Articles by the Fraternity
Freemasons as Friends
Friendship is so completely essential to the very stuff and nature of man and his world that if by some miracle it were suddenly obliterated, we would not long survive a catastrophe more disastrous than a rain of atomic bombs; within a few years much of the population of the world would be insane; and in time no an or woman anywhere on the earth would continue to exist. When Charles Darwin was asked what things are necessary for man's survival he answered, "food, clothing and shelter" and evolutionists have repeated and elaborated that answer ever since. But it is too short a list, too short by at least several hundreds of things, and "friendship" is one of them.
A man-as-a whole is one thing but that one thing is composed of many things. The man-as-a-whole has an anatomy-as-a-whole; his being is so structuralised that while he is one, a unit, he is thousands of things at one stroke, and he has in himself a means, an organ, a structure by virtue of which he can do any one of many things, which he has to do; and not many (comparatively) of these structures are physical. Friendship is one of those structures and thus beings to man's anatomy-as-a-whole. To have no friendships is as agonising a misfortune as to become blind or deaf.
Just as a man's seeing or hearing has a way of its own, it is the same for each and every man, because they are carried on by organs and structures common in anatomy-as-a-whole, so has white, or yellow, or black friendship; no English, or Chinese, or India; no Christian or Buddhist, or jewish; no Protestant or Catholic friendship, in the same sense that there are not different geometries for each of those divisions,because like seeing, hearing, sleeping, working and feeling, friendship is a function of a man's being and everywhere is the same. If two Freemasons become friends, the friendship is not peculiar to Freemasonry; the Lodge has nothing to do with it except to give it an opportunity and a place; but since a Lodge office such as abundance of opportunities and favourable circumstances there is something redically wrong in a Lodge in which warm friendship not formed amongst its members.
The procedure by which a Candidate is initiated, an Entered Apprentice passed and a Fellowcraft raised to the Sublime degree of a Master Mason, in a Lodge of his choice, does not there and then, or automatically, make him at once a friend to each member of the Lodge. he might continue in that Lodge for years and yet have not more than two or three friends in it. No organization can make friends out of two men; they become friends, and do so in a way which belongs to their very existence. That way consists of a series of steps of stages; first, two men encounter each other, or are thown together; second, they come to know who each other is, his name, his residence, and where he works, and greet each other when they meet; third, they next come to really know each other, and that has a way of its own for which no machinery or organization can be a substitute; fourth, if after knowing each other they come to have an affection for each other, then they have become friends.
The membership in a Lodge cannot possibly make friends of any two men because the masonic machinery of organization is not the same as the wasy of friendship. What the Masonic organization mades of a new member is a Brother; and this is all it has ever professed to do. But to be a Brother is in itself as fine a thing in its own wayj as friendship is in another way. A Brotherhood is a number of men who are members of an organization, which is carrled on by the member collectively and according to Rules and Regulations, and in which each member has his own place, station, or function. A Lodge is a Brotherhood because it is an Order, and each member is a Brother to each adn every otehr member because he works collectively adn in unison with them to carry ont he ordered work of a Lodge. Two members may be taste and inclination be antipathetic to each other, but that does not affect their communion as Brethren. Two friends may address each other as "Friend", although they seldom do and need not, but "Friend" is not a litle; two Fremasons must address each other as "Brother" and if they do not, they are guilty of un-Masonic conduct; and "Brother" is a litle.
Friendship and Brotherhood are but two of a dozen ways which belong to man, all of which are of a similar sort; it is important for a Lodge and its Wor. Master to understand each and every one of the following because in the more or less degree they have a place in Free masonry.
Where a man is engaged in a work of his own, and other men are each also in a work of their own, and work in the same place, and no one can do his own work unless the other are doing theirs, they are Colleagues. The typical Collegium is a college, and the members of its faculty are colleagues.
If a man is doing his own work in one place, and others are doing a similar or connected work in other places, and if it would be advantageous for them to meet at fixed periods, they from and Association and are Associates; the various Teachers' Doctors' and Lawyers' Associations are examples.
If in his own work a man does one thing and if by arrangement others are doing other things, and if at the end the products are assembled and united and made into a single product, these men are Co-operators.
If one man is at work here, and another is at work elsewhere, and if what one is doing affects what the others are doing, and if they must have information about each other, they are correspondents Every scholar knows how necessary it is to correspond with other scholoars in the same field.
If what one man says and knows is useful or necessary to a given work, and the same is true for many other men here and there and they must put what each says or writes or knows in a common pool from which each may draw what he himself wants, they are Shares. A journal of Chemical Research is such a pool, and men who contribute to it or use if are Shares of it.
No family is a self-contained entity but must have affiliations with families immediately around it; when such affiliations are functioning the member s of the families concerned are nighbours. It is a unieque relationship, wholly unlike any other, and is of great importance. If a woman cannot run in next door to borrow sugar after the stores are closed, if her husband cannot chat over the fence with the man next door, she suffers from loneliness and he feels as if he and his family were imprisoned.
If what a man has or produces, must be obtained by another in order to have or produce something of his own, and if there are several men of that same connection and they agree that each can obtain what he needs only from the other, they are in a Partnership, and they themselves are Partners.
If one man knows the name, address, and work of another, and they meet occasionally, so that they stop and talk without intrusion or presumptuousness or inquisitiveness, they are Acquaintances.
If two Acquaintances pass beyond Acquaintanceship, come to know each other inwardly as well as outwardly, and each can speak to the "you yourself" in the other, the "know" each other.
Men who enjoy being together, and therefore go fishing, or hunting, or play cards, or golf together as much for the sake of being together as for the enterprises they have in common are "Pals."
How many of these are in the nature and purposes and functions of a Lodge? If a Brother can answer that Question, if he understands clearly what each of these relationships is in itself, and if he can point out where or when it appears in Lodge rules or activities, and how activities are to be ordered to correspond with what they are in themselves, such a Brother is a Masonic Philosopher. Each Lodge needs at least one Masonic Philosopher in its membership, and ought to use him freely and to recognise his invaluable services.
Here and now, and returning to the subject of Brotherly Love, or friendship among Freemasons, a Masonic Philosopher would certainly make two recommendations to his Wor. Master. First, he would recommend to the Wor. Master that he must prevent the whole Lodge from breaking up into groups of separate member hurrying to get away and tossing their. Apron on the nearest convenient chair, and should hold them awhile in an informal way so they can meet and converse with each other. Then Wor. Master should do this by any means can devise, Second, the Wor. Master should make sure of having as many diners, banquets, parties and special programs as possible in order that his members may be together often because it is only in this manner that member can become the friend of other members.
This writer, and not speaking as a mason Philosopher, can make the general recommendation to a Wor. Master that he study the sorts of relationship referred to above because the belong to man's nature and any Lodge activity undertaken with knowledge thereof certain to make his stewardship of considerable significance to our Ancient Order of the Brotherhood of Men under the Fatherhood of God.
