216 lines
12 KiB
Plaintext
216 lines
12 KiB
Plaintext
SHORT TALK BULLETIN - Vol.XIII June. 1935 No.6
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HOUR GLASS AND SCYTHE
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by: Unknown
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In nearly all Masonic rituals in the United States, these two emblems
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of the third degree are explained in practically the form given by
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Thomas Smith Webb:
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“The Hour-Glass is an emblem of human life; behold! how swiftly the
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sands run, and how rapidly our lives are drawing to a close. We
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cannot, without astonishment, behold the little particles which are
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contained in this machine, how they pass away almost imperceptibly,
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and yet to our surprise, in the short space of an hour, they are all
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exhausted. Thus wastes man! today, he puts forth the tender leaves
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of hope; tomorrow, blossoms and bears his blushing honors which upon
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him; the next day comes a frost, which nips the shoot, and when he
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thinks his greatness is still aspiring, he falls, like autumn leaves,
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to enrich our mother earth.
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“The Scythe is an emblem of time, which cuts the brittle thread of
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life and launches us into eternity. Behold, what havoc the scythe of
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time makes amongst the human race; if by chance we should escape the
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numerous evils incident to childhood and youth, and with that health
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and vigor arrive to the years of manhood, yet withall we must soon be
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cut down by the all-devouring scythe of time, and be gathered into
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the land where our fathers are gone before us.
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Both these emblems seems to be inventions of the ingenious and
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resourceful American who left do tremendous an imprint upon our
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ceremonies. MacKensie, the English Masonic encyclopedist, says of
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the hour glass: “Used in the third degree by Webb - but not
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essential nor authorized in any way.
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Of the scythe, he says: “Since the time of Webb, the scythe has been
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adopted in the American system of Freemasonry, as an emblem of the
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power of time in destroying the institutions of mankind. In England
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it is no regarded as of any typical meaning.”
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Woodford, in Kenning’s Encyclopedia, says: “Hour Glass - Said by
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some to be a Masonic symbol, Oliver inter alios, as an emblem of
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human life; but in our opinion, not strictly speaking so. Woodford
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does not mention the scythe.
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Mackey, (Clegg revised edition)b credits the hour glass to Webb and
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states: “As a Masonic symbol it is of comparatively modern date.”
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The familiar illustrations of these emblems, shown on many if not
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most Lodge charts, and in that collection of monstrosities which
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commercial companies have sold to confiding Lodges on lantern slides
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to illustrate the lectures, are based on the Doolittle pictures in
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the “True Masonic Chart” of Jeremy Cross.
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Here the scythe appears in the drawing of the marble monument, held
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under the arm of the very chubby Father Time, who is provided with a
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most substantial p[air of wings. It also appears as a separate
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illustration for the “scythe of time.” In the same quaint work the
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hour glass is illustrated with a pair of open wings.
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If young in Freemasonry, both scythe and hour glass are very old.
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Old Testament days knew the sickle; ancient Egypt had reaping knives.
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Just when the knife or sickle was curved into the familiar two-handed
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tool with the crooked handle is less important than that it was earl
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associated with a symbolic meaning, as an instrument for the reaping
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of humanity, the cutting off of life. Revelation 14-14 to 20
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inclusive, is illustrative:
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“And I looked, and behold a white cloud, and upon the cloud one sat
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like unto the Son of man, having on his head a golden crown, and in
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his hand a sharp sickle. And another angel came out of the temple,
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crying with a loud voice to him that sat on the cloud, Thrust in thy
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sickle, and reap; for the time is come for thee to reap; for the
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harvest of the earth is ripe. And he that sat on the cloud thrust in
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his sickle on the earth; and the earth was reaped. And another angel
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came out of the temple which is in heaven, he also having a sharp
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sickle. And another angel came out from the altar, which had power
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over fire; and cried with a loud cry to him that had the sharp sickle
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, saying;
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Thrust thy sickle, and gather the clusters of the vine of the earth;
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for her grapes are fully ripe. And the angle thrust in his sickle
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into the earth, and gathered the vine of the earth, and cast it into
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the great winepress of the wrath of God. And the winepress was
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trodden without the city, and blood came out of the winepress, even
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unto the horse bridles, by the space of a thousand and six hundred
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furlongs.”
