Short Talk Bulletin Vol 12 No 10

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Short Talk Bulletin

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SHORT TALK BULLETIN - Vol.XII   October, 1934   No.10 

MASONRY AND RELIGION 

by: Unknown 

Every brother must decide for himself whether freemasonry has, or has  
not, is or is not, a religion. 
Without argument pro or con a few thoughts are here set forth by  
which such decision may be illuminated; doubtless he who decides in  
the negative will herein find support for his position, and perhaps  
he who finds joy in the belief that Freemasonry is more than a  
Fraternity, and that the ancient Craft is not alone of this, but of  
two worlds, may be comforted. 
To discuss any subject intelligently it is necessary that those who  
speak and those who listen have a common understanding of the terms  
used.  It will hardly be necessary here to define Freemasonry  
although many have phrased many definitions.  But it does seem  
essential that the reader and the writer have one mind as to what is  
meant by religion. 
The terms has many meanings in many minds.  For instance: “What is  
the religion of the Unite States?”  is a question intelligently  
answered by: “On the whole, Protes-tant,” by those who think of  
religion as made up of modes of worship which may be Episcopalian or  
Catholic, Jewish or Mohammedan, Baptist or Buddhist.  But change the  
tense and ask: “What are the “Religions” of the United States,” and  
the only complete answer will be a catalog of all the faiths followed  
in this country. 
There is, then, a difference between “the religion” and “the  
religions.”  Carried a step further, there is a great distinction  
between “a religion” and “religion.”  Any qualifying article seems to  
connote a special variety of theology; it is only when we forget that  
“a” and “the” that we come to that experience of the heart which is  
essential religion. 
Some deny that in Freemasonry is “anything” religious, let alone  
religion.  “Freemasonry as we know it was born in a tavern in London;  
how can it be religious?”  has been asked by those who forget that  
lilies bloom on a dung hill and that the carpenter who walked by  
Galilee was born in a stable.  But to those to whom Freemasonry is  
but a social order these words are not addressed; he who can avow a  
belief in God, kneel at his Altar, take vows in His name, receive the  
teachings of the Lodge and deny “any” kinship with worship of the  
Great Architect is not within the reach of words here to be printed. 
Religion is most emphatically not theology; more’s the pity, the two  
are all too frequently confused.  Religion is consciousness of,  
kinship with, worship for a Supreme Being; theology is the means, the  
method, the science of such worship.  Theology is the manual of  
astronomy, but it is the stars in the sky towards which we reach;  
theology is the craft of mixing colors, but man thrills to the sunset  
without knowing even the names of its hues. 
Nor is it necessary here to say that Freemasonry inculcates no  
theology.  Every Freemason must affirm the existence of Deity; he is  
an unhappy Freemason indeed for whom a life to come is not a fact,  
but nowhere about the Altar of the Great Architect in a Lodge, in no  
words of any Masonic ritual, is there a symbol or phrase setting  
forth by what ways or means a brother is to claim kinship with the  
Unseen Presence. 
Millions of reverent men never even heard of the term “theology,”  
still less know its meaning.  But there lives no man who does not  
know of God - aye, even if he knows but to deny him.  R.W. Brother  
Joseph Fort Newton, of the Golden Pen and understanding heart, who  
sees more in life and religion and Freemasonry than is given to many  
a brother formed of more common clay; has written: 
“There is in human nature a spiritual quality, by whatever name it is  
described; to express which some contrive theologies, others write  
rituals and others sing anthems.  It is a part of our human  
endowment, at once the foundation of our faith and the consecration  
of our labor.  It emerged with man, revealing itself in love and  
birth, joy and woe, pity and pain and death; in the blood in the  
veins of men, the milk in the breasts of women, the laughter of  
little children, in the ritual of the seasons - all the old, sweet,  
sad and happy human things - adding a rhythm and pathos to mortal  
life.  Older than all creeds, deeper than all dogmas, it is the voice  
out of the heart of the world; the account which life gives of itself  
when it is healthy, natural and free.” 
It is this sense of one-ness with an invisible Absolute, of a touch  
with matters spiritual none the less true that they are too ethereal  
to phrase; of the reality of that which is the more all embracing  
that it is unseen, unheard, untouched and unknown; which is here  
meant by the term “religion,” with no qualifying article to fence it  
into the narrow confines of any creed or special faith.  It is “that  
natural religion in which all men agree” as the wise fathers but it  
in the first of the Old Charges of a Freemason. 
Modern science teaches us that what we see and taste and touch and  
feel is but the shadow of reality.  In the eyes of science the common  
chair on which we sit is a vast space filled with vibrating electrons  
and protons, too small to conceive, too speedy to envisage.  The  
space we know and move in is but a phase of time; the intervals we  
measure on a clock face are but parts of a “space-time continuum.” 
In somewhat the same way, neither Freemasonry nor religion are really  
as we see them; they are but shadows of a greater reality behind.  In  
a certain theatrical produc-tion it was necessary to introduce the  
Christ.  To do so with a reverence which should offend no one, the  
producer showed His presence merely by a glory of light which came,  
and passed, and went.  Religion is such a glory - a light from One  
Passing Unseen.  In all reverence, Freemasonry too, is a hidden sun  
of which we know only the shadows cast by brethren as they move  
against it. 
It will be news to none that Freemasonry has secrets; but to some the  
concept will be new, that the greatest secret is one which none need  
take an obligation never to reveal.  It is one each man must learn  
for himself; for its words have not been coined, so he cannot tell it  
if he would. 
So has religion her secret - it is written large in many a holy book,  
yet never the tongue which may read it aloud.  It is painted in the  
