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Adieu! A heart-warm, fond adieu!
Dear Brothers of the Mystic Tie
Ye favored, ye enlightened few
Companions of my social joy!
The immortal verse of Robert Burns, written
in his farewell to his brethren of St. James
Lodge, Tarbolton, Scotland, first
popularized, if it did not originate, the
three words now universally recognized by all
English speaking Freemasons as expressing the
very essence of the Fraternity.
But to recognize is one thing; to define is
quite another, as any man may discover who
attempts to describe a perfume, a sunset, a
symphony, so another may smell, see, hear
with the speaker.
What IS the Mystic Tie? Is it an obligation,
taken before an Altar? Is it a Covenant,
entered into between a man and men, before
God and his fellows? Is it a thing that one
can hold in his hand and see with his eye? Is
it a matter of that land of the inner life,
in which a man thinks the thoughts he never
tells and learns the truths he cannot teach?
To every man, even the most extrovert and
obvious-minded, comes at times a spiritual
experience. Tongue-tied in the grip of
emotion, few phrase it. But it happens; and
none who reads these lame words but will
admit it to himself at least, no matter how
vociferously he denies it aloud.
It comes in as many ways as are men to whom
it comes. One man stands before a mighty
mountain--his eyes follow its rocky fastness
up, up, up to where austere saw teeth of
stone cut into the blue. Something in the
might, the majesty, the aloofness, the
dignity, the timelessness of the mass passes
from rock to heart and sings therein a
harmony which never quite dies away. Another
cultivates a rose garden and in the pure
beauty of the blossom which bursts forth
under his ministering hands sees a vision not
of the earth, earthy. A third kneels in a
cathedral and as the organ's deepest diapason
sounds a note so low it is hardly heard, so
profound nothing else can be heard, and a
shaft or sunlight strikes through stained
glass to pick out a bit of stone carving,
feels himself close to the eternal verities .
. .
And others sit in a Lodge; a familiar.
everyday, ordinary fact of brotherhood's
experience. They hear familiar ritual; they
see familiar faces; they engage in familiar
actions. There is no element of surprise, or
drama, or great event, yet there is something
present which is found nowhere else;
something that men come, and come, and come
again, often all their lives through, to get
. .
As illusive as a half-memory or childhood, as
hard to catch as a sunbeam, as intangible as
the hint of spring that sets the birds to
flying north, it is as strong as steel, as
permanent as the earth, as certain and
dependable as gravity.
Brother Arthur F. Powell comes as near as may
be to saying what is not sayable;
"What strand is it that tugs at our hearts.
taut when so many threads are broken in the
rough ways of the world?" he asks. then
answers: "Ask what it is in the wild that
calls to the little wild things? What sacred
secret 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 to 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 divine 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?"
We learn in school that a whole is the sum of
all its parts. If, then, we might list all
the parts which compose the Mystic Tie, their
sum should be the definition of the whole.
But it is not. Firstly, we cannot "list all
the parts," since one man's list and that of
his brother would differ even as our
brother's differ from ours. And secondly and
finally. a whole which is the sum of all its
parts is material--and the Mystic Tie is not
made of matter.
We all have the same number of letters in the
alphabet: we all have access to the
dictionary which contains every word in the
language--but we do not know how to take of
these and write a Psalm of David, or Sermon
on the Mount. Wt have the bricks and the
stone and may even possess the plan--but the
mortar of the spirit to build them into
something deathless--that escapes us. Modern
musicians have more notes to the scale than
were known to Brahms and Beethoven and more
strings and brass and woodwind to sound them-
-but who writes symphonies as the Masters
wrote?
Still, we may try, knowing in advance that we
must fail..
Ritual is a part of the Mystic Tie. How or
why man must make rituals and learn them,
love them, preserve them, is as mysterious as
anything in life--but it has always been so.
There is something deep within us which
demands a set form of expression: we may say
the thought in a thousand ways but we do say
it in unison and in a special way. And this
is true whether it be Freemasonry or Church
or everyday life which is filled with a
ritual so common that we do not think of it
as ritual. "Good morning! How are you?"--
ritual. To smile on seeing a friendly face--
ritual. The clasp of hand to hand; the
familiar gathering of family about a table;
school, business, earning a living--all are
rituals without which life would be
unlivable. The lover's kiss and the words
which all the world knows but which are
invariably whispered as a secret --these,
too, are ritual. And so the ritual of the
Lodge, with its old, old truths phrased in
stilted old-fashioned words and teaching anew
every time it is heard what is already known
of all who hear it--this golden chain of
sounds which die even as they are born, and
yet which never cease sounding once they have
been taken into the heart--they are a part of
the Mystic Tie.
Teaching and learning ritual is a part of it.
Long ago, answering some question regarding
the oral and the cipher method of teaching
ritual, Dr. Joseph Fort Newton, beloved and
inspired brother, wrote:
"What is efficiency in the teaching of
Masonry? Surely it is something more than
accuracy of the letter, valuable as that is.
It is also the communication of a spirit, and
we submit that this highest and most precious
result is better achieved by oral
instruction. It goes deeper, it stays longer,
it touches parts of our nature which are not
reached by decoding a cipher. For example, we
were instructed in Masonry by a noble and
gracious man to whom Masonry meant very much-
-long since gone to join the white and silent
people we call the dead--but the impress of
his spirit lingers still. He gave us
something which no book can give, because the
finest truth is communicated only through
personality--it passes silently, mystically,
from soul to soul. It is so in all education.
The best thing a lad gets at college is not
from books, but from his contact with strong
men--as when Garfield said that the best
university would be to sit on one end of a
log with Horace Mann on the other end.
