SHORT TALK BULLETIN - Vol.V    April, 1927   No.4

MORE LIGHT

by:  Unknown

Goethe was one of the myriad-minded men of our race, and a devout 
member of our gentle Craft.  When he lay dying, as the soft shadow 
began to fall over his mind, he said to a friend watching over his 
bed : "open the window and let in more light!"  The last request of a 
great poet-Mason is the first quest of every Mason.

If one were asked to sum up the meaning of Masonry in one word, the 
only word equal to the task is - light!  From its first lesson to its 
last lecture, in every degree and every symbol, the mission of 
Masonry is to bring the light of God into the life of man.  It has no 
other aim, knowing that when the light shines the truth will be 
revealed.

A Lodge of Masons is a House of Light.  Symbolically it has no roof 
but the sky, open to all the light of nature and of grace.  As the 
sun rises in the East to open and rule the day, so the Master rises 
in the East to open and guide the Lodge in its labor.  All the work 
of the Lodge is done under the eye and in the name of God, obeying 
Him who made the great lights, whose mercy endureth forever.

At the center of the Lodge, upon the Altar of Obligation, the Great 
Lights shine upon us, uniting the light of nature and the whiter 
light of revelation.  Without them no Lodge is open in Due Form, and 
no business is valid.  As the moon reflects the light of the sun, as 
the stars are seen only when the sun is hidden, so the Lesser Lights 
follow dimly when the Greater Lights lead.

To the door of the Lodge comes the seeker after Light, hoodwinked and 
groping his way - asking to be led out of shadows into realities; out 
of darkness into light.  All initiation is "Bringing Men To Light," 
teaching them to see the moral order of the world in which they must 
learn their duty and find their true destiny.  It is the most 
impressive drama on earth, a symbol of the Divine education of man.
So, through all its degrees, its slowly unfolding symbols, the 
ministry of Masonry is to make men "Sons Of Light" - men of insight 
and understanding who know their way and can be of help to others who 
stumble in the dark.  Ruskin was right:  "To See Clearly is Life, 
Art, Philosophy and Religion - All In One."  When the light shines 
the way is plain, and the highest service to humanity is to lead men 
out of the confused life of the senses into the light of moral law 
and spiritual faith.

To that end Masonry opens upon its Altar the one great Book of Light, 
its pages glow with "A Light That Never Was On Sea Or Land," shining 
through the tragedies of man and the tumults of time, showing us a 
path that shineth more and more unto the perfect day.  From its first 
page to the last , the key-word of the Bible is light; until, at the 
end, when the City of God is built it will have no need of the sun or 
the moon or the stars; for God is the Light of it.  

And God Said, Let There Be Light;   And there was light.
God Is Light, And In Him Is, No Darkness At All.  Thy Word Is A 
Lamp Unto My Feet;
And A Light Unto My Path.  The entrance Of Thy Word, Giveth Light.
The Lord Is My Light And My Salvation;  Whom I Shall Fear.
There Is No Light For The Righteous, Gladness For The True.
The Lord Shall Be To Thee An Everlasting Light.
To Them That Sat In Darkness, Light Is Sprung Up.
He Stumbleth Not, Because He Seeth The Light.
I Am Come A Light Into The World, While Ye Have The Light, Believe 
In The Light.
Let Your Light Shine Before Man.

To find the real origin of Masonry we must go far back into the past, 
back before history.  All the world over, at a certain stage of 
culture, men bowed down in worship of the sun, moon and the stars.  
In prehistoric graves the body was always buried in a sitting 
position, and always facing to the East, that the sleeper might be 
ready to spring up early to face the new and brighter day.

Such was the wonder of light and its power over man, and it is not 
strange that he rejoiced in its beauty, lifting up hands of praise.  
The Dawn was the first Altar in the old Light Religion of the race.
Sunrise was an hour of prayer, and sunset, with its soft farewell 
fires, was the hour of sacrifice.  After all, religion is a Divine 
Poetry, of which creeds are prose versions.  Gleams of this old Light 
religion shine all through Masonry, in its faith, in its symbols, and 
still more in its effort to organize the light of God in the Soul of 
Man. 

