160 lines
8.7 KiB
Plaintext
160 lines
8.7 KiB
Plaintext
SHORT TALK BULLETIN - Vol.III December, 1925 No.12
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CRADLE AND THE LODGE
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by: Unknown
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Once again the march of the days has brought us near to the day of
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all the year that is the best - Christmas Day, with its gentleness,
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its joy and its good will. We have National Holidays of deep
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historic meaning and beauty; but Christmas is a day in the calendar
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of humanity - a day dedicated to childhood and the home.
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Only one other day can compete with Christmas in our regard, and that
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is Easter, with its "Song Of Those Who Answer Not, However We May
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Call;" and being days of Faith, they are both days of hope and
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forward-looking thoughts. If Easter teaches us hope in the life to
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come, Christmas asks us to hope for the life that now is. How
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fitting it is that we have a festival of the dawn of life linked in
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our faith with the Easter hope at sunset.
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The hope of the world is the child. Here the everlasting enterprise
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of education finds its reason and sanction. The child holds in his
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chubby hand the future of the race, our hope of social beauty and
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human welfare. He is the custodian of whatever of truth and worth we
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may bequeath to the times to come; the window in which, at sunset, we
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see the morning light of a new day. In him we live again, if in now
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other way - save in the memory of God, who does not forget. He is
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our earthly immortality.
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No man does more to bring the Kingdom of Heaven to earth than he who
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takes care that child is born in purity and honor. A child nobly and
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sweetly born will not need to be born again, unless some killing sin
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slay him by the way. No wonder the greatest religion in the world
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makes a cradle its shrine, and finds in the heart of a little child
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its revelation of God and its hope for man.
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What unaccountable blessings came to the world with the birth of one
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little child, born of poor parents in an obscure nook in a small
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country long ago, and who, without sword or pen, divided the history
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of man into before and after. What strange power of influence lay
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sleeping in that Manger-Cradle, to be set free in a short life, which
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has changed the moral and spiritual climate of the earth. There
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shone a light that can never fail, revealing the Spirit of God and
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the meaning of life, making mother and child forever sacred, and
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softening the hard heart of the world. It is a scene to sanctify the
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world, so heavenly yet so homey, and it has done more than any other
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one influence to purify the life of man.
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No man of us - whatever his religion - but is touched to tenderness
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by that picture of a Child, a Mother hovering near, a Father in the
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background, and a Star standing sentinel in the sky. Before that day
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the order was Father, Mother, Child - now it is Child, Mother,
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Father. Such power one Child had to alter the old order of the
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world. They are indeed wise men who follow such a starry truth and
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bow at such a shrine, linking a far-off wandering star with the
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Cradle of a little Child.
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For Christmas is both a fact and a symbol. It is the greatest fact
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of history and the symbol of the deepest truth man can know on earth.
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It tells of a time when the idea of God was born anew in the mind of
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man. Think how you will about the Babe in the Manger, debate as you
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like about the facts of his life, it is a fact that since Jesus lived
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God has been nearer to the life of man, more real and more lovable.
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The Christmas scene shows us that God is not off up in the sky, but
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near by, even in our hearts if we are wise enough to make room for
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him.
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If we open the Book of the Holy Law we learn in the Old Testament
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that man lives in God, who is the home of the soul from generation to
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generation. It is a profound truth. It makes the world homelike.
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It unites us as a family under the shelter of a Divine Love. In the
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New Testament we learn that God lives in man, and that is the
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greatest discovery man has ever made. For unless there is something
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of God in man - in every man - we can not find God, much less know
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him. The revelation of God in humanity is the basis of all democracy
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worthy of the name, and the only hope of brotherhood among men.
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No wonder Christmas is a day of music and joy. It brings heaven and
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earth together, and teaches us that no hope of the human heart is to
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high, no faith too holy to be fulfilled by the love that moves the
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sun and the stars. God in man - here is the secret of all our hope
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for the better day to be when men will no longer make war, but will
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live in fraternity and good will. Unless the Divine dwells in man
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there is no strand strong enough to hold against the dark forces
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which fight against peace. God in man - here is the mystic tie by
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which man is bound to man in bonds of mutual need and service and
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hope.
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So we begin to see what the cradle has to do with the Lodge.
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Indeed, as all the wise teachers of the Craft agree, the Lodge is a
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Cradle and initiation is birth, by which man makes his advent into a
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new world. The Cable-Tow, by which we may be detained or removed
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should we be unworthy or unwilling to advance, is like the cord which
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joins a child to its mother at birth. Nor it is removed until, by a
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voluntary act, we assume the obligations of a man, a new unseen tie
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is woven in our hearts. Henceforth we are united by an invisible
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bond to the service of the race.
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In the First Degree we are symbolically born out of darkness into the
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light of moral truth and duty, out of a merely physical into a
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spiritual world. Symbolically we enter into a new environment, as
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the child does at birth, with a new body of motive and law, taking
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vows to live by the highest standard of values. In other words, an
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Entered Apprentice discovers his own Divinity - learns who he is, why
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he is here, and what he is here to do. No secret that science can
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uncover is half so thrilling. Finding a new star out on the edge of
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the sky is nothing alongside the discovery of God in the soul.
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In the same way, in the Third Degree, we are symbolically initiated
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into an eternal life in time. Actually we pass through death and
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beyond it while yet walking upon the earth! God is here within us,
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eternity is now, and death is only the shadow of life - such is the
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secret of Masonry. Once a man really discovers it, and governs
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himself accordingly, he is a free man - erect, unafraid, happy. Thus
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Masonry, in its own way, teaches the truth of Christmas and Easter
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Day; and deeper truth, it is not given us to know or imagine. It
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lights up the world with joy, and changes even dull death into a last
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enchantment.
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God in man, the soul of man a Cradle of the Eternal Love - what
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higher truth has man ever dreamed! By the same token, the hope of
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the world, and of each of us, lies in the birth and growth of the
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Divine in man - in your life and mine - refining lust into love, and
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greed into goodness. Also, since we have the same spark of Divinity
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within us, and the same starry ideals above us - even as we are made
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of the same dust, and know the same dogs of passion at our heals - it
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behooves us to love one another, to seek to know, to understand and
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to help our fellow man. For here, in truth, is the basis and prophecy
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of brotherhood.
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God be thanked for a Truth so Divine that it lends dignity to our
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fleeting days - for a day of poetry in the midst of gray days of
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prose. On that day we work and plan that the child may have his toy,
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and the friend his token of our love; and, forgetting ourselves, we
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learn that our life on other days is but a muddled memory of what it
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ought to be. On one day, at least, we seek out the poor, the sick,
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the weary and the world-broken; and find in service a joy we know not
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in selfishness.
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Blessed Christmas Day - symbol of the eternal Child and the "Cradle
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Endlessly Rocking." It takes us down from our towering pride and
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teaches us humility and sweet charity. It brings us simplicity of
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faith in which we find peace. It rebukes our bitter wisdom because
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it is unholy and unhopeful. It brings across the years, a memory of
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days when life was stainless, and gives us hope that some time,
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somewhere, we shall find again the secret we have lost.
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O Great heart of God, Once vague and lost to me,
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Why do you throb with my throb tonight, Is this land Eternity?
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O little heart of God, Sweet intruding stranger,
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You are laughing in my human breast, A Christ Child in a manger.
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Heart, dear heart of God, Beside you now I kneel,
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Strong heart of faith, O heart of mine, Where God has set His
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seal.
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Wild, thundering heart of God, Out of my doubt I come,
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And my foolish feet with the prophet's feet, March with the
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prophet's drum.
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