Ponder Well
It is a trite saying that the familiar sinks into the unheeded; hence it is that words pregnant with meaning, and full of the grandest significance, become, through the force of mere repetition, a monotone, a formalism, and a sham. All of us are more or less impressed with this truth; which is the child of experience: we can each bear testimony to its pernicious effects in the history of the human heart, which ever yearns after something new and strange, forgetting the potentiality which resides in the accumulated wisdom of ages.
It is not our province to define the nature of that virtue which all true Freemasons should cultivate; it is not for us to describe the transcendent lustre of that moral light which is the good man's guardian and guide; but in the belief that the primitive work of Freemasonry is greatly overlooked by the brethren at the present day, we will briefly consider the paths of science in which all Freemasons are invited and expected to tread. We are told by a great poet "that the proper study of mankind is man", but in thus acquiring a generic knowledge of our kind, let us not sink the individual in the species, but analyse our own hearts and learn the mysteries of our own being. Now, this is precisely the science of which we take less heed than of any other—it being the tendency of men's minds in the present generation to ignore all self-knowledge, and to cast themselves blindly upon the stream of events, guided by thedoating straws which indicate the current; or, in other words, by the fantasies of the passing moment. Was Burke right when he said, "The age of chivalry is over," and must we indeed resign ourselves to a gradual effacement of all that is pure and noble, because the song of the troubadour has ceased, and the knightly lance is for ever laid "in rest"? No. The records of departed greatness still remain, and the glories of those mediaeval centuries still haunt the souls of the world's unacknowledged legislators.
It is, unquestionably, the mission of Freemasonry to nourish those lofty conceptions which have given birth to the imperishable sentiments of honour, virtue and of true religion: it is her mission to reveal to her children the wonders of that psychological science, whose operations, though unseen, are as marvellous as the greatest triumphs of the natural sciences. It is for her to interpose the rock of eternal truth to the torrent of rationalism, of positivism, and of infidelity.
No greater barrier can be erected against the inroads of materialistic philosophy than an institution like Freemasonry, which appeals to every human sympathy, brightens every human hope, and is identified with the cause of our common humanity, while, at the same time, it points with steady finger to the source of all light and power. It is true that the teachings of the Order are often misinterpreted, and oftener, through familiarity, lose their original importance; but it is time that Freemasons awoke to the necessity of studying the whole system of the Craft, not merely as an abstract symbolism, but as a tangible reality—not as a vulgar mystery, but as a mirror in which to read their own hearts, and as a volume in which to seek the solution of those doubts and difficulties which beset every earnest thinker.
To do this, we must ponder well the language of Freemasonry, and thoroughly comprehend its signification. The wealth of wisdom couched in every phrase will then become apparent, like the revelation of a new and radiant world; and unless we thus follow our celestial guide, we cannot be said to walk in the paths of virtue and science.
