical essentials of the doc- trine. A perfectly pure faith, free from
all extraneous admixtures, a system of noble theism and lofty morality,
would find too little preparation for it in the common mind and heart, to
admit of prompt reception by the masses of mankind; and Truth might not
have reached us, if it had not borrowed the wings of Error.
    The Mason regards God as a Moral Governor, as well as an Original
Creator; as a God at hand, and not merely one afar off in the distance of
infinite space, and in the remoteness of Past or Future Eternity.  He
conceives of Him as taking a watchful and presiding interest in the
affairs of the world, and as influenc- ing the hearts and actions of men.

    To him, God is the great Source of the World of Life and Mat- ter;
and man, with his wonderful corporeal and mental frame, His direct work.
He believes that God has made men with differ- ent intellectual
capacities, and enabled some, by superior intellect- ual power, to see
and originate truths which are hidden from the mass of men.  He believes
that when it is His will that mankind should make some great step
forward, or achieve some pregnant discovery, He calls into being some
intellect of more than ordi- nary magnitude and power, to give birth to new
ideas, and grander conceptions of the Truths vital to Humanity.
    We hold that God has so ordered matters in this beautiful and
harmonious, but mysteriously-governed Universe, that one great mind after
another will arise, from time to time, as such are needed, to reveal to
men the truths that are wanted, and the amount of truth than can be
borne. He so arranges, that nature and the course of events shall send
men into the world, endowed with that higher mental and moral
organization, in which grand truths, and sublime gleams of spiritual
light will spontaneously and inevitably arise.  These speak to men by
inspiration.
    Whatever Hiram really was, he is the type, perhaps an imag- inary
type, to us, of humanity in its highest phase; an exemplar of what man
may and should become, in the course of ages, in his progress toward the
realization of his destiny; an individual gifted with a glorious
intellect, a noble soul, a fine organization, and a perfectly balanced
moral being; an earnest of what humanity may be, and what we believe it
will hereafter be in God's good time; the possibility of the race made
real.
    The Mason believes that God has arranged this glorious but per-
plexing world with a purpose, and on a plan. He holds that every man sent
upon this earth, and especially every man of superior capacity, has a
duty to perform, a mission to fulfill, a baptism to be baptized with;
that every great and good man possesses some portion of God's truth, which
he must proclaim to the world, and which must bear fruit in his own
bosom.  In a true and simple sense, he believes all the pure, wise, and
intellectual to be inspired, and to be so for the instruction,
advancement, and elevation of mankind. That kind of inspiration, like
God's omnipresence, is not limited to the few writers claimed by Jews,
Christians, or Moslems, but is co-extensive with the race. It is the
consequence of a faithful use of our faculties. Each man is its subject,
God is its source, and Truth its only test.  It differs in degrees, as
the intellectual endowments, the moral wealth of the soul, and the de-
gree of cultivation of those endowments and faculties differ.  It is
limited to no sect, age, or nation.  It is wide as the world and common
as God.  It was not given to a few men, in the infancy of mankind, to
monopolize inspiration, and bar God out of the soul. We are not born in
the dotage and decay of the world. The stars are beautiful as in their
prime; the most ancient Heavens are fresh and strong. God is still
everywhere in nature. Wher- ever a heart beats with love, wherever Faith
and Reason utter their oracles, there is God, as formerly in the hearts
of seers and prophets.  No soil on earth is so holy as the good man's
heart; nothing is so full of God.  This inspiration is not given to the
learned alone, not alone to the great and wise, but to every faithful
child of God.  Certain as the open eye drinks in the light, do the pure
in heart see God; and he who lives truly, feels Him as a pres- ence within
the soul.  The conscience is the very voice of Deity.
    Masonry, around whose altars the Christian, the Hebrew, the Moslem,
the Brahmin, the followers of Confucius and Zoroaster, can assemble as
brethren and unite in prayer to the one God who is above all the Baalim,
must needs leave it to each of its Initiates to look for the foundation
of his faith and hope to the written scriptures of his own religion.  For
itself it finds those truths definite enough, which are written by the
finger of God upon the heart of man and on the pages of the book of
nature.  Views of religion and duty, wrought out by the meditations of
the studious, confirmed by the allegiance of the good and wise, stamped
as sterling by the response they find in every uncorrupted mind, com-
mend themselves to Masons of every creed, and may well be ac- cepted by
all.
