The Old Past Master
by Carl Claudy- 1924
"Failure"
"What's
troubling you?" asked the Old Past Master of a
serious-faced brother who sat down next to him.
"So
much I hardly know where to begin to tell it," came the
response. "I try to be an optimist, but I can't help feeling that,
practically speaking, Masonry is a failure, and it depresses me
horribly, because I love it."
"Now
that's too bad," said the Old Past Master soberly.
"Masonry
is a failure, practically speaking! That would depress me, too, because
I also love it. In fact, I should think it would depress a great many
men."
"Yes it
would.... a lot of men love it," said the troubled
brother.
"Suppose you
explain why it is practically speaking a failure,"
said the Old Past Master. "If I ought to be depressed because of such a
condition I think I ought to know it."
The
troubled brother looked up suspiciously, but the grave face in front of
him wore no smile. If the old eyes twinkled they were hidden by solemn
lids from the penetrating glance of the troubled brother.
"Well,
it's this way," he began. "Masonry teaches
brotherhood. Naturally,your brother is a man on whom you can depend; he
is worthy of trust. One believes in one's brother. One backs his note
and expects to be paid; one is willing to trust one's wife, one's life,
one's good name, to a real brother.
"But
there are a good many men who are Masons that I know are not
worthy of my trust, merely because they are Masons. They are my
brethren because I have sworn with them the same obligations and
professed the same faith. But I do not think I could trust them with
that which is of value to me, and I know they wouldn't trust me with
what is of value to them. I don't mean they are not good men, but I
don't feel that my Masonic bond is strong enough to give me the
complete trust which a real brotherhood should provide and I don't
think they feel it either.
"If
I were in a strange city and a man came up to me and wanted to
borrow two dollars and pointed to a Masonic pin as the reason, I
wouldn't lend it to him. And if I walked into a strange bank and tried
to cash a check for twenty dollars on the strength of my Masonic pin, I
wouldn't get it."
"A
pin, you know," put in the Old Past Master, "is not real
evidence of being a Mason!"
"No,
but even if I could convince the banker I really was a Mason he
wouldn't cash my check without identification. And I wouldn't give
money to a stranger even if I knew he was a Mason, because....well,
because my brotherhood hasn't struck deep enough, I guess. And so it
seems to me that practically speaking, Masonry is a failure."
"And
yet you say you love it!" sorrowed the Old Past Master. My
brother, you have, in the language of the street, got hold of the wrong
dog.
"Now
let me talk a minute. Your blood brother is a man you love. You
were children together, you fought with him and for him. You shared his
joys and sorrows. You learned him, through and through. If you love him
and trust him, it is not because of your mutual parentage, but because
ofyour association. Two boys are not blood brothers, but raised as
brothers, may have the same tender love and trust. It isn't the
brotherhood of the flesh, but the brotherhood of spirit, that makes for
love and trust.
"You
complain because you don't have that feeling for a stranger. Had
you been parted from your blood brother at birth, and never seen nor
heard of him until he met you on the street and demanded money while
offering proof of his blood relationship, would you trust him without
knowing the manner of man he had come to be? Merely because he was a
blood relative wouldn't mean he was the type of man you are. He might
have become anything during these years of separation.
"Now,
my brother, when you became a Mason you assumed a tie of brotherhood
with all the other Masons of the world. But you did not assume any
obligation to make that tie of brotherhood take the place of all the
virtues which are in the Masons of the world, or the virtues possessed
by the profane. If you are a true Mason you will extend Masonic
brotherhood, practically, to those Masons who hold out the brotherly
hand to you; which means those men who are able and willing to prove
themselves brothers and Masons, not merely those who belong to lodges
and wear pins.
"The world is one big compromise, my brother, between things as they
are and things as we would like to have them. You would like to be
rich, and you compromise by getting what you can. You would like to be
famous, and you compromise by being as well known as you can and doing
the best you can to deserve fame. You would like to be the most highly
skilled man in your profession, but you have to compromise with
perfection on the one hand, and the need of earning a living on the
other. As a Mason, you would like to trust on sight every Mason in the
world, but you have to compromise with this fact that all Masons are
human beings first and Masons afterwards, and human beings are frail
and imperfect.
"Masonry
makes no man perfect. It merely holds out one road by which a man may
travel towards the goal of spiritual perfection more easily and with
more help than by other roads. It had no motive power to drive men over
that road; but it smooths the way and points the path. The travel is
strictly up to the individual brother.
"If
you trust those whom you know travel
that path, they will trust you....and Masonry will be, practically
speaking, for you both a success. If you travel with your eyes open,
you will see many who fall by the wayside, not because the way is plain
and smooth, but because they are too weak to travel it. That is the
fault, not of the road, but of the traveler.
"And
so, my brother, Masonry cannot be a failure, because men fail as
Masons. As well say the church is a failure because an evil man goes to
it; as well call Christ a failure because all men are not Christians.
The failure is in the man,
not in the beautiful
philosophy which is Masonry."
"And
I," said the troubled brother, "Am a failure now
because I have failed to understand. But not in the future, thanks to
you."
