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On a Country Lodge
By Carl H. Claudy
Old Tiler Talks (1925)
"It was the funniest thing I
ever saw!"
"What was?" asked the Old Tiler
of the New Brother.
"Why, that lodge meeting I
attended in
Hicksville. Listen, and I'll tell you!"
"I'm listening. Anyone who can
find anything funny in a lodge meeting deserves to be listened to!" answered the
Old Tiler, "Shoot the tale."
"You'd have died laughing!"
began the New Brother. "First place, the lodge room was funny! Lodge rooms ought
to have leather covered furniture and electric light, a handsome painting in the
east, an organ - be dignified, like ours. This lodge room was over the post
office. There were two stoves in it - just think of it! And every now and then
the Junior Deacon had to go and put coal on! The lesser lights were three
kerosene lamps, and the altar looked like an overgrown soap box! The benches
were not benches at all, just chairs, and they didn't have any lantern or slides
- just an old chart to point things out on in the lecture.
"But it wasn't so much the room,
it was the way they did their work. Honestly, you'd have thought they were
legislating for a world, not just having a business meeting. Such preciseness,
such slow walking, such making every move and sign as if they were drilled for a
drill team. There wasn't a smile cracked the whole evening and even when at
refreshment, there wasn't any talking or laughing. Oh, it was rich. I'm glad I
attend a lodge where people are human. !"
"Yes,' answered the Old Tiler,
"I expect it is."
"Expect what is?"
"Expect it is impossible for a
New Brother to understand the work of a country lodge," answered the Old Tiler.
"Now you listen till I tell you that what you saw wasn't funny. It is you who
are funny."
"Me funny? Why, what do you
----"
"I said for you to listen!"
sternly cut in the Old Tiler. "I have never been to
Hicksville and I don't know that lodge, but I have visited in many country
lodges and your description of them is accurate. But your interpretation of what
you describe is damnable!
"Masonry is in itself beautiful,
truthful, philosophical, strives to draw men closer to God, to make them love
their fellows, to be better men. Is there anything funny in that? Of course not.
The more regard men have for the outward symbols of anything, the more apt they
are to have regard for what is within. A man who won't clean his face and hands
won't have a clean heart and mind. A man who is slovenly and careless in dress
is apt to be careless and slovenly in his heart. A lodge which reveres the work
probably reveres the meaning behind the work.
"You criticize the
Hicksville lodge because it is too precise. Would that our own was more so! The
officers who have so deep a regard for appearances can only have learned that
deep regard through a thoughtful and reverent appreciation of what the
appearances stand for.
"As for the externals, have you
not been taught that it is not the externals but the internals which mark the
man and Mason? What possible difference can it make whether a lodge seats its
membership on leather benches or chairs, or the floor, or doesn't seat them at
all? Our ancient brethren, so we are taught, met on hills and in valleys. Think
you that they sat upon leather benches, or the grass?
"It's nice to have a fine hall
to meet in. It's a joy to have a fine organ and electric lights and a
stereopticon to show handsome slides of the degrees. But all of these are merely
easy and pleasant ways of teaching the Masonic lesson. Doubtless
Lincoln
would have enjoyed electric lights to study by, instead of firelight. Doubtless
he would have learned a little more in the same time had he had more books and
better facilities. But he learned enough, didn't he, to make him live forever?
"We teach in a handsome hall,
with beautiful accessories. If we teach as well, as truly and as thoroughly as
the poor country lodge with its chairs for benches, its kerosene lamps for
lesser lights, its harmonium for organ, its chart for lantern slides, we can
congratulate ourselves. And while we look at the little lodge with its humble
equipment, let us thank the Great Architect, that there is in existence so grand
a system of philosophy, with so universal an appeal, as to make men content to
study it and so to practice it, regardless of external conditions.
"I do not
know Hicksville Lodge. But it would be at least an even bet that they saved up
enough money to get better lodge furniture and then spent it to send some sick
brother South or West, or to provide an education for the orphan children of
some brother who couldn't do it for his children. In a country lodge you will
get a sandwich and a cup of coffee after the meeting, in place of the elaborate
banquet you may eat in the city; in the country lodge you will find few dress
suits and not often a fine orator, but you will also find a Masonic spirit, a
willingness to suffer for the good of a brother, a feeling of genuine brotherly
regard, which is all too often absent in the larger, richer, city lodge.
"No, my brother, I would find
nothing 'funny' in the dignity and the seriousness your country brethren have. I
would find nothing of humor in the poverty, nor anything but Masonic service in
the Junior Deacon putting coal on the fire. Would that we had a few brethren as
serious, to put coal upon our Masonic fires, to warm us all."
"I think you've put coals of
fire on my head!" answered the New Brother; "I deserved a kicking and got off
with a lecture. I'm going back to
Hicksville
lodge next week and tell them what they taught me through you."
"Dh-huh," grunted the Old Tiler, but
his eyes smiled. |