Such a faith is in accord with all the poetries and pieties of the 
race.  Light is the loveliest gift of God to man; it is the mother of 
beauty and the joy of the world.  It tells man all that he knows, and 
it is no wonder that his speech about it is gladsome and grateful.  
Light is to the mind what food is to the body; it brings the morning, 
when the shadows flee away, and the loveliness of the world is 
unveiled.

Also, there is a mystery in light.  It is not matter, but a form of 
motion; it is not spirit, though is seems closely akin to it.  Midway 
between the material and the spiritual, it is the gateway where 
matter and spirit pass and repass. Of all the glories in its 
gentleness, its benignity, its pity, falling with impartial 
benediction alike upon the just and the unjust, upon the splendor of 
wealth and the squalor of poverty.

Yes, God is light, and the mission of Masonry is to open the windows 
of the mind of man, letting the dim spark within us meet and blend 
with the light of God, in whom there is no darkness.  There is "A 
Light That Lighteth Every Man That Cometh Into The World," as we 
learn in the Book of Holy Law; but too often it is made dim by evil, 
error and ignorance; until it seems well nigh to have gone out.
Here now some of the most terrible words in the Bible: "Eyes they 
have, but they do not see."  How many tragedies it explains, how many 
sorrows it accounts for.  Most of our bigotries and brutalities are 
due to blindness.  Most of the cruel wrongs we inflict upon each 
other are the blows and blunders of the sightless.  Othello was 
blinded by jealousy, Macbeth by ambition; as we are apt to be blinded 
by passion, prejudice or greed.

With merciful clarity Jesus saw that men do awful things without 
seeing what they do.  "Father, forgive them for they know not what 
they do."  The pages of history are blacker than the hearts of the 
men that made the history.  Man is not as wicked as the wrongs he has 
done.  Unless we see this fact, much of the history of man will read 
like the records of hell - remembering the atrocities of the 
Inquisition, the terrors of the French Revolution, and the red horror 
of Russia.  It is all a hideous nightmare - man stumbling and 
striking in the dark.

No, humanity is more blind than bad.  In his play, "St. Joan," Shaw 
makes one of his characters say:  "If you only saw what you think 
about, you would think quite differently about it.  It would give you 
a great shock. I am not cruel by nature, but I did not know what 
cruelty was like. I have been a different man ever since."  Alas, he 
did not see what he had done until the hoodwink had been taken off.
More and more some of us divide men into two classes - those who see 
and those who do not see.  The whole quality and meaning of life lies 
in what men see or fail to see.  And what we see depends upon what we 
are.  In the Book of the Holy Law the verb "to see" is close akin to 
the verb "to be," which is to teach us that character is the secret 
and source of insight.  Virtue is vision; vice is blindness.  

"Blessed are the pure in heart, for they shall see god."

Thus our gentle Masonry, by seeking to "Bring Men to Light," not 
simply symbolically but morally and spiritually, is trying to lift 
the shadow of evil, ignorance and injustice off the life of man.  It 
is a benign labor, to which we may well give the best that we are or 
hope to be, toiling to spread the skirts of light that we and all men 
may see what is true and do what is right.

What the sad world needs - what each of us needs - is more light, 
more love, more clarity of mind and more charity of heart; and this 
is what Masonry is trying to give us.  Once we take it to heart, it 
will help us to see God in the face of our fellows, to see the power 
of a lie and its inherent weakness because it is false, to see the 
glory of truth and its final victory - to see these things is to be a 
Mason, to see these things is to be saved.

O Light that followeth all my way, I yield my flickering torch to 
thee;
My heart restores its borrowed ray, That in thy sunshine's blaze, 
Its day may brighter, fairer be.