Inaccuracies may be corrected, but we cannot
think that the hours which we spent in
fellowship with the gracious man who
instructed us in the days that come not back,
were wasted. Never! Perhaps we are
sentimental. If so, we are glad of it. But we
do feel that to abandon the oral teaching of
Masonry would mean the loss of something
unique, particular, and fine, and we know of
nothing to take its place."
Friendship is a part of the mystic tie; that
glory of life in which man finds a man in
whom he can trust, for whom he would labor,
with whom he would live. Not the greatest
poet who has yet lived has been able to
define friendship. We know what it is, but we
cannot explain it. Yet it is there, alive,
vital, a part of Lodge life, an integer in
the whole, and so a part of the Mystic Tie.
Mystery is a part of it--indeed, is it not
named for mystery? And Freemasonry is so
filled with mysteries! From whence came it,
this chain of fraternity which began we know
not when and grew we know not how? And
whither does it go? The one as much a mystery
as the other. Why do men seek that which does
not advertise, which is known so little, (and
that little, so badly) by the outside world?
What unknown millions of men once trod its
halls? Their names, their lives, their acts,
their influence--we know them not. True, we
can sup with Ashmole and enter St. Peter's
with Wren; we can kneel with Washington in a
Lodge in Fredericksburg, and we can touch the
hand of Lafayette in a Masonic procession --
at least in reading and in imagination. But
the millions of unknowns who stepped as we
have stepped, who spoke as we have spoken,
who pledged as we have pledged, who lived and
loved and died in Freemasonry, as we live and
love and will die--they are a mystery; a
dear, bewildering, unknown and forever to be
unknown mystery but--a part of the Mystic
Tie. The "secrets" of Freemasonry are a part
of it. Granted that those secrets are of use
and value only to the Freemason, the fact
remains; men love that which is secret, that
which sets them off from their fellows; that
which the uninitiated cannot share.
Passengers on a liner exclaim at the huge
size of an iceberg, seldom realizing that
there is eight times as much ice below the
surface of the sea as is visible above. So
with the power of the secrets of Freemasonry;
the bond that lies within them is eighty
times eight tighter than is tied by their
mere possession.
Quoting again from the so-very-quotable Dr.
Newton, writing in The Builder:
"In the Old Charges of Craft Masonry the
initiate was obligated to keep the secrets of
the Craft, by his honor as a man on the
'contents of this holy Book.' What were those
secrets in the olden time? They included the
technical secrets of his art--which have
become symbolical secrets to us--and the
Signs and tokens by which he made himself
known as a Master Mason when he went a-
journeying. Those secrets protected both the
artist and his art. What are the secrets of a
Master Mason now? Not the wise and noble
truths which the order teaches. Our
fundamental Principles are the common
possession of thinking men and are the
foundations of the higher human life
everywhere. Now what is secret in Masonry is
not the truth which it teaches, but the
method by which it teaches it--its ceremonial
and symbolism, and the signs and token by
which it protects the privacy of its Lodge
room that it may teach more impressively.
Also, those signs and tokens serve as a cover
under which charity, brotherliness, and the
busy heart of love can work without
ostentation--enabling us to serve a brother
in perplexity or need without wounding a
heart already sore. Therefore, if those
secrets were surrendered, something beautiful
and fine would he lost. In other days it
required some courage to be a Mason, and
those old pioneers who faced obloquy for
their Masonic faith and fellowship, knew what
they were about when they took no risks of
having their sacred secrets violated but kept
them warm and tender and true, passing them
from mouth to ear down the years!"
Of the Mystic Tie, too the universality of
Freemasonry is a part. Two and a half million
brothers in this nation--five million in the
world. In every civilized Country Freemasonry
has grown and thrived until, alas, the
idealogies of Dictators who revere only force
struck down the gentle Craft in conquered
countries. To be a part of anything important
is always a bond: to be a part of anything so
universal so widespread, so essential to so
many peoples in so many lands and times--
surely this is a part of the Mystic Tie.
"My Mother Lodge!" Next to his family and his
God many a man keeps thought of Mother Lodge
closely and dearer in his heart than anything
else the world may offer him. Its hall may be
small and old. Its furniture may be shabby
and decrepit. The pictures on the walls may
be faded, the carpet worn, the physical side
wholly drab, but the Mother Lodge itself is
neither shabby nor drab, it shines with a
gentle radiance in the hearts of brethren who
love it and the light it sheds they will
follow far. Surely it too, is a part of the
Mystic Tie..
So on these pages might run on for volumes
and still the story would not be told nor the
arts listed show forth the truth of the
whole.
None who have known it would think of denying
the strength of the Mystic Tie. None who have
its cord about their hearts would loose it.
None can wholly comprehend it: none define,
describe it. It exists; it works its gentle
miracles: it is as mighty as it is
intangible. Perhaps that singer of
Freemasonry had a partial vision of it when
he wrote "The Road":
So many men before thy Alter kneel
Unthinkingly, to promise brotherhood:
So few remain, humbly to kiss thy rood
With ears undefened to their mute appeal:
So many find thy symbols less than real.
Thy teachings mystic, hard to understand:
So few there are in all thy far flung band
To hold thy banner high and draw thy steel,
And yet--immortal and most mighty , thou!
What hath thy lore of life to let it live?
What is the vital spark, hid in thy vow?
Thy Millions learned, as thy dear paths they
trod.
The secret of the strength thou hast to give-
-
"I am a way of common men of God."
POTS
Masonry is an art, useful and extensive, which comprehends
within its circle every branch of useful knowledge and
learning,
and stamps an indellible mark of preeminence on its
genuine
professors, which neither chance, power, nor fortune can
bestow. - PRESTON.
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