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Back to the Index SHORT TALK BULLETIN - Vol.V September, 1927 No.9 THE RUFFIANS
by: Unknown
As every Mason knows, at the heart of our mysteries lies a legend, in
which we learn how three unworthy craftsmen entered into a plot to extort
from a famous Mason a secret to which they had no right. It is all
familiar enough, in its setting and sequence; and it is a part of his
initiation which no Mason ever forgets.
In spite of its familiarity, the scene in which the Ruffians appear is
one of the most impressive that any man ever beheld, if it is not marred,
as it often is, alas, by a hint of rowdy. No one can witness it without
being made to feel there is a secret which, for all our wit and wisdom, we
have not yet won from the Master Builder of the world; the mystery of evil
in the life of man.
To one who feels the pathos of life and ponders its mystery, a part of
its tragedy is the fact that the Great Man, toiling for the good of the
race, is so often stricken down when the goal of his labors is almost
within his reach; as Lincoln was shot in an hour when he was most needed.
Nor is he an isolated example. The shadow lies dark upon the pages of
history in every age.
The question is baffling: Why is it that evil men, acting from low
motives and for selfish aims, have such power to throw the race into
confusion and bring ruin upon all, defeating the very end at which they
aim? Is it true that all the holy things of life - the very things that
make it worth living - are held at the risk and exposed to the peril of
evil forces; and if so, why should it be so?
If we cannot answer such questions we can at least ask another nearer
to hand. Since everything in masonry is symbolic, who are the ruffians and
what is the legend trying to tell us? Of course we know the names they
wear, but what is the truth back of it all which it will help us to know?
As is true of all Masonic symbols, as many meanings have been found as
there have been seekers.
It all depends on the key with which each seeker sets out to unlock the
meaning of Masonry. To those who trace our symbolism to the ancient solar
worship, the three Ruffians are the three winter months who plot to murder
the beauty and glory of summer, destroying the life-giving heat of the
sun. To those who find the origin of Masonry in the Ancient Mysteries of
Egypt, it is a drama of Typhon, the Spirit of Evil, slaying Osirus the
Spirit of Good, who is resurrected, in turn rising triumphant over death.
Not a few find the fulfillment of this oldest of all dramas in the life
and death of Jesus, who was put to death outside the city gate by three of
the most ruthless Ruffians - the Priest, the Politician and the Mob. Which
of the three is the worst foe of humanity is hard to tell, but when they
work together, as they usually do, there is no crime against man of which
they have not been guilty.
A few think that Masonry, as we have it, grew out of the downfall of
the Knights Templar, identify the three Assassins, as they are called in
the Lodges of Europe, with three renegade Knights who falsely accused the
Order, and so aided King Phillip and Pope Clement to abolish Templarism,
and slay its Grand Master, A very few see in Cromwell and his adherents
the plot-ters, putting to death Charles the First.
It is plain that we must go further back and deeper down if we are to
find the real Ruffians, who are still at large. Albert Pike identified the
three Brothers who are the greatest enemies of individual welfare and
social progress as Kingcraft, Priestcr-aft, and the ignorant Mob-Mind.
Together they conspire to destroy liberty, without which man can make no
advance.
The first strikes a blow at the throat, the seat of freedom of speech,
and that is a mortal wound. The second stabs at the heart, the home of
freedom of conscience, and that is well-nigh fatal, since it puts out the
last ray of Divine Light by which man is guided. The third of the foul
plotters fells his victim dead with a blow on the brain, which is the
throne of freedom of thought.
No lesson could be plainer; it is written upon every page of the past.
If by apathy, neglect or stupidity we suffer free speech, free conscience,
and free thought to be destroyed either by Kingcraft, Priestcraft or the
Mob-Mind; or, by all three working together - for they are Brothers and
usually go hand in hand - the Temple of God will be dark, there will be no
designs upon the Trestlboard, and the result will be idleness, confusion
and chaos. It is a parable of history - a picture of many an age in the
past of which we read. For, where there is no light of Divine Vision, the
Altar fire is extinguished. The people "perish" s the Bible
tells us; literally they become a mob, which is only another way of saying
the same thing. There are no designs on the Trestleboard; that is, no
leadership, - as in Russia today, where the herd-mind runs wild and runs
red. Chaos comes again, inevitably so when all the lights are blown out,
and the people are like ignorant armies that clash by night.
