Masonic Lodge is a symbol of the world as it was thought to be in
the olden times. Our ancient Brethren had a profound insight when
they saw that the world is a Temple, over-hung by a starry canopy by
night, lighted by the journeying sun by day, wherein man goes forth
to his labor on a checker-board of lights and shadows, joys and
sorrows, seeking to reproduce on earth the law and order of heaven.
The visible world was but a picture or reflection of the invisible,
and at its center stood the ALTAR of sacrifices, obligation, and
adoration.
While we hold a view of the world very unlike that held by our
ancient Brethren - knowing it to be round, not flat and square - yet
their insight is still true. The whole idea was that man, if he is
to build either a House of Faith or an order of Society that is to
endure, must imitate the laws and principles of the world in which
he lives. That is also our dream and design; the love of it ennobles
our lives; it is our labor and our worship. To fulfill it we, too,
need wisdom and help from above; and at the center of our Lodge
stands the same Altar - older than all temples, as old as life
itself - a focus of faith and fellowship, at once a symbol and
shrine of that unseen element of thought and yearning that all men
are aware of and which no one can define.
Upon this earth there is nothing more impressive than the silence of
a company of human beings bowed together at an Altar. No thoughtful
man but at some time has mused over the meaning of this great
adoring habit of our humanity, and the wonder of it deepens the
longer he ponders it. The instinct which thus draws men together in
prayer is the strange power which has drawn together the stones of
great cathedrals, where the mystery of God is embodied. So far as we
know, man is the only being on our planet that pauses to pray, and
the wonder of his worship tells us more about him than any other
fact. By some deep necessity of his nature he is a seeker after God,
and in moments of sadness or longing, in hours of tragedy or terror,
he lays aside his tools and looks out over the far horizon.
The history of the Altar in the life of man is a story more
fascinating than any fiction. Whatever else man may have been -
cruel, tyrannous, or vindictive - the record of his long search for
God is enough to prove that he is not wholly base, not altogether an
animal. Rites horrible, and often bloody, may have been a part of
his early ritual, but if the history of past ages had left us
nothing but the memory of a race at prayer, it would have left us
rich, And so, following the good custom of the men which were of
old, we set up an Altar in the Lodge, lifting up hands in prayer,
moved thereto by the ancient need and aspiration of our humanity.
Like the men who walked in the grey years gone, our need is for the
living God to hallow these our days and years, even to the last
ineffable homeward sigh which men call death.
The earliest Altar was a rough, unhewn stone set up, like the stone
which Jacob set up at Bethel when his dream of a ladder, on which
angels were ascending and descending, turned his lonely bed into a
house of god and a gate of heaven. Later, as faith became more
refined, and the idea of sacrifice grew in meaning, the Altar was
built of hewn stone - cubical in form - cut, carved, and often
beautifully wrought, on which men lavished jewels and priceless
gifts, deeming nothing too costly to adorn the place of prayer.
Later still, when men erected a Temple dedicated and adorned as the
House of God among men, there were two altars, one of sacrifice, and
one of incense. the altar of sacrifice, where slain beasts were
offered, stood in front of the Temple; the altar of incense, on
which burned the fragrance of worship, stood within. Behind all was
the far withdrawn Holy place into which only the high priest might
enter.
As far back as we can go the Altar was the center of human Society,
and an object of peculiar sanctity by virtue of that law of
association by which places and things are consecrated. It was a
place of refuge for the hunted or the tormented - criminals or
slaves - and to drag them away from it by violence was held to be an
act of sacrilege, since they were under the protection of God. At
the Altar marriage rites were solemnized, and treaties made or vows
taken in its presence were more holy and binding than if made
elsewhere, because there man invoked God as witness. In all the
religions of antiquity, and especially among the peoples who
worshipped the Light, it was the usage of both priests and people to
pass around the Altar, following the course of the sun - from the
East, by way of the South, to the West - singing hymns of praise as
a part of their worship. Their ritual was thus an allegorical
picture of the truth which under lies all religion - that man must
live on earth in harmony with the rhythm and movement of heaven.
From facts and hints such as these we begin to see the meaning of
the Altar in Masonry, and the reason for its position in the Lodge.
In English Lodges, as in the French and Scottish Rites, it stands in
front of the Master in the East. In the York Rite, so called, it is
placed in the center of the Lodge - more properly a little to the
east of the center--about which all Masonic activities revolve. It
is not simply a necessary piece of furniture, a kind of table
intended to support the Holy Bible, the Square and Compasses. Alike
by its existence and its situation it identifies Masonry as a
religious institution, and yet its uses are not exactly the same as
the offices of an Altar in a cathedral or a shrine. Here is a fact
often overlooked, and we ought to get it clearly in our minds.
