213 lines
13 KiB
Plaintext
213 lines
13 KiB
Plaintext
SHORT TALK BULLETIN - Vol.XIII April, 1935 No.4
|
||
|
||
THREE PRINCIPAL ROUNDS
|
||
|
||
by: Unknown
|
||
|
||
“And Jacob went out from Beersheba, and went toward Haran. And he
|
||
lighted upon a certain place, and tarried there all night, because
|
||
the sun was set; and took of the stones of that place, and put them
|
||
for his pillows, and lay down in that place to sleep. And he
|
||
dreamed, and beheld a ladder set upon the earth, and the top of it
|
||
reached to heaven; and beheld the angels of God ascending and
|
||
descending on it. And, behold, the Lord stood above it, and said, I
|
||
am the Lord God of Abraham thy father, and the God of Isaac.”
|
||
These words (Genesis XXVIII, 10-13 inclusive)v are the foundation of
|
||
that beautiful symbol of the Entered Apprentice’s Degree in which the
|
||
initiate first hears”. . . the greatest of these is charity, for our
|
||
faith may be lost in sight, hope ends in fruition, but charity
|
||
extends beyond the grave, through the boundless realms of eternity.”
|
||
At least two prophets besides the describer of Jacob’s vision have
|
||
spoken aptly reinforcing words Job said (XXXIII, 14-16):
|
||
“For God speaketh once, yea twice, yet man perceiveth it not. In a
|
||
dream, in a vision of the night, when deep sleep falleth upon men, in
|
||
slumberings upon the bed: Then he openeth the ears of men, and
|
||
sealeth their instructions.”
|
||
And St. John (I,51):
|
||
“And he said unto him, Verily, verily I say unto you, Hereafter ye
|
||
shall see heaven open, and the angels of God ascending and descending
|
||
upon the Son of Man.”
|
||
Since the dawn of thought the ladder has been a symbol of progress,
|
||
of ascent, of reaching upward, in many mysteries, faiths and
|
||
religions. Sometimes the ladder becomes steps, sometimes a stairway,
|
||
sometimes a succession of gates or, more modernly, of degrees; but he
|
||
idea of ascent from darkness to light, from ignorance to knowledge
|
||
and from materially to spiritually is the same whatever the form of
|
||
the symbol.
|
||
In the Persian Mysteries of Mithras, the candidate ascended a ladder
|
||
of seven rounds, and also passed through seven caverns, symbolized by
|
||
seven metals, and by the sun, moon and five planets. The early
|
||
religion of Brahma had also a seven stepped ladder. In the
|
||
Scandinavian Mysteries the initiate climbed a tree; the Cabalists
|
||
made progress upward by ten steps. In the Scottish Rite the initiate
|
||
encounters the Ladder of Kadosh, also of seven steps, and most of the
|
||
early tracing boards of the Craft Degrees show a ladder of seven
|
||
rounds, representing the four cardinal and three theological virtues.
|
||
At one time, apparently, the Masonic ladder had but three steps. The
|
||
Prestonian lecture, which Mackey thought was an elaboration of
|
||
Dunkerly’s system, rests the end of the ladder on the Holy Bible; it
|
||
reads:
|
||
“By the doctrines contained in the Holy Bible, we are taught to
|
||
believe in the Divine dispensation of Providence, which belief
|
||
strengthens our “Faith,” and enables us to ascend the first step.
|
||
That Faith naturally creates in a “Hope” of becoming partakers of
|
||
some of the blessed promises therein recorded, which “Hope” enables
|
||
us to ascend the second step. But the third and last being “Charity”
|
||
comprehends the whole, and he who is possessed of this virtue in its
|
||
ample sense, is said to have arrived at the summit of his profession,
|
||
or more metaphorically, into an etherial mansion veiled from mortal
|
||
eye by the starry firmament.”
|
||
The theological ladder is not very old in Masonic symbolism, as far
|
||
as evidence shows. Some historians have credited it to Matin Clare,
|
||
in 1732, but on very slender evidence. It seems to appear first is a
|
||
tracing board approximately dated 1776, and has there but three
|
||
rounds. As the tracing board is small, the contraction from seven to
|
||
three may have been a matter of convenience. If it is true that
|
||
Dunkerly introduced Jacob’s ladder into the degrees, he my have
|
||
reduced the steps from seven to three merely to emphasize the number
|
||
three, so important Masonically; possibly it was to achieve a certain
|
||
measure of simplicity. Preston, however, restored the idea of seven
|
||
steps, emphasizing the theological virtues by denominating them
|
||
“principal rounds.
