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Short Talk Bulletin Vol 02 No 02
SHORT TALK BULLETIN - Vol.II February, 1924 No.2
ALTAR
by: Unknown
A Masonic Lodge is a symbol of the world as it was thought to be in the
olden times. Our ancient Brethren had a profound insight when they saw
that the world is a Temple, over-hung by a starry canopy at night, lighted
by the journeying sun by day, wherein man goes forth to his labor on a
checker-board of lights and shadows, joy and sorrows, seeking to reproduce
on earth the law and order of heaven. The visible world was but a picture
or reflection of the invisible, and at its center stood the Altar of
sacrifices, obligation and adoration.
While we hold a view of the world very unlike that held by our Ancient
Brethren - knowing it to round, not flat and square - yet their insight is
still true. The whole idea was that man, if he is to build either a House
of Faith, or an order of society that is to endure, he must initiate the
laws and principles of the world in which he lives. That is also our dream
and design; the love of it ennobles our lives; it is our labor and worship.
To fulfill it we too need wisdom and help from above; and so at the center
of the Lodge stands the same Altar - older than all Temples, as old as life
itself - a focus of faith and fellowship, at once a symbol and shrine of
that unseen element of thought and yearning that all men are aware of and
which no one can define.
Upon this earth there is nothing more impressive than the silence of a
company of human beings bowed together at an Altar. No thoughtful man but
at some time has mused over the meaning of this great adoring habit of our
humanity, and the wonder of it deepens the longer he ponders it. The
instinct which thus draws men together to prayer is the strange power which
has drawn together the stones of Great Cathedrals, where the mystery of God
is embodied. So far as we know, man is the only being on our planet that
pauses to pray, and the wonder of his worship tells us more about him than
any other fact. By some deep necessity of his nature he is a seeker after
God, and in moments of sadness or longing, in hours of tragedy or terror,
he lays aside his tools and looks out over the far horizon.
The history of the Altar in the life of man is a story more fascinating
than any fiction. Whatever else man may have been - cruel, tyrannous or
vindictive - the record of his long search for God is enough to prove that
he is not wholly base, not altogether an animal. Rites horrible, and often
bloody, may have been part of his early ritual, but if the history of past
ages had left us nothing but the memory of a race at prayer, it would have
left us rich. And so, following the good custom of the men which were of
old, we set up an Altar in the Lodge, lifting up hands in prayer, moved
thereto by the ancient need and aspiration of our humanity. Like the men
who walked in the grey years agone, our need is for the living God to
hallow these our days and years, even to the last ineffable homeward sigh
which men call death.
The earliest Altar was a rough, unhewn stone set up, like the stone which
Jacob set up at Bethel when his dream of a ladder on which angels were
ascending and descending, turned his lonely bed into a house of God and a
gate of Heaven. Later, as faith became more refined and the idea of
sacrifice grew in meaning, the Altar was built of hewn stone - cubical in
form - cut, carved and often beautifully wrought, on which men lavished
jewels and priceless gifts, deeming nothing too costly to adorn the place
of prayer. Later still, when men erected a Temple dedicated and adorned as
the House of God among men, there were two Altars, one of sacrifice, and
one of incense. The Altar of sacrifice where slain beasts were offered
stood in front of the Temple; the Altar of incense on which burned the
fragrance of worship stood within. Behind all was the far withdrawn Holy
Place into which only the High Priest might enter.
As far back as we can go the Altar was the center of human society, and an
object of peculiar sanctity by virtue of that law of association by which
places and things are consecrated. It was a place of refuge for the hunted
or the tormented - criminals or slaves - and to drag them away from it by
violence was held to be an act of sacrilege, since they were under the
protection of God. At the Altar, marriage rites were solemnized, and
treaties made or vows taken in its presence were more Holy and binding than
if made elsewhere, because, there man invoked God as witness. In all the
religions of antiquity, and especially among peoples who worshipped the
light, it was the usage of both Priests and people to pass around the Altar
following the course of the sun - from the East, by way of the South, to
the West - singing hymns of praise as a part of their worship. Their
ritual was thus an allegorical picture of the truth which underlies all
religion - that man must live on earth in harmony with the rhythm and
movement of heaven.
From facts and hints such as these we begin to see the meaning of the Altar
in Masonry, and the reason for its position in the Lodge. In English
Lodges, as in the French and the Scottish Rites, it stands in front of the
Master in the East. In the York Rite, so called, it is placed in the
center of the Lodge - more properly a little to the East of the center -
about which all Masonic activities revolve. It is not simply a necessary
piece of furniture, a kind of table intended to support the Holy Bible, the
Square and Compasses. Alike by its existence and its situation it
identifies Masonry as a religious institution, and yet its uses are not
exactly the same as the offices of an Altar in a Cathedral or a Shrine.