    The Mason does not pretend to dogmatic certainty, nor vainly imagine
such certainty attainable.  He considers that if there were no written
revelation, he could safely rest the hopes that ani- mate him and the
principles that guide him, on the deductions of reason and the
convictions of instinct and consciousness.  He can find a sure foundation
for his religious belief, in these deductions of the intellect and
convictions of the heart.  For reason proves to him the existence and
attributes of God; and those spiritual instincts which he feels are the
voice of God in his soul, infuse into his mind a sense of his relation to
God, a conviction of the beneficence of his Creator and Preserver, and a
hope of future ex- istence; and his reason and conscience alike
unerringly point to virtue as the highest good, and the destined aim and
purpose of man's life.
    He studies the wonders of the Heavens, the frame-work and
revolutions of the Earth, the mysterious beauties and adaptations of
animal existence, the moral and material constitution of the human
creature, so fearfully and wonderfully made; and is satis- fied that God
IS; and that a Wise and Good Being is the author of the starry  Heavens
above him, and of the moral world within him; and his mind finds an
adequate foundation for its hopes, its worship, its principles of action,
in the far-stretching Universe, in the glorious firmament, in the deep,
full soul, bursting with un- utterable thoughts.
    These are truths which every reflecting mind will unhesitatingly
receive, as not to be surpassed, nor capable of improvement; and fitted,
if obeyed, to make earth indeed a Paradise, and man only a little lower
than the angels.  The worthlessness of ceremonial observances, and the
necessity of active virtue; the enforcement of purity of heart as the
security for purity of life, and of the government of the thoughts, as
the originators and forerunners of action; universal philanthropy,
requiring us to love all men, and to do unto others that and that only
which we should think it right, just, and generous for them to do unto
us; forgiveness of injuries; the necessity of self-sacrifice in the
discharge of duty; humility; genuine sincerity, and being that which we
seem to be; all these sublime precepts need no miracle, no voice from
the clouds, to recommend them to our allegiance, or to assure us of
their divine origin. They command obedience by virtue of their inherent
rectitude and beauty; and have been, and are, and will be the law in
every age and every country of the world.  God revealed them to man in
the beginning.
    To the Mason, God is our Father in Heaven, to be Whose especial
children is the sufficient reward of the peacemakers, to see Whose face
the highest hope of the pure in heart; Who is ever at hand to strengthen
His true worshippers; to Whom our most fer- vent love is due, our most
humble and patient submission; Whose most acceptable worship is a pure
and pitying heart and a benefi- cent life; in Whose constant presence we
live and act, to Whose merciful disposal we are resigned by that death
which, we hope and believe, is but the entrance to a better life; and
Whose wise decrees forbid a man to lap his soul in an elysium of mere
indolent content.
    As to our feelings toward Him and our conduct toward man, Masonry
teaches little about which men can differ, and little from which they can
dissent.  He is our Father; and we are all breth- ren. This much lies
open to the most ignorant and busy, as fully as to those who have most
leisure and are most learned.  This needs no Priest to teach it, and no
authority to indorse it; and if every man did that only which is consistent
with it, it would exile barbarity, cruelty, intolerance,
uncharitableness, perfidy, treach- ery, revenge, selfishness, and all
their kindred vices and bad pas- sions beyond the confines of the world.
