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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.
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