Here is a fact often overlooked, and we ought to get it clearly in our
minds.
The position of the Altar in the Lodge is not accidental, but is profoundly
significant. For, while Masonry is not a religion, it is religious in its
faith and basic principles, no less than in its spirit and purpose. And
yet it is not a Church. Nor does it attempt to do what the Church is
trying to do. If it were a Church its Altar would be in the East and its
Ritual would be altered accordingly. That is to say, Masonry is not a
religion, much less a sect, but a worship in which all men can unite
because it does not undertake to explain, or dogmatically to settle in
detail, those issues by which men are divided. Beyond the Primary,
fundamental facts of faith it does not go. With the philosophy of those
facts, and the differences and disputes growing out of them, it has not to
do. In short, the position of the Altar in the Lodge is a symbol of what
Masonry believes the Altar should be in actual life, a center of division,
as is now so often the case. It does not seek fraternity of spirit,
leaving each one free to fashion his own philosophy of ultimate truth. As
we nay read in the Constitutions of 1723:
"A Mason is obliged, by his Tenure, to obey the moral Law; and if he
rightly understands the Art, he will never be a stupid Atheist, not an
irreligious Libertine. But though in ancient Times Masons were charged in
every Country to be of the Religion of the Country or Nation, whatever it
was, yet 'tis now thought more expedient only to oblige them to that
Religion in which all Men agree, leaving their particular Opinions to
themselves; that is, to be good Men and True, or Men of Honor and Honesty,
by whatever denominations or Persuasions they may be distinguished; whereby
Masonry becomes the Center of Union, and the Means of conciliating true
Friendship among Persons that must have remained at a perpetual distance."
Surely those are memorable words, a Magna Charta of friendship and
fraternity. Masonry goes hand in hand with religion until religion enters
the field of sectarian feud, and there it stops; because Masonry seeks to
unite men, not to divide them. Here then, is the meaning of the Masonic
Altar and its position in the Lodge. It is first of all, an Altar of Faith
- deep, eternal Faith which underlies all creeds and over-arches all sects;
Faith in God, in the Moral Law, and in the Life Everlasting. Faith in God
is the Cornerstone and the Keystone of Freemasonry. It is the first truth
and the last, the truth that makes all other truths true, without which
life is a riddle and fraternity a futility. For, apart from God the
Father, our dream of the Brotherhood of Man is as vain as all the vain
things proclaimed of Solomon - a Fiction having no basis or hope in fact.
At the same time, the Altar of Freemasonry is an Altar of Freedom - not
freedom "From" faith, but Freedom Of" faith. Beyond the fact of the
reality of God it does not go, allowing every man to think of God according
to his experience of life and his vision of truth. It does not define God,
much less dogmati-cally determine how and what men shall think or believe
about God. There dispute and division begin. As a matter of fact, Masonry
is not speculative at all, but operative, or rather, co-operative. While
all its teaching implies the Fatherhood of God, yet its ritual does not
actually affirm that truth, still less does it make a test of fellowship.
Behind this silence lies a deep and wise reason. Only by the practice of
Brotherhood do men realize the Divine Fatherhood. As a true-hearted poet
has written:
"No man could tell me what my soul might be;
I sought for God, and he has eluded me;
I sought my Brother out, and found all three."
Here one fact more, and the meaning of the Masonic Altar will be plain.
Often one enters a great Church, like Westminster Abbey, and finds it
empty, or only a few people in the pews here and there, praying or in deep
thought. They are sitting quietly, each without reference to others,
seeking an opportunity for the soul to be alone, to communicate with
mysteries greater than itself, and find healing for the bruising of life.
But no one ever goes to a Masonic Altar alone. No one bows before it at
all except when the Lodge is open and in the presence of his Brethren. It
is an Alter of Fellowship, as it is to teach us that no man can learn the
truth for another, and no man can learn it alone. Masonry brings men
together in mutual respect, sympathy and good will, that we may learn in
love the truth that is hidden by apathy and lost by hate.
For the rest, let us never forget - what has been so often and so sadly
forgotten - that the most sacred Altar on earth is the soul of man - your
soul and mine; and that the Temple and its ritual are not ends in
themselves, but a beautiful means to the end that every human heart may be
a sanctuary of faith, a shrine of love, and Altar of purity, pity, and
unconquerable hope.