|
||
The similarity of Jacob’s Ladder of seven steps to the Winding
|
||
Stairs, with three, five and seven steps has caused many to believe
|
||
each but a different form of the same symbol; Haywood says (“The
|
||
Builder, Vol.5, No.11):
|
||
“Other scholars have opined that the steps were originally the same
|
||
as the Theological Ladder, and had the same historical origin.
|
||
Inasmuch as this Theo-logical Ladder symbolized progress, just as
|
||
does the Winding Stair, some argue that the latter symbol must have
|
||
come from the same sources as the former. This interpretation of the
|
||
matter my be plausible enough, and it may help towards an
|
||
interpretation of both symbols, but it suffers from an almost utter
|
||
lack of tangible evidence.”
|
||
Three steps or seven, symbol similar to the Winding Stairs or
|
||
different in meaning and implications, the theological virtues are
|
||
intimately interwoven in the Masonic system. Our many rituals alter
|
||
the phraseology here and there, but the sense is the same and the
|
||
concepts identical.
|
||
According to the dictionary (Standard) Faith is “a firm conviction of
|
||
the truth of what is declared by another . . .without other
|
||
evidence: The assent of the mind or understanding to the truth of
|
||
what God has revealed.”
|
||
The whole concept of civilization rests upon that form of faith
|
||
covered in the first definition. Without faith in promises, credit
|
||
and the written word society as we know it could not exist. Nor
|
||
could Freemasonry have been born, much less lived through many
|
||
centuries without secular, as distinguished from religious, faith;
|
||
faith in the integrity of those who declared that Freemasonry had
|
||
value to give to those who sought; faith in its genuineness and
|
||
reality; faith in its principles and practices.
|
||
Yet our ritual declares that the third, not the first, round of the
|
||
ladder is “the greatest of these” because “faith may be lost in
|
||
sight.” Faith is not needed where evidence is presented, and in the
|
||
far day when the human soul may see for itself the truths we now
|
||
except without demonstrations, faith may disappear without any con-
|
||
sciousness of loss. But on earth faith in the divine revelation is
|
||
of the utmost importance to all, especially from the Masonic
|
||
standpoint. No atheist can be made a Mason. Any man who misstates
|
||
his belief in Deity in order to become a Mason will have a very
|
||
unhappy experience in taking the degrees. Young wrote:
|
||
“Faith builds a bridge across the gulf of death To break the
|
||
shock blind nature cannot shun And lands though smoothly on the
|
||
further shore.”
|
||
The candidate that has no “bridge across the gulf” will find in the
|
||
degrees only words which mean nothing. To the soul on its journey
|
||
after death, the third round may indeed be of more import than the
|
||
first; to Masons in their doctrine and their Lodges, the first round
|
||
is a foundation; lacking it no brother may climb the heights.
|
||
Hope is intimately tied to faith: “Faith is the substance of things
|
||
hoped for, the evidence of things not seen.”
|
||
The dictionary declares hope to be “desire with expectations of
|
||
obtaining: to trust confidently that good will come.” But the
|
||
dictionary definition fails to express the mental and spiritual
|
||
importance of hope. Philosophers and poets have done much better.
|
||
“Where there is no hope, there can be no endeavor,” says Samuel
|
||
Johnson, phrasing a truism everyone feels though few express. All
|
||
ambitions, all human actions, all labors are founded on hope. It may
|
||
be crystallized into a firm faith, but in a world in which nothing is
|
||
certain, the future inevitably is hidden. We live, love, labor,
|
||
pray, marry and become Masons. bury our dead with hope in breasts of
|
||
something beyond. Pope wrote:
|
||
|
||
“Hope spring eternal in the human breast; Many never is, but always
|
||
to be, blest,” blending a cynicism with the truth.
|
||
Shakespeare came closer to everyday humanity when he said:
|
||
“True hope is swift, and flies with swallow’s wings; Kings it makes
|
||
gods, and meaner creatures, kings.”
|
||
Dante could find no more cruel words to write above the entrance to
|
||
hell than:
|
||
“Abandon all hope, all ye who enter here.”