    The true Mason, sincerely holding that a Supreme God created and
governs this world, believes also that He governs it by laws, which,
though wise, just, and beneficent, are yet steady, unwaver- ing,
inexorable. He believes that his agonies and sorrows are or- dained for
his chastening, his strengthening, his elaboration and development;
because they are the necessary results of the opera- tion of laws, the
best that could be devised for the happiness and purification of the
species, and to give occasion and opportunity for the practice of all the
virtues, from the homeliest and most common, to the noblest and most
sublime; or perhaps not even that, but the best adapted to work out the
vast, awful, glorious, eternal designs of the Great Spirit of the
Universe.  He believes that the ordained operations of nature, which have
brought misery to him, have, from the very unswerving tranquility of
their career, showered blessings and sunshine upon many another path;
that the unrelenting chariot of Time, which has crushed or maimed him in
its allotted course, is pressing onward to the accomplish- ment of those
serene and mighty purposes, to have contributed to which, even as a
victim, is an honor and a recompense. He takes this view of Time and Nature
and God, and yet bears his lot with- out murmur or distrust; because it
is a portion of a system, the best possible, because ordained by God. He
does not believe that God loses sight of him, while superintending the
march of the great harmonies of the Universe; nor that it was not
foreseen, when the Universe was created, its laws enacted, and the long
suc- cession of its operations pre-ordained, that in the great march of
those events, he would suffer pain and undergo calamity.  He be- lieves
that his individual good entered into God's consideration, as well as the
great cardinal results to which the course of all things is tending.
    Thus believing, he has attained an eminence in virtue, the high-
est, amid passive excellence, which humanity can reach.  He finds his
reward and his support in the reflection that he is an unreluc- tant and
self-sacrificing co-operator with the Creator of the Uni- verse; and in
the noble consciousness of being worthy and capable of so sublime a
conception, yet so sad a destiny.  He is then truly entitled to be called
a Grand Elect, Perfect, and Sublime Mason. He is content to fall early in
the battle, if his body may but form a stepping-stone for the future
conquests of humanity.
    It cannot be that God, Who, we are certain, is perfectly good, can
choose us to suffer pain, unless either we are ourselves to re- ceive
from it an antidote to what is evil in ourselves, or else as such pain is
a necessary part in the scheme of the Universe, which as a whole is good. 
In either case, the Mason receives it with submission. He would not
suffer unless it was ordered so. What- ever his creed, if he believes
that God is, and that He cares for His creatures, he cannot doubt that;
nor that it would not have been so ordered, unless it was either better
for himself, or for some other persons, or for some things. To complain
and lament is to murmur against God's will, and worse than unbelief.
    The Mason, whose mind is cast in a nobler mould than those of the
ignorant and unreflecting, and is instinct with a diviner life,- who
loves truth more than rest, and the peace of Heaven rather than the peace
of Eden,--to whom a loftier being brings severer cares,--who knows that
man does not live by pleasure or content alone, but by the presence of
the power of God,--must cast be- hind him the hope of any other repose or
tranquillity, than that which is the last reward of long agonies of
thought; he must re- linquish all prospect of any Heaven save that of
which trouble is the avenue and portal; he must gird up his loins, and
trim his lamp, for a work that must be done, and must not be negligently
done. If he does not like to live in the furnished lodgings of tra-
dition, he must build his own house, his own system of faith and thought,
for himself.
    The hope of success, and not the hope of reward, should be our
stimulating and sustaining power. Our object, and not ourselves, should
be our inspiring thought.  Selfishness is a sin, when tem- porary, and for
time.  Spun out to eternity, it does not become celestial prudence.  We
should toil and die, not for Heaven or Bliss, but for Duty.
    In the more frequent cases, where we have to join our efforts to
those of thousands of others, to contribute to the carrying forward of a
great cause; merely to till the ground or sow the seed for a very distant
harvest, or to prepare the way for the future advent of some great
amendment; the amount which each one contrib- utes to the achievement of
ultimate success, the portion of the price which justice should assign to
each as his especial produc- tion, can never be accurately ascertained. 
Perhaps few of those who have ever labored, in the patience of secrecy
and silence, to bring about some political or social change, which they
felt con- vinced would ultimately prove of vast service to humanity,
lived to see the change effected, or the anticipated good flow from it.
Fewer still of them were able to pronounce what appreciable weight their
several efforts contributed to the achievement of the change desired. 
Many will doubt, whether, in truth, these exer- tions have any influence
whatever; and, discouraged, cease all active effort.
