textfiles/magazines/STB/stb-1924-02.txt

SHORT TALK BULLETIN - Vol.II   February, 1924    No.2 
 
ALTAR 
 
by: Unknown 
 
A 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 at night, lighted 
by the journeying sun by day, wherein man goes forth to his labor on a 
checker-board of lights and shadows, joy 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 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, he must initiate 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 worship.  
To fulfill it we too need wisdom and help from above; and so at the center 
of the 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 to 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 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 agone, 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 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 underlies 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 the 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 is 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 
detail, 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 division, 
as is now so often the case.  It does not seek fraternity of spirit, 
leaving each one free to fashion his own philosophy of ultimate truth.  As 
we nay 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, not an 
irreligious Libertine.  But though in ancient Times Masons were charged in 
every Country to be of the Religion of the 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 denominations 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 
- 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 Keystone 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 - a Fiction having no basis or hope in fact. 
 
At the same time, the Altar of Freemasonry 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 dogmati-cally 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 does it make 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 has eluded me; 
I sought my Brother out, and found all three." 
 
Here 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 than itself, and find healing for the bruising 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 Alter of Fellowship, as it is 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 a beautiful means to the end that every human heart may be 
a sanctuary of faith, a shrine of love, and Altar of purity, pity, and 
unconquerable hope.