The position of the Altar in the Lodge is not accidental, but
profoundly significant. For, while Masonry is not a religion, it is
religious in its faith and basic principles, no less than in its
spirit and purpose. And yet it is not a Church. Nor does it attempt
to do what the Church is trying to do. If it were a Church its Altar
would be in the East and its ritual would be altered accordingly.
That is to say, Masonry is not a Religion, much less a sect, but a
Worship in which all men can unite, because it does not undertake to
explain, or dogmatically to settle in detain, those issues by which
men are divided. Beyond the Primary, fundamental facts of faith it
does not go. With the philosophy of those facts, and the differences
and disputes growing out of them, it has not to do. In short, the
position of the Altar in the Lodge is a symbol of what Masonry
believes the Altar should be in actual life, a center of union and
fellowship, and not a cause of division, as is now so often the
case. It does not seek uniformity of opinion, but it does seek
fraternity of spirit, leaving each one free to fashion his own
philosophy of ultimate truth. as we may read in the constitutions of
1723:
"A Mason is obliged, by his Tenure, to obey the moral Law; and if he
rightly understands the Art, he will never be a stupid Atheist, nor
an irreligious Libertine. but though in ancient times Masons were
charged in every Country to be of the religion of that country or
Nation, Whatever it was, yet 'tis now thought more expedient only to
oblige them to that Religion in which all men agree, leaving their
particular Opinions to themselves; that is, to be good Men and true,
or Men of Honor and Honesty, by whatever Denomination or Persuasions
they may be distinguished; whereby Masonry becomes the Center of
Union, and the Means of conciliating true Friendship among Persons
that must have remained at a perpetual Distance."
Surely those are memorable words, a Magna Charta of Friendship and
fraternity. Masonry goes hand in hand with religion until religion
enters the field of sectarian feud, and there it stops; because
Masonry seeks to unite men, not to divide them. Here, then, is the
meaning of the Masonic Altar and its position in the Lodge. It is,
first of all, an Altar of Faith-- the deep, eternal faith which
underlies all creeds and over arches all sects; faith in God, in the
moral law, and in the life everlasting. Faith in God is the
cornerstone and the key-stone of freemasonry. It is the first truth
and the last, the truth that makes all other truths true, without
which life is a riddle and fraternity a futility. For, apart from
God the Father, our dream of the Brotherhood of Man is as vain as
all the vain things proclaimed of Solomon--fiction having no basis
or hope in fact.
At the same time, the Altar of Masonry is an Altar of Freedom--not
freedom from faith, but freedom of faith. Beyond the fact of the
reality of God it does not go, allowing every man to think of God
according to his experience of life and his vision of truth. It does
not define God, much less dogmatically determine how and what men
shall think or believe about God. There dispute and division begin.
as a matter of fact, Masonry is not speculative at all, but
operative, or rather co-operative. While all its teaching implies
the Fatherhood of god, yet its ritual does not actually affirm that
truth, still less make it a test of fellowship. Behind this silence
lies a deep and wise reason. Only by the practice of Brotherhood do
men realize the Divine Fatherhood, as a true-hearted poet has
written:
"No man could tell me what my soul might be;
I sought for God, and He eluded me;
I sought my Brother out, and found all three."
Hear one fact more, and the meaning of the Masonic Altar will be
plain. Often one enters a great Church, like Westminster Abbey, and
finds it empty, or only a few people in the pews here and there,
praying or in deep thought. They are sitting quietly, each without
reference to others, seeking an opportunity for the soul to be
alone, to communicate with mysteries greater then itself, and find
healing for the burisings of life. but no one ever goes to a Masonic
Altar alone. No one bows before it at all except when the Lodge is
open and in the presence of his Brethren. It is an Altar of
fellowship, as if to teach us that no man can learn the truth for
another, and no man can learn it alone. Masonry brings men together
in mutual respect, sympathy, and good will, that we may learn in
love the truth that is hidden by apathy and lost by hate.
For the rest, let us never forget--what has been so often and so
sadly forgotten--that the most sacred Altar on earth is the soul of
man--your soul and mine; and that the Temple and its ritual are not
ends in themselves, but beautiful means to the end that every human
heart may be a sanctuary of faith, a shrine of love, an altar of
purity, pity, and unconquerable hope. |
