Note from the Editor: This address was taken from the May 1917 issue of "The Builder" magazine. In it, Bro. J.F. Kirk from North Carolina addresses his district about the patriotic opportunity Masonry affords. Enjoy!
ADDRESS BEFORE THE 29th DISTRICT MEETING AT STATESVILLE, N. C., NOV. 17th, 1916
MASONRY, as I conceive it, stands for essential unity. It regards no man for his worldly wealth or honors, it courts no man for his position, in the lodge room all are on the same level of equality. When misfortune overtakes a brother, it stands ready to extend a helping hand; when death steps in to rob the home of its natural guardians, the father and the mother, Masonry attempts to play the role of foster parents by caring for the orphan children. It attempts to make the lot of all as nearly equal as possible, by giving to each child the opportunity of education and training, the orphan as well as the home-trained and the home-nurtured child.
But there is a larger realm in which, it seems to me, Masonry may serve, and indeed has served in the past. In the history of that dark period of our nation's history from '61 to '65, there appear little incidents that shine bright as the light of the sun against that black background of war. Men who had the misfortune to be taken prisoners found in Masonry the only effective tie that bound them to those that fought on the other side. They oftentimes found friends among those ranked as enemies.
Why, we ask, were these traditional enemies suddenly transformed into friends? The answer is to be found in the common obligation taken at our sacred altars, in the spirit of the fraternity and equality inculcated around the altar fires of Masonry. May we not cherish the hope that Masonry is yet to exemplify this spirit in a still larger way, and on a really national scale in these latter days?
There was a time in our national history when Masonry was looked upon with suspicion by a considerable body of our citizenship. After nearly a century of observation, a critical public has decided that Masonry is not only innocent of all evil designs against the republic, but public opinion now holds Masonry to be an institution founded upon correct principles, and the organization composed of that class that make up our best and most public-spirited citizens. Masonry has established itself before the sober judgment of the American people.
There is, therefore, for perhaps the first time in our history given to Masonry the opportunity to render a great and distinctly national service. The Masonic lodge-room is perhaps the greatest neutral meeting ground in America today. No suspicion of political partisanship attaches to Masonry anywhere, no distinction is possible as to religious beliefs, except the requirement of faith in a Supreme Being. The Englishman, the German, the Russian, the Frenchman, the Greek, the Armenian, the Japanese and the Chinaman, all meet around the altar of Masonry, on the plane of a simple, common manhood. Where can you find another organization that is so widely extended in its geographical sweep; where can you find one taking in so nearly all classes and conditions?
There is none other in this nation except the Christian church, and it is divided into a score of more or less hostile camps, on credal statement, or difference of polity. Here, under ideal conditions, we should find our neutral ground, but so long as denominational lines remain as closely drawn as at present, this is no universal meeting point.
Masonry ought to make of itself the intellectual clearing-house of America. It has the opportunity to fuse and weld the concomitant parts of this great mass of one hundred millions of people into a unity, into a homogeneous nation of dominant general spirit.
It has this opportunity in two main directions; in the direction of reconciling and bringing together the rich and the poor, and in the direction of bringing together and introducing the various national types making up our citizenship. In Masonry there is absolutely no distinction of rich man and poor man. In Masonry there are and can be no hyphenates. That is the theoretical position of Masonry; the practice of individual Masons is very far below the position taken by the Order. In Masonry, strictly speaking, there are no rich men and poor men; there are no English, or Germans, or Americans,--in the lodge room all are simply men, with none of these external and artificial distinctions.
These are our fundamental conceptions; they are the deepest beliefs of Masonry; upon these tenets, our whole Masonic edifice is builded. We believe these principles to be sound, we demand their acceptance at the altar of the lodge of all who become Masons; we profess that these principles are susceptible of universal application. We have gone so far as to introduce them as a working code for Masons throughout the civilized world. In England, in France and in Germany there are thousands that are not only Masons in name, but stand on the identical principles on which our own lodges stand.
We profess these principles inside the lodge room, we demand of our members that they practice them in all Masonic relations. Should we not proclaim them as of universal, and especially national, significance ?
There is abundant need of such service to be rendered by some agency. From every direction there comes the cry of party strife, of class struggling against class. We are familiar enough these latter days with one section of the country decrying another section, with citizens of one group suspicious of those of another group, with one division of citizens whose ancestral home is in one part of Europe arrayed against another division whose ancestral home happened to be in another part of the same continent. Let us be one. Let Masonry preach aloud its doctrine of manhood above every consideration; it matters not where a man is born, in a hut or in a palace, whether in the north of Europe or in the south, in the east or in the west, whether in the old world or in the new; a man is a man for all that. Let it be known from the housetops that there is one organization that has existed and grown and flourished for centuries on the assumption that one honest, sincere man is as good as another, and has had its long perpetuity on the very ground that all artificial distinctions must be laid aside at the door of the lodge.
Is not this doctrine as good on the street as in the lodge ? Is it not an ideal that should be made a national ideal, and is not Masonry the agency through which this doctrine may become a national doctrine and a national realization ? There must come forth some individual, or some institution, that is willing and able to render us this national service. There is little doubt as to the ability of Masonry to render a great service along this line, were it entirely willing to do so. There is, perhaps, no organization in our midst, as respectable in numbers, that is more conservative than Masonry. Therein lies our weakness for this undertaking. We should have to be as positive for unity as other influences, now at work, are for disunity. We should be as positive in asserting our ideals in the outer world, as we are in the tiled recesses of the lodge. In other words, we now have the opportunity to make our ideals actual realizations on a national scale, if we but prove ourselves positive enough to be what we profess.
Bro. J.F. Kirk
Grand Lodge of South Carolina A.F.M.
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