Just a quiet little lodge-room,Top
But a mighty force for good;
With its loyal band of members
Learning more of brotherhood;
Striving, stumbling, but progressing
Down a pathway toward the right;
Just a humble bunch of plain folks,
Reaching, seeking for the light.
Just a quiet little lodge-room
How it stirs the heart and soul
With the thrill of great endeavor
Toward a high and common goal;
With each pledge of faith and courage
To maintain the forward fight,
On the road that leads them onward
Ever onward to the light!
Round the ancient Lodges,Top
Men were set on guard,
North and south and east and west,
Keeping watch and ward.
Silent, steady, sleepless,
Keen of ear and eye-
On the pathway where they stood
No one might creep by.As the covenanters
In each hidden glen
Kept a watch and ward without,
Posted earnest men-
Not as shields of evil,
Be it understood:
But they knew to keep the faith
They must guard the good.Near the ancient Lodges
None might come to see;
None might come to listen there
Save a sign gave he,
For the ancient Lodges,
As those of today,
Kept the outer creeping folk
Very far away.But, today, each Mason
Has a duty high:
He must stand a sentinel
To all that come nigh;
He must guard Masonry,
Must protect its name
As he would his gate or door
Or a woman's name.How, then, shall we do this?
Word and deed must bear
Evidence of what is in
Compass, plumb and square!
So that they who watch us
In the daily crowd
Shall proclaim that Masonry
Is high, and clean, and proud!
Though my Lodge may lack the splendorTop
Of a temple or a shrine,
Or possess the gaudy fixtures
That are classed as superfine-
Yet the fellowship it offers
Is in price beyond compare
And I wouldn't trade it ever
For life's treasures- rich or rare!The hand-clasp firm, the word of cheer,
Oh, such meanings they impart:
The mystic ties of brotherhood
That links us, heart to heart!
You'd really have to travel far,
For the friendships quite so strong
As those one always finds right here
In the Lodge where I belong.When all my earthly travels end,
And at last I'm borne to rest
Where mortal hands no longer toil
And I cease life's endless quest
Why there's nothing I'd like better-
Should I join the heavenly throng-
Then to meet with all the brothers
Of the Lodge where I belong!
Tonight I have the pleasureTop
To all I must confess
To give to you this toast
To our visitors and our guest.The fellowship you bring tonight
is something which can't compare
You know we like to see you
And glad you are always there.The harmony, the chats, and jokes we have ...
With our old and new found friends.
We wish it could last for hours
And somehow never end.But ... all good things must come to an end
And we go our separate way.
We hope you enjoyed yourself tonight
And return again someday.And now I ask the members
To raise a glass in cheer.
To toast to all our visitors
Who supported us this year.
The little Lodge of long ago --Top
It wasn't very much for show:
Men met above the village store,
And cotton more than satin wore,
And sometimes stumbled on a word,
But no one cared, or no one heard.
The tin reflectors threw the light
Of kerosene across the night
And down the highway served to call
The faithful to Masonic Hall.
The little Lodge of long ago.But, men who meet in finer halls,
Forgive me if the mind recalls
With love, not laughter, doors of pine
And smoky lamps that dimly shine,
Regalia tarnished, garments frayed,
Or cheaply bought or simply made,
And floors uncarpeted, and men
Whose grammar falters now and then --
For Craft, or Creed, or God Himself,
Is not a book upon a shelf:
They have a splendor that will touch,
A Lodge that isn't very much.It wasn't very much -- and yet
This made it great: there Masons met,
And, if a handful or a host,
That always matters, matters most.
The beauty of the meeting hour
Is not a thing of robe or flow'r,
However beautiful they seem:
The greatest beauty is the gleam
Of sympathy in honest eyes.
A Lodge is not a thing of size,
It is a thing of Brotherhood,
And that alone can make it good.
"Where were you last evening, Teddy?"Top"Went down to the country."
"Well you missed the meeting of your life. The Grand Master was here, we had an orchestra, the lodge room was beautifully decorated with palms and cut flowers and the banquet that followed was a peach. You surely missed it, Teddy."
"I attended a meeting of a country lodge that night."
"Wouldn't some of those country Masons open their eyes if they could see a blow-out like the one we had last night?"
"Yes, I guess they would, but they made me open my eyes at their meeting all right."
"In the first place it was held in the village schoolhouse, a two story brick building erected by this Masonic Lodge and given rent free to the county for school purposes all except the large hall on the second floor."
"I was told about the meeting the day before and expressed my desire to attend, and the Master took me down to the butcher shop and told Chris Johnson, the butcher, what I wanted and requested him to get two more of the boys and examine me. Chris told me to come back after supper, and when I did there were exactly nine of the local members present, and they made a function of the examination and used up three hours asking me from how many wives King Solomon had to where the Master hung his hat."
"They enjoyed themselves fine and I had a time that still seems like a bad dream to me. But from the moment that examination was over my standing in the village changed. I was the guest of the town and treated like a prince."
"Next day, the farmers commenced coming in at daylight and at eleven o'clock the back fence of the court house was hitched full of gray mares, each with a colt at their heels, and the schoolhouse fence were full of farmers in their Sunday clothes each one whittling a stick and talking 'Masonry'."
"At noon the real function of the day came in the shape of a dinner served by the wives of the Masons in the lodge room. I expected a luncheon, but I found a feast instead! Whole hams, whole turkeys with the stuffing sticking out and running over the plate, armfuls of celery, gallons and gallons of gravy, and right in front of me a whole roasted pig with an apple in its mouth, and do you know, that pig looked like he was glad he had died to grace so noble a feast."
"Honestly, the tables had to stand cross-legged to keep from falling down with their load, and when we got up a little child gathered up over a pint of buttons from under the table. Every night when I go to sleep I see that pig on that plate and a nice old lady that kept handing me glasses of boiled custard at that feed."
"Well, I won't make you hungry telling you about it. Enough to say that we ate and talked until four o'clock in the afternoon and I never had such a time in my life. They made me make a speech and I told all the stories that I had heard in the theaters this winter till the Master said I ought to travel with a show."
"Then the women cleared up the place while we men went out and sat on the fence and smoked like furnaces."
"At six o'clock the lodge was opened and although the Master wore a slouch hat, and although there was not a dress suit in the room and although the Senior Warden ( who was a farmer) had his favorite fox hound sitting solemnly beside