rainbow and the aurora, but never the artist has lived who could limn  
it.  It sounds in the music of great composers, but never has a  
harmonist translated it in words formed by the lips. 
So religion and Freemasonry alike tell their simple, profound  
secrets, to all who will learn, by the use of symbols. 
Freemasons are bound each to each by the Mystic Tie; define it,  
explain it, put it pinto words!  It may not be done, for there are no  
words.  Some say it is the Cabletow, confusing the symbol with the  
thing symbolized.  The cabletow is no more the Mystic Tie than the  
umbilical cord is the mother love.  Yet the Mystic Tie is real;  
brethren braid it in the Lodge, twist its strands together in  
fellowship, lay cord on cord to form it in pity and charity and  
relief.  The friendly word ties a knot in it; the familiar background  
of mutually lived Lodge life keeps its end from fraying.  Those who  
meet on the level and part upon the square, who listen together to  
the old, old words of the old, old ritual, tie it tighter, and  
tighter about them . .  .but cannot tell of it; only feel it, know  
it, love it.  A great Masonic poet wrote: 
“What is it in the wild things that calls to little wild things?   
What secret sacred things do the mountains whisper to the hillmen, so  
silently yet so surely that they can be heard above the din and  
clatter of the world?  What mystery does the sea tell the sailor, the  
desert to the Arab, the arctic ice to the explorer, the stars to the  
astronomer?  When we have answered these questions; mayhap we may  
define the magic of Masonry - who knows what it is, or how, or why,  
unless it be the long Cabletow of God running from heart to heart?” 
Religion cannot exist without the human race, since - at least as far  
as we know - the beast of the field do not worship. 
And the contrary is true - the race could not have been, without  
religion.  Wise scientists “prove” that worship of an Unseen Presence  
is an outgrowth of a primal fear of the unknown causes of natural  
phenomena; thunder, lightning, earthquake, wind storm, tidal waves  
and so on.  But others as wise point to the instincts through which  
alone the race has survived and grown - love and protection of the  
weak, care of the infant, mutual helpfulness, the formation of tribes  
on the foundation of the greatest good to the greatest number; all of  
which, during the slow years, have evolved into justice, liberty,  
unselfishness, courage and the giving spirit. 
Even the beasts of the jungle know love of offspring and occasionally  
the spirit of helping one another; without them, no species could  
survive. 
Religion, then, rests on the certainty that there “is” a meaning to  
life.  Without it, our very existence is chaos.  No man is so  
Godless, no character so vile, but what some within is a  
consciousness of “meaning.”  The completely selfish person who live  
solely for himself cannot survive.  Nor confuse this with that queer  
doctrine  which says that all that is lofty and fine in humanity is  
but “enlightened selfishness.; that the courageous man who faces  
death for his friend is doing that which pleases him better than  
living securely without risk; that he who devotes himself to service  
to others at personal sacrifice prefers that life, and therefore, but  
please his own desires; that the missionary who faces torture and  
death to spread the gospel thinks only that in such a life will he  
find his greatest joy.  For if that doctrine is carried back to the  
Great Teachers - Jesus and Moses, Confucius and Buddha - it becomes  
blasphemy. 
Religion knows there is meaning to life; Freemasonry is as definite  
in her dependence upon the rationality of the Universe, the define  
justice in which brethren have most faith when understanding it  
least.  Without creed or dogma, Freemasonry is predicated upon an  
utter belief that in the universe man has his place, and in the  
reality of spiritual value.  Here Freemasonry and religion are so  
close they seem to become one.  Yet even when two theories of living  
coalesce there is no proof that one possesses, or is possessed by the  
other. 
Religion should not be required to submit to any process of  
“proving.”  Proofs are for the mind; religious conviction transcends  
the mind.  Proofs are of man; religion in man’s heart is of God.   
Proofs are what we see with the eye and touch with the hand;  
religion’s certainties are not of the earth, earthy. 
Theologies and dogmas, rites and churches, creeds and faiths have  
complicated religion for the common man by a multiplicity of details,  
a hard and fast hewing to some one line, conceived by some -  
doubtless human and mistaken - mind.  Religion, as distinct from “a”  
religion or “the” religions, teaches only by the simplest of symbols  
- so does Freemasonry.  The parables of the Carpenter of Nazareth are  
all concerned with every day things; the symbols of religion - home,  
fireside, a building, a lost sheep, a father’s love - are simple.   
The symbols of Freemasonry which teach the most are the simplest -  
the square, the compasses, the letter “G, the sprig of Acacia, a  
Great Light to shine. . . 
Tear aside the dark veil that hangs between today and the dim and  
distant past when men worshipped fire on a pile of stones - a group  
of half naked men and women and children in solemn procession pass  
from east to west by way of the south about the godhead burning  
merrily, casting in the flames the roots which, ignited, give out the  
sweet odor, laying on the coals what was to become the “burnt  
offering” of the days of Moses, all with the dim idea of  
propitiation. 
Tear from a “high” church the veil of formality and austere ritualism  
which enshrouds its truths - a group of men and women kneel humbly to  
partake of the bread and wine by which they offer contrite hearts to  
the Unseen Presence. 
Finally, tear aside the covering of mystery and ritualistic  
observance which conceals a Masonic Lodge at labor from a profane  
world - a group of men who pass from the east to the west by way of  
the south to gather about an Altar, there to lay their hands and vow  
themselves to mutual service, offering their gifts to the Great  
Architect of the Universe in gratitude for the fatherhood of God and  
the brotherhood of man, and of the old, old Craft. . . 
Every brother must decide for himself whether Freemasonry has or has  
not, is or is not a religion. 
But before he decides let him read, in the Great Light of Masonry,  
Matthew, Chapter XVIII, verse 20.