On What is Masonry
By Carl H Claudy

"Well, I've been a Mason six months now and I ought to know something about Masonry. But there are more secrets in the fraternity I don't know than there are those I have been told!"

The New Brother was plainly puzzled. The Old Tiler laid down his sword, picked up a battered pipe and lit it, and settled back in his chair.

"Go ahead," he invited. "Get it out of your system."

"Well," went on the New Brother, "there's this matter of whether Masonry is a religion or a system of philosophy or just a childish getting together of men who like to play politics and wear titles. I have heard it called all three. And sometimes I think it's one and sometimes I think it's the other. What do you think ?

"It isn't a childish getting together for the love of titles and honors," answered the Old Tiler. "If that was all there was to Masonry, man would soon invent a much better organization for the satisfaction of such purposes. In fact, he has invented better ones. There are several orders where elaborate titles, and a much more complicated political system hold sway. People who want to play politics and be called the Grand High Cockalorum of the Exalted Central Chamber of the Secret Sanctorum can join these. If Masonry were nothing but play, it wouldn't live, and living, grow.

"Masonry isn't a religion. A religion, as I see it, is a belief in a deity and a means of expressing worship of that deity. True, Masonry recognizes Deity, and proceeds only after asking Divine guidance. But it does not specify any particular deity. You can worship any God you please and be a Mason. That is not true of any religion. If you are a Buddhist, you worship Buddha. If a Christian, Christ is your Deity. If you are a Mohammedan you are a worshipper of Allah. In Masonry you will find Christian, Jew, Mohammedan and Buddhist side by side.

"Masonry has been called a system of philosophy, but that, to my mind is a confining definition. In fact, I don't think Masonry has ever been truly defined.

"Or God," put in the New Brother.

"Exactly. A very witty Frenchman, asked if he believed in God, once said, 'Before I answer you must tell me your definition of the word God. And when you tell me, I will answer you, no, because a God defined is a God limited, and a limited God is no God!' I think Masonry is something like that; it is brotherhood, unlimited, and when you limit it by defining it you have made it something it isn't."

"Deep stuff!" commented the New Brother.

"But Masonry is 'deep stuff,' " answered the Old Tiler.

"It's so deep no man has ever found the bottom. Perhaps that is its greatest charm; you can go as far as you like and still not see the limit. The fascination of astronomy is the limitlessness of the field. No telescope has so far seen to the edge of the universe. The fascination of Masonry is largely that it has no limit; the human heart has no limit in depth and of course that which appeals most to the human heart cannot have a limit.

"But that makes it so hard to understand!" sighed the New Brother.

"Well, isn't it the finer and the better for being difficult of comprehension?" asked the Old Tiler. "A few days ago I heard a very eminent divine and Mason make a wonderful and inspiring talk. I hear a lot of talks, you know, and nine-tenths of them are empty words with a pale tallow dip gleam of a faint idea somewhere in them. So when a real talker gets up and lets shine the full radiance of a whole idea on an audience, he is something to be remembered. So it was with this speaker. And in his speech he quoted a wonderful poem, by William Herbert Carruth. I asked him to send it to me, and he did; please note this busy man, president of a university and with a thousand things to do, didn't forget the request of a brother he never saw before!"

The Old Tiler put his hand in his pocket and took out a much-thumbed piece of paper. "Listen, you," he said," 'till I read you some thing:

"A fire mist and a planet,
A crystal and a cell,
A jellyfish and a saurian,
And caves where cavemen dwell;
Then a sense of law and beauty
And a face turned from the clod;
Some call it evolution
And others call it God.

"A haze on the far horizon,
The infinite, tender sky,
The ripe, rich tint of the cornfields,
And the wild geese sailing high;
And all over upland and lowland
The charm of the golden rod,
Some of us call it autumn,
And others call it God.

"Like tides on a crescent sea-beach
When the moon is new and thin,
Into our hearts high yearnings
Come welling and surging in;
Come from the mystic ocean
Whose rim no foot has trod;
Some of us call it longing
And others call it God.

"A picket frozen on duty;
a mother, starved for her brood;
Socrates drinking the hemlock,
And Jesus on the rood;
And millions who, humble and nameless,
The straight hard pathway plod;
Some call it consecration
And others call it God."

The New Brother said nothing, held silent by the beauty of the lines.

"I am no poet," said the Old Tiler, "and I know this isn't very fitting, but I took out my pencil and wrote something to go with those lovely verses, just to read to brothers like you." Shyly the Old Tiler continued:

"Many men, banded together
Standing where Hiram stood;
Hand to back of the falling,
Helping in brotherhood.
Wise man, doctor, lawyer,
Poor man, man of the hod,
Many call it Masonry
And others call it God."

"I don't think it makes much difference what we call it, do you?" asked the New Brother.