Bayport Temple Building, Victoria Harbour, ON
The 'Mission of Masonry' framed quotation.
The Mission of Masonry
"I believe that a determination to maintain the values, which have been the rock upon which the Masonic structure has stood firm against the storms of the past, is the only policy which can be pursued in the future."
Most Worshipful Brother His Majesty King George VI.
Photo of The King:
www.flickr.com/photos/billsoong/5485011709/in/photolist-9...
If we examine the foundations of Masonry, we find that it rests upon the most fundamental of truths, the first truth and the last, the sovereign and supreme Reality. Upon the threshold of its Lodges every man, whether prince or peasant, is asked to confirm his faith in God the Father Almighty, the Architect and Master-builder if the Universe. Life leads, if we follow its meaning and think in the drift of its deeper conclusions, to one God as the ground of the world, and upon that ground, Masonry lays her cornerstone therefore it endures and grows.
This profound and reverent faith, from which, as from a never-failing spring, flow heroic devotedness, moral self-respect, authentic sentiments of fraternity, inflexible fidelity and honor in life, effectual consolation and hope in death, Masonry at all times has religiously taught. Perseveringly it has propagated it through the centuries. Scarcely a Masonic discourse is pronounced, or a Masonic lesson read, by the highest officer or humblest lecturer that does not earnestly teach two extremely simple and profound principles, love of God and love of our fellow man. That is the one true religion which is the very soul of Masonry, its basis and apex, its light and power. Upon that faith it rests, in that faith it lives and labours, and by that faith it will conquer, putting the doubts and bigotries if men to shame with its simple insight and the dignity of its golden voice. With the subtleties of speculation
Of no one age, Masonry belongs to all ages; of no one religion, it finds great truths in all religions. Indeed, it holds that truth which is common to all elevating and benign religions, and is the basis of each; that faith which underlies all sects and over-arches all creeds, like the sky above and river-bed below the flow of mortal years. It is not a religion, still less a cult, but it is a worship in which all good men may unite, that each may share the faith of all. It does not undertake to explain or dogmatically to settle those questions or solve those great mysteries which out-top human knowledge. Beyond the facts of faith it does not go. With the subtleties of speculation concerning those truths and the unworldly envies growing out of them, it has not to do. There, divisions begin, and Masonry was not made to divide men, but to unite them. It asks not for tolerance, but for fraternity, leaving each man free to think his own thought and fashion his own system of ultimate truth. Therefore, all through the ages it has been, and is today, a meeting-place of differing minds and a prophecy of the final union of all reverent and devout souls.
When Masonry has fulfilled its sublime and prophetic mission upon earth it will rejoice because, high above all dogmas that divide, all bigotries that blind, all bitterness that be clouds, will be written the simple words of each of the eternal religion -- the Fatherhood of God, the brotherhood of man, the moral law, the golden rule, and the hope of a life everlasting.
From "The Builder" By Joseph Fort Newton Litt. D.
Compliments of J.J. Robins Caledonian Lake Lodge No. 249, Midland, Ontario, DDGM Georgian District A.F & A.M. 1948 - 1949.
Bayport Temple Building, Victoria Harbour, ON
The 'Mission of Masonry' framed quotation.
The Mission of Masonry
"I believe that a determination to maintain the values, which have been the rock upon which the Masonic structure has stood firm against the storms of the past, is the only policy which can be pursued in the future."
Most Worshipful Brother His Majesty King George VI.
Photo of The King:
www.flickr.com/photos/billsoong/5485011709/in/photolist-9...
If we examine the foundations of Masonry, we find that it rests upon the most fundamental of truths, the first truth and the last, the sovereign and supreme Reality. Upon the threshold of its Lodges every man, whether prince or peasant, is asked to confirm his faith in God the Father Almighty, the Architect and Master-builder if the Universe. Life leads, if we follow its meaning and think in the drift of its deeper conclusions, to one God as the ground of the world, and upon that ground, Masonry lays her cornerstone therefore it endures and grows.
This profound and reverent faith, from which, as from a never-failing spring, flow heroic devotedness, moral self-respect, authentic sentiments of fraternity, inflexible fidelity and honor in life, effectual consolation and hope in death, Masonry at all times has religiously taught. Perseveringly it has propagated it through the centuries. Scarcely a Masonic discourse is pronounced, or a Masonic lesson read, by the highest officer or humblest lecturer that does not earnestly teach two extremely simple and profound principles, love of God and love of our fellow man. That is the one true religion which is the very soul of Masonry, its basis and apex, its light and power. Upon that faith it rests, in that faith it lives and labours, and by that faith it will conquer, putting the doubts and bigotries if men to shame with its simple insight and the dignity of its golden voice. With the subtleties of speculation
Of no one age, Masonry belongs to all ages; of no one religion, it finds great truths in all religions. Indeed, it holds that truth which is common to all elevating and benign religions, and is the basis of each; that faith which underlies all sects and over-arches all creeds, like the sky above and river-bed below the flow of mortal years. It is not a religion, still less a cult, but it is a worship in which all good men may unite, that each may share the faith of all. It does not undertake to explain or dogmatically to settle those questions or solve those great mysteries which out-top human knowledge. Beyond the facts of faith it does not go. With the subtleties of speculation concerning those truths and the unworldly envies growing out of them, it has not to do. There, divisions begin, and Masonry was not made to divide men, but to unite them. It asks not for tolerance, but for fraternity, leaving each man free to think his own thought and fashion his own system of ultimate truth. Therefore, all through the ages it has been, and is today, a meeting-place of differing minds and a prophecy of the final union of all reverent and devout souls.
When Masonry has fulfilled its sublime and prophetic mission upon earth it will rejoice because, high above all dogmas that divide, all bigotries that blind, all bitterness that be clouds, will be written the simple words of each of the eternal religion -- the Fatherhood of God, the brotherhood of man, the moral law, the golden rule, and the hope of a life everlasting.
From "The Builder" By Joseph Fort Newton Litt. D.
Compliments of J.J. Robins Caledonian Lake Lodge No. 249, Midland, Ontario, DDGM Georgian District A.F & A.M. 1948 - 1949.