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Back to the Index SHORT TALK BULLETIN - Vol.V February, 1927 No.2
FROM LEFT TO RIGHT
by: Unknown
For some of us nothing in Masonry is more impressive than its very
first rite, after an initiate has told "In Whom Do You Put Your
Trust." It may be easily overlooked, but not to see it is to miss a
part of that beauty we were sent to seek.
Surely he is a strange man who can witness it without deep feeling. The
initiate is told that he can neither foresee nor prevent danger, but that
he is in the hands of a true and trusty friend in whose fidelity he can,
with safety, confide. It is literally true of the candidate, as it is of
all of us.
As a ceremony it may mean nothing, as a symbol it means everything, if
we regard initiation as we should, as a picture of a man pursuing the
journey of life, groping his dim and devious way out of the unreal into
the real, out of darkness into light, out of the shadows into the way of
life everlasting.
So groping, yet gently guided and guarded, man sets out on a mystic
journey on an unseen road, traveling from the West to the East, and then
from the East to the West by way of the South, seeking a city that hath
foundations, where truth is known in fullness and life reveals both its
meaning and its mystery. How profoundly true it is of the way we all must
walk.
From the hour we are born till we are laid in our grave we grope our
way in the dark, and none could find or keep the path without a guide.
From how many ills, how many perils, how many pitfalls we are guarded in
the midst of the years! With all our boasted wisdom and foresight, even
when we fancy we are secure we may be in the presence of dire danger, if
not death itself.
Truly it does not lie within a man to direct his path, and without a
true and trusted Friend in whom he can confide, not one of us would find
his way home. So Masonry teaches us, simply but unmistakably, at the first
step as at the last, that we live and walk by Faith, not by sight; and to
know that fact is the beginning of wisdom. Since this is so, since no man
can find his way alone, in life as in the lodge we must with humility
trust our Guide, learn His ways, follow Him and fear no danger. Happy is
the man who has learned that secret.
No wonder this simple rite is one of the oldest and most universal
known among men. In all lands, in all ages, as far back as we have record,
one may trace it, going back to the days when man thought the sun was God,
or at least His visible outshining, whose daily journey through the sky,
from East to the West by way of the South, he followed in his faith and
worship, seeking to win the favor of the Eternal by imitating his actions
and reproducing His ways upon earth. In Egypt, in India, in Greece, it was
so. In the East, among the Magi, the priest walked three times around the
Altar, keeping it to his right, chanting hymns, as in the Lodge we recite
words from the Book of Holy Law. Some think the Druids had the same rite,
which is why the stones at Stonehenge are arranged in circular form about
a huge altar; and no doubt it is true.
What did man mean by the old and eloquent rite? All the early thought
of man was mixed up with magic, and he is not yet free from it. One finds
traces of it even in our own day. By magic is meant the idea that by
imitating the ways of God we can actually control Him and make Him do what
we want done. It is a false idea, but it still clings to much of our
religion, as when men imagine that by saying so many prayers that they
have gained so much merit.
Masonry is not magic; it is moral science. In the Lodge we are taught
that we must learn the way and will of God, not in order to use Him for
our ends, but the better to be used by Him for His ends. The difference
may seem slight at first, but it is really the difference between a true
and a false faith - between religion and superstition. Much of the
religion of today is sheer superstition, in which magic takes the place of
morals. In Masonry morality has first place, and no religion is valid
without it.
As might be expected, a rite so old, so universal, so profoundly
simple, has had many meanings read into it.. The more the better; as a
great teacher said of the Bible, the more meanings we find in it the
richer we are. Some find in this old and simple rite a parable of the
history of Masonry itself, which had its origin in the East and journeyed
to the West, bringing the oldest wisdom of the world to bless and guide
the newest lands.
Others see in it a symbol of the story of humanity, in its slow,
fumbling march up out of savagery into the light of civilization; and it
does lend itself to such a meaning. Often the race has seemed to be
marching round and round, moving but making no progress; but that is only
seeming. It does advance, in spite of the difficulties and obstructions in
its path.
Still other think that it is a parable of the life of each individual,
showing our advance from youth with its rising sun in the East, which
reaches its zenith in the meridian splendor of the South, and declines
with the falling daylight to old age in the West. It is thus an allegory
of the life of man upon the earth, its progress and its pathos, and it is
true to fact.
All of these meanings are true and beautiful; but there is another and
deeper meaning taught us more clearly in the old English Rituals than in
our own. It offers us an answer to the persistent questions: What am I?
Whence Came I? Whither Go I? It tells us that the west is the symbol of
this world; the East of the world above and beyond. Hence the colloquy in
the first degree:
"As a Mason, whence do you come?" "From the West."
"Whiter do you journey?" "To the East." "What is
your inducement?" "In quest of light."
That is, man supposes that his life originated in this world, and he
answers accordingly. But that is because he is not properly instructed; he
has not yet learned the great secret that the soul, our life-star, had
elsewhere its setting and comes from beyond this world of sense and time.
It is only sent into this dim world of sense and shadow for discipline and
development - sent to find itself. So, in the Third degree, the answers
are different, for by that time the initiate has been taught a higher
truth:
"Whence do you come?" "From the East."
"Whither are you wending?" "To the West." "What
is your inducement?" "To find that which is lost."
"Where do you hope to find it?" "In the center."
Ah, here is real insight and understanding, to know which is to have a
key to much that we do and endure in our life on earth; much which
otherwise remains a riddle. Our life here in time and flesh is a becoming,
a chance to find ourselves. It is as Keats said, a vale of soul-making,
and the hard things that hit and hurt us must be needed for our making,
else they would not be.
Nor do we walk with aimless feet, journeying nowhere, as the smart
philosophers of our day tell us. It is not a futile quest in which we are
engaged. And Masonry assures us that we are both guided and guarded by the
Friend who knows the way and may be trusted to the end. Its promise is
that the veils will be removed from our eyes and the truth made known to
us, when we are ready and worthy to receive it. But, not until then!
It is a goodly teaching, tried by long ages and found to be wise and
true. Alas, it is easily lost sight of and forgotten, and we need to learn
it again and again. Here too, Masonry is a wise teacher; it repeats, line
upon line, precept upon precept. In every degree it shows us the march of
the soul around the Altar, and then beyond it up the winding, spiral
stair, and still beyond into the light and joy of the Eternal Life.
Save by the old Roman Road none attain the new. From the Ancient Hills
alone we catch the view! |