|
||
Nor can we be argued out of hope; doctors say of a loved one, “she
|
||
must die,” but we hope; atheists attempt to prove there is no God -
|
||
we hope. Facts demonstrate that our dearest ambition can never be
|
||
realized - yet we hope. To quote Young again, we are all:
|
||
“Confiding, though confounded; hope coming on, Untaught by trial,
|
||
unconvinced by proof, And ever looking for the never seen.”
|
||
And yet, vital though hope is to man, to Masons, and thrice vital to
|
||
faith. our ritual says that charity is greater than either faith or
|
||
hope.
|
||
To those whom charity means only handing a quarter to a beggar,
|
||
paying a subscription to the community chest, or sending old clothes
|
||
to the Salvation army, the declaration that charity is greater than
|
||
faith or hope is difficult to accept. Only when the word “charity”
|
||
is read to mean “love,” as many scholars say it should be translated
|
||
in Paul’s magnificent passage in Corinthians, does our ritual become
|
||
logically intelligible. Charity of alms can hardly “extend through
|
||
the boundless realms of eternity.” To give money to the poor is a
|
||
beautiful act, but hardly as important, either to the giver or the
|
||
recipient, as faith or hope. But to give love, unstinted, without
|
||
hope of or faith in reward - that, indeed, may well extend to the
|
||
very foot of the Great White Throne.
|
||
It is worth while to read St. Paul with this meaning of the word in
|
||
mind; here is the quotation from the King James version, but with the
|
||
word “love” substituted for the word “charity:”
|
||
“Though I speak with the tongues of men and of angels, and have not
|
||
love, I am become as sounding brass, or a tinkling cymbal. And though
|
||
I have the gift of prophecy, and understand all mysteries, and all
|
||
knowledge; and though I have all faith, so that I could remove
|
||
mountains, and have not love, I am nothing. And though I bestow all
|
||
my goods to feed the poor, and though I give my body to be burned,
|
||
and have not love, it profiteth me nothing. Love suffereth long, and
|
||
is kind; Love enveith not; love vaunteth not itself, is not puffed
|
||
up. Doth not behave itself unseemly, seeketh not her own, is not
|
||
easily provoked, thinketh no evil; Rejoiceth not in iniquity, but
|
||
rejoiceth in the truth.”
|
||
Beareth all things, believeth all things, hopeth all things, endureth
|
||
all things. Love never faileth; but whether there be prophecies, they
|
||
shall fail; whether there be tongues, they shall cease; whether there
|
||
be knowledge, it shall vanish away. For we know in part, and we
|
||
prophesy in part. But when that which is perfect is come, then that
|
||
which is in part shall be done away.”
|
||
“When I was a child, I spake as a child, I understood as a child, I
|
||
thought as a child; but when I became a man, I put away childish
|
||
things. For now we see through a glass, darkly; but then face to
|
||
face; now I know in part; but then shall I know even as also I am
|
||
known. And now abideth faith, hope, love; these three; but the
|
||
greatest of these is love.”
|
||
It is of such charity that a Mason’s faith is made. He is, indeed,
|
||
taught the beauty of giving that which is material; the Rite of
|
||
Destitution shows forth the tender lesson in the first degree;
|
||
Masonic Homes, Schools, Foundation, Orphanages and Hospitals are the
|
||
living exponents of the charity which means to give from a plenty to
|
||
those who have but a paucity.
|
||
The first of the principal tenets of our profession and the third
|
||
round of Jacob’s Ladder are really one; brotherly love is “the
|
||
greatest of these” and only when a Mason takes to his heart the
|
||
reading of charity to be more than alms, does he see the glory of
|
||
that moral structure the door to which Freemasonry so gently, but so
|
||
widely, opens.
|
||
Charity of thought for an erring brother; charity which lays a
|
||
brotherly hand on a troubled shoulder in comfort; charity which
|
||
exults with the happy and finds joy in his success; charity which
|
||
sorrows with the grieving and drops a tear in sympathy; charity which
|
||
opens the heart as well as the pocket book; charity which stretches
|
||
forth a hand of hope to the hopeless, which aids the helpless, which
|
||
brings new faith to the crushed . . .aye, these, indeed, may “extend
|
||
through the boundless realms of eternity.”
|
||
Man is never so close to the divine as when he loves; it is because
|
||
of that fact that charity, (meaning love,) rather than faith or hope,
|
||
is truly, “the greatest of these.”
|
||
|
||
|