    Not to be thus discouraged, the Mason must labor to elevate and
purify his motives, as well as sedulously cherish the convic- tion,
assuredly a true one, that in this world there is no such thing as effort
thrown away; that in all labor there is profit; that all sincere
exertion, in a righteous and unselfish cause, is necessarily followed, in
spite of all appearance to the contrary, by an appro- priate and
proportionate success; that no bread cast upon the waters can be wholly
lost; that no seed planted in the ground can fail to quicken in due time
and measure; and that, however we may, in moments of despondency, be apt
to doubt, not only whether our cause will triumph, but whether, if it
does, we shall have contributed to its triumph,--there is One, Who has
not only seen every exertion we have made, but Who can assign the exact
degree in which each soldier has assisted to gain the great victory over
social evil.  No good work is done wholly in vain.
    The Grand Elect, Perfect, and Sublime Mason will in nowise deserve
that honorable title, if he has not that strength, that will, that
self-sustaining energy; that Faith, that feeds upon no earthly hope, nor
ever thinks of victory, but, content in its own consum- mation, combats,
because it ought to combat, rejoicing fights, and still rejoicing falls.
    The Augean Stables of the World, the accumulated uncleanness and
misery of centuries, require a mighty river to cleanse them thoroughly
away; every drop we contribute aids to swell that river and augment its
force, in a degree appreciable by God, though not by man; and he whose
zeal is deep and earnest, will not be over-anxious that his individual
drops should be distin- guishable amid the mighty mass of cleansing and
fertilizing waters; far less that, for the sake of distinction, it should
flow in ineffective singleness away.
    The true Mason will not be careful that his name should be inscribed
upon the mite which he casts into the treasury of God. It suffices him to
know that if he has labored, with purity of pur- pose, in any good cause,
he must have contributed to its success; that the degree in which he has
contributed is a matter of infi- nitely small concern; and still more,
that the consciousness of having so contributed, however obscurely and
unnoticed, is his sufficient, even if it be his sole, reward.  Let every
Grand Elect, Perfect, and Sublime Mason cherish this faith.  It is a
duty.  It is the brilliant and never-dying light that shines within and
through the symbolic pedestal of alabaster, on which reposes the perfect
cube of agate, symbol of duty, inscribed with the divine name of God.  He
who industriously sows and reaps is a good laborer, and worthy of his
hire.  But he who sows that which shall be reaped by others, by those who
will know not of and care not for the sower, is a laborer of a nobler
order, and, worthy of a more excellent reward.
    The Mason does not exhort others to an ascetic undervaluing of this
life, as an insignificant and unworthy portion of existence; for that
demands feelings which are unnatural, and which, there- fore, if
attained, must be morbid, and if merely professed, insin- cere; and
teaches us to look rather to a future life for the com- pensation of
social evils, than to this life for their cure; and so does injury to the
cause of virtue and to that of social progress. Life is real, and is
earnest, and it is full of duties to be performed. It is the beginning of
our immortality.  Those only who feel a deep interest and affection for
this world will work resolutely for its amelioration; those whose
affections are transferred to Heaven, easily acquiesce in the miseries of
earth, deeming them hopeless, befitting, and ordained; and console
themselves with the idea of the ammends which are one day to be theirs.
It is a sad truth, that those most decidedly given to spiritual
contemplation, and to making religion rule in their hearts, are often
most apathetic to- ward all improvement of this world's systems, and in
many cases virtual conservatives of evil, and hostile to political and
social re- form, as diverting men's energies from eternity.
    The Mason does not war with his own instincts, macerate the body
into weakness and disorder, and disparage what he sees to be beautiful,
knows to be wonderful, and feels to be unspeakably dear and fascinating. 
He does not put aside the nature which God has given him, to struggle
after one which He has not be- stowed.  He knows that man is sent into
the world, not a spir- itual, but a composite being, made up of body and
mind, the body having, as is fit and needful in a material world, its
full, rightful, and allotted share. His life is guided by a full
recognition of this fact.  He does not deny it in bold words, and admit
it in weak- nesses and inevitable failings.  He believes that his
spirituality will come in the next stage of his being, when he puts on
the spir- itual body; that his body will be dropped at death; and that,
until then, God meant it to be commanded and controlled, but not neg-
lected, despised, or ignored by the soul, under pain of heavy con-
sequences.