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Ancient Greece and Rome knew three cruel fates; Clotho, Lachesis and
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Atropos. Clotho held the distaff from which the thread of life was
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spun by Lachesis, while Atropos wielded the shears and cut the thread
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when life was ended. They were deemed cruel because neither she who
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held the staff of life, she who spun the thread nor she who cut it,
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regarded the wishes of any man.
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In the Sublime Degree Freemasons hear a beautiful prayer, taken
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almost wholly from the Book of Job (14, to 14 inclusive). Just why
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the fathers of the ritual thought they could improve upon Job, and
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left out here a verse, thee substituted a word, is a sealed mystery.
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The phrases of the King James version seem intimately connected with
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the ritual of our hour glass and scythe of time:
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Man that is born of a woman is of a few days and full of trouble. He
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cometh forth like a flower, and is cut ; he fleeth also as a shadow,
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and continueth not. And dost thou open thine eyes upon such a one,
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and bringest me unto judgment with thee? Who can bring a clean thing
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out of an unclean? not one. Seeing his days are determined, the
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number of his months are with thee, thou hast appointed his bounds
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that he cannot pass; turn from him, that he may rest, till he shall
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accomplish, as an hireling, his day. For there is hope of a tree, if
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it be cut down, that it will sprout again, and that the tender branch
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thereof will not cease. Though the root thereof wax old in the
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earth, and the stock thereof die in the ground; Yet through the scent
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of water it will bud, and bring boughs like a plant. But man dieth,
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and wasteth away; yea, man giveth up the ghost, and where is he? As
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the Waters fail from the sea, and the flood decayeth and drieth up;
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so man lieth down and riseth not; till the heavens be no more, they
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shall not awake, nor be raised out of their sleep. O that thou
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wouldest keep me secret, until thy wrath be past, that thou wouldest
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appoint me a set time and remember me! If a man die, shall he live
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again? All the days of my appointed time will I wait, till my change
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come.”
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“If a man die, shall he live again?” Job’s cry of despair has rung
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down the centuries; it is one of Freemasonry’s glories that her
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answer is as ringing! Her tragedy ends in hope; her assurances of
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immortality are positive. Ritual of hour glass and scythe, if read
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alone, is gloomy and disheartening, but not as parts of a whole which
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end in a certainty of immortality.
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Measurement of time has demanded the attention of learned men in all
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ages. Our modern clocks, watches and chronometers have a long and
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intricate history, and many ancestors quite unlike their descendants;
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among them the sun dial and hour glass. Just how old the instrument
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is which measures time by the slow dropping of liquid or running sand
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is not easily stated; ancient Egypt knew a water clock and Plato is
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said to have invented the “Clepsydra,” in water drips from container
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to container, marking hate passing of hours. The substitution of
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sand for water must have occurred early, sand having the great
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advantage that it runs more slowly than water and does not evaporate
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in the process. The sealed semi-vacuum double bulbs of more modern
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days were then, of course, unknown.
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Nor can the earliest symbolic relationship between the passage of
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hours and days and man’s life both here and hereafter be stated; the
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connection between time and life is so intimate that it is difficult
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to believe that ideas of duration as a factor of life, as well as a
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practical matter of eating, sleeping, etc., did not arise
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coincidentally.
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Both old and New Testaments have this poetry; Isaiah 38-10:
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“I said in the cutting off of my days, I shall go to the gates of the
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grave: I am deprived of the residue of my years.”
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and John 5-25:
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“Verily, verily, I say unto you; The hour is coming, and now is, when
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the dead shall hear the voice of the Son of God: and they that hear
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shall live.”