Of the three Ruffians, the most terrible, the most ruthless, the most
brutal is the ignorant Mob-Mind. No tyrant, no priest can reduce a nation
to slavery and control it until it is lost in the darkness of ignorance.
By ignorance we mean not merely lack of knowledge, but the state of mind
in which men refuse, or are afraid, to think, to reason, to enquire. When
"The Great Free-doms of the Mind" go, everything is lost!.
After this manner Pike expounded the meaning of the three Ruffians. who
rob themselves, as they rob their fellow craftsmen, of the most precious
secret of personal and social life. A secret, let it be added, which
cannot be extorted, but is only won when we are worthy to receive it and
have the wit and courage to keep it. For, oddly enough, we cannot have
real liberty until we are ready for it, and can only become worthy of it
by seeking and striving for it.
But some of us go further, and find the same three Ruffians nearer home
- hiding in our own hearts. And naturally so, because society is only the
individual writ larger; and what men are together is determined by what
each is by himself. If we know who the ruffians really are, we have only
to ask; what three things waylay each of us, destroy character, and if
they have their way either slay us or turn us into ruffians? Why do we do
evil and mar the Temple of God in us? Three great Greek thinkers searched
until they found the three causes of sin in the heart of man. In other
words, they hunted in the mountains of the mind until they found the
Ruffi-ans. Socrates said that the chief ruffian is ignorance - that is, no
man in his right mind does evil unless he is so blinded by ignorance that
he does see the right. No man, he said, seeing good and evil side by side,
will choose evil unless he is too blind to see its results. An enlightened
self-interest would stop him. Therefore, his remedy for the ills of life
is knowl-edge - more light, and a clearer insight. Even so, said Plato; it
is all true as far as it goes. But the fact is that men do see right and
wrong clearly, and yet in a dark mood they do wrong in spite of knowledge.
When the mind is calm and clear, the right is plain, but a storm of
passion stirs up sediments in the bottom of the mind, and it is so cloudy
that clear vision fails. The life of a man is like driving a team of
horses, one tame and the other wild. So long as the wild horse is held
firmly all goes well. But, alas, often enough, the wild horse gets loose
and there is a run-away and a wreck.
But that is not all, said Aristotle. We do not get to the bottom truth
of the matter until we admit the fact and possibil-ity - in ourselves and
in our fellows - of a moral perversity, a spirit of sheer mischief, which
does wrong, deliberately and in the face of right, calmly and with
devilish cunning, for the sake of wrong and for the love of it. Here,
truly, is the real Ruffian most to be feared - a desperate character he
is, who can only be overcome by Divine Help.
Thus, three great thinkers capture the Ruffians, hiding somewhere in
our own minds. It means much to have them brought before us for judgment,
and happy is the man who is wise enough to take them outside the city of
his mind and execute them. Nothing else or less will do. To show them any
mercy is to invite misery and disaster. They are ruthless, and must be
dealt with ruthlessly and at once. If we parley with them, if we soften
toward them, we our-selves may be turned into Ruffians. Good but foolish
Fellowcra-fts came near being intrigued into a hideous crime. "If thy
right eye offend, pluck it out," said the greatest of Teachers. Only
a celestial surgery will save the whole body from infection and moral rot.
We dare not make terms with evil, else it will dictate terms to us before
we are aware of it.
One does not have to break the head of a Brother in order to be a
Ruffian. One can break a heart. One can break his home. One can slay his
good name. The amount of polite and refined ruffianism that goes on about
us every day is appalling. Watch-fulness is wisdom. Only a mind well
tiled, with a faithful inner guard ever at his post, may hope to keep the
ruffian spirit out of your heart and mine. No wise man dare be careless or
take any chances with the thought, feelings and motives he admits into the
Lodge of the mind, whereof he is Master.
So let us live, watch and work, until Death, the last Ruffian, whom
none can escape, lays us low, assured that even the dark, dumb hour, which
brings a dreamless sleep about our couch, will not be able to keep us from
the face of God, whose strong grip will free us and lift us out of shadows
into the Light; out of dim phantoms into the Life Eternal that cannot die.
"SO MOTE IT BE" |