    Yet the Mason is not indifferent as to the fate of the soul, after
its present life, as to its continued and eternal being, and the char-
acter of the scenes in which that being will be fully developed. These
are to him topics of the proroundest interest, and the most ennobling and
refining contemplation.  They occupy much of his leisure; and as he
becomes familiar with the sorrows and calami- ties of this life, as his
hopes are disappointed and his visions of happiness here fade away; when
life has wearied him in its race of hours; when he is harassed and
toil-worn, and the bur- den of his years weighs heavy on him, the balance
of attraction gradually inclines in favor of another life; and he clings
to his lofty speculations with a tenacity of interest which needs no in-
junction, and will listen to no prohibition.  They are the consol- ing
privilege of the aspiring, the wayworn, the weary, and the bereaved.
    To him the contemplation of the Future lets in light upon the
Present, and develops the higher portions of his nature.  He en- deavors
rightly to adjust the respective claims of Heaven and earth upon his time
and thought, so as to give the proper propor- tions thereof to performing
the duties and entering into the inter- ests of this world, and to
preparation for a better; to the cultiva- tion and purification of his
own character, and to the public service of his fellow-men.
    The Mason does not dogmatize, but entertaining and uttering his own
convictions, he leaves every one else free to do the same; and only hopes
that the time will come, even if after the lapse of ages, when all men
shall form one great family of brethren, and one law alone, the law of
love, shall govern God's whole Uni- verse.
    Believe as you may, my brother; if the Universe is not, to you,
without a God, and if man is not like the beast that perishes, but hath
an immortal soul, we welcome you among us, to wear, as we wear, with
humility, and conscious of your demerits and short- comings, the title of
Grand Elect, Perfect, and Sublime Mason.
    It is not without a secret meaning, that twelve was the num- ber of
the Apostles of Christ, and seventy-two that of his Dis- ciples: that
John addressed his rebukes and menaces to the Seven churches, the number
of the Archangels and the Planets.  At Babylon were the Seven Stages of
Bersippa, a pyramid of Seven stories, and at Ecbatana Seven concentric
inclosures, each of a different color. Thebes also had Seven gates, and
the same num- ber is repeated again and again in the account of the
flood. The Sephiroth, or Emanations, ten in number, three in one class,
and seven in the other, repeat the mystic numbers of Pythagoras. Seven
Amschaspands or planetary spirits were invoked with Ormuzd: Seven
inferior Rishis of Hindustan were saved with the head of their family in
an ark: and Seven ancient personages alone returned with the British just
man, Hu, from the dale of the grievous waters.  There were Seven
Heliadae, whose father Helias, or the Sun, once crossed the sea in a
golden cup; Seven Titans, children of the older Titan, Kronos or Saturn;
Seven Corybantes; and Seven Cabiri, sons of Sydyk; Seven primeval
Celestial spirits of the Japanese, and Seven Karlesters who escaped from
the deluge and began to be the parents of a new race, on the summit of
Mount Albordi.  Seven Cyclopes, also, built the walls of Tiryus.
    Celus, as quoted by Origen, tells us that the Persians repre- sented
by symbols the two-fold motion of the stars, fixed and planetary, and the
passage of the Soul through their successive spheres. They erected in
their holy caves, in which the mystic rites of the Mithriac Initiations
were practised, what he denomi- nates a high ladder, on the Seven steps
of which were Seven gates or portals, according to the number of the
Seven principal heavenly bodies.  Through these the aspirants passed,
until they reached the summit of the whole; and this passage was styled
a transmigration through the spheres.
    Jacob saw in his dream a ladder planted or set on the earth, and its
top reaching to Heaven, and the Malaki Alohim ascending and descending on
it, and above it stood IHUH, declaring Himself to be Ihuh-Alhi Abraham. 
The word translated ladder, is Salam, from Salal, raised, elevated,
reared up, exalted, piled up into a heap, Aggeravit. Salalah, means a
heap, rampart, or other accumulation of earth or stone, artificially
made; and Salaa or Salo, is a rock or cliff or boulder, and the name of
the city of Petra. There is no ancient Hebrew word to designate a
pyramid.