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The brethren who built upon the simple esoteric work of operative
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Lodges the magnificent system of philosophy, life and morals which is
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our Freemasonry, wrought with the viewpoint of their times. Yet the
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abiding spirit of the ritual is a reality, otherwise it would not
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have lived in men’s hearts and worked its gentle miracles for so long
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a period. Apparently taking some somber pleasure from dwelling on
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mortality, decay, the evening of life, old age and death; these early
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Masonic ritualists nevertheless builded well when they endeavored to
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impress upon all brethren the vital importance of time. Indeed, time
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is so intimately interwoven in the degrees of Freemasonry (see Short
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Talk Bulletin, January, 1928) that it very obviously has a symbolic
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ass well as moral significance.
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Shakespeare wrote of “the inaudible and noiseless foot of time,” and
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“time the nurser and breeder of all good.” Richter denominated time
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“the chrysalis of eternity;” Franklin called it “the herb that cures
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all diseases.” Tusser said: “Time tries the truth in everything,”
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echoing Cicero’s “Time is the herald of truth.” Paine dug the meat
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from this nut in writing “Time makes more converts than reason.”
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Freemasonry’s ritual deals with time in a strictly limited sense; we
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speak of a definite number of years the temple was in building; of
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the days the Master was buried; of the scythe of time, which cuts the
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brittle thread of life; of the hour glass which marks the passing of
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life. But in the symbolic sense Freemasonry makes of time a vast
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conception, allied with the very fundamentals of God and the
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hereafter. Her whole teaching is of the preparation for another and
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better life by a substantial and an honorable living of this one.
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Freemasonry makes a very clear distinction between everyday time,
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which all men share; - eight hours for labor, eight hours for God and
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a worthy brother, and eight hours for refreshment and sleep - and the
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time his immortal part must spend in the hereafter.
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The scythe of time “cuts the brittle thread of life and launches us
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into eternity.” The immortal part of man “never, never, never,
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dies.” “Time, patience and persever-ance will accomplish all
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things.” “Through the valley of the shadow of death, he may finally
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arise from the tomb of transgression to shine as the stars, forever
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and ever.”
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Quotations might be multiplied; they will occur to all whom the
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ritual is familiar. Lucky the Master Mason who has grasped the
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deeper meanings of the hour glass and the scythe, and comforted is he
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who see behind their gloomy outlook a gleam of light; “In the night
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of death hope sees a star and love can hear the flutter of an angel’s
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wing,” as the great agnostic phrased it.”
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The timelessness of time is a hard conception; that eternity has
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neither beginning nor ending is beyond the mental grasp even of great
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philosophers. Let a poet bring the unbringable within reach:
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DURATION
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Aweary of the endless days, my lot I wept
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That life and love, too long, should pass so slow.
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Some Power my eyelids touched, so that I slept
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And stood upon a star. I saw below,
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Alone in space, our tiny earthly sphere;
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Its continents but islands in the deep;
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Its tempest but a breeze; its mountains sheer,
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Low hill; its oceans only ponds, asleep.
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The northern ice revolved about a stone,
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A mighty boulder, grim and great and high;
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An hundred miles it stretched its length, moss-grown;
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An hundred miles it towered to the sky
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So rapid spun the giant pigmy world
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Years sped as seconds. By some mighty Law
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Ten centuries in empty space were hurled
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As I drew breath. A little bird I saw
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Which rubbed its beak against the rock. “See, there
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He sharpens it, “ a Voice said in my ear,
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“Once every thousand years.” I watched it wear
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The granite down until a pole was clear.
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When that gigantic task , by one small bird
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In cycles of a thousand years. at last
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Was done again the Silent Voice I heard:
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“But one day of Eternity has passed!”
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I woke; so much to do before day’s end!
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I heard the call to labor as a chime,
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A song of instants I have yet to spend;
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“Not life nor love is long, but only time!”
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