    The symbolic mountain Meru was ascended by Seven steps or stages;
and all the pyramids and artificial tumuli and hillocks thrown up in flat
countries were imitations of this fabulous and mystic mountain, for
purposes of worship. These were the "High Places" so often mentioned in
the Hebrew books, on which the idolaters sacrificed to foreign gods.
    The pyramids were sometimes square, and sometimes round. The sacred
Babylonian tower [Magdol], dedicated to the great Father Bal, was an
artificial hill, of pyramidal shape, and Seven stages, built of brick,
and each stage of a different color, representing the Seven planetary
spheres by the appropriate color of each planet. Meru itself was said to
be a single mountain, ter- minating in three peaks, and thus a symbol of
the Trimurti. The great Pagoda at Tanjore was of six stories, surmounted
by a tem- ple as the seventh, and on this three spires or towers. An
ancient pagoda at Deogur was surmounted by a tower, sustaining the
mystic egg and a trident.  Herodotus tells us that the Temple of Bal at
Babylon was a tower composed of Seven towers, resting on an eighth that
served as basis, and successively diminishing in size from the bottom to
the top; and Strabo tells us it was a pyramid.
    Faber thinks that the Mithriac ladder was really a pyramid with
Seven stages, each provided with a narrow door or aperture, through each
of which doors the aspirant passed, to reach the summit, and then
descended through similar doors on the opposite side of the pyramid; the
ascent and descent of the Soul being thus represented.
    Each Mithriac cave and all the most ancient temples were tended to
symbolize the Universe, which itself was habitually called the Temple and
habitation of Deity.  Every temple was the world in miniature; and so the
whole world was one grand temple. The most ancient temples were roofless;
and therefore the Persians, Celts, and Scythians strongly disliked
artificial cov- ered edifices.  Cicero says that Xerxes burned the
Grecian tem- ples, on the express ground that the whole world was the
Magnifi- cent Temple and Habitation of the Supreme Deity.  Macrobius
says that the entire Universe was judiciously deemed by many the Temple
of God.  Plato pronounced the real Temple of the Deity to be the world;
and Heraclitus declared that the Universe, varie- gated with animals and
plants and stars was the only genuine Temple of the Divinity.
    How completely the Temple of Solomon was symbolic, is manifest, not
only from the continual reproduction in it of the sacred numbers and of
astrological symbols in the histor- ical descriptions of it; but also, and
yet more, from the de- tails of the imaginary reconstructed edifice, seen
by Ezekiel in his vision.  The Apocalypse completes the demonstration,
and shows the kabalistic meanings of the whole.  The Sym- bola
Architectonica are found on the most ancient edifices; and these
mathematical figures and instruments, adopted by the Templars, and
identical with those on the gnostic seals and abraxae, connect their
dogma with the Chaldaic, Syriac, and Egyptian Oriental philosophy.  The
secret Pythagorean doc- trines of numbers were preserved by the monks of
Thibet, by the Hierophants of Egypt and Eleusis, at Jerusalem, and in
the circular Chapters of the Druids; and they are especially consecrated
in that mysterious book, the Apocalypse of Saint John.
    All temples were surrounded by pillars, recording the number of the
constellations, the signs of the zodiac, or the cycles of the planets;
and each one was a microcosm or symbol of the Universe, having for roof
or ceiling the starred vault of Heaven.
    All temples were originally open at the top, having for roof the
sky. Twelve pillars described the belt of the zodiac.  Whatever the
number of the pillars, they were mystical everywhere.  At Abury, the
Druidic temple reproduced all the cycles by its col- umns. Around the
temples of Chilminar in Persia, of Baalbec, and of Tukhti Schlomoh in
Tartary, on the frontier of China, stood forty pillars.  On each side of
the temple at Paestum were fourteen, recording the Egyptian cycle of the
dark and light sides of the moon, as described by Plutarch; the whole
thirty-eight that surrounded them recording the two meteoric cycles so
often found in the Druidic temples.
    The theatre built by Scaurus, in Greece, was surrounded by 360
columns; the Temple at Mecca, and that at Iona in Scotland, by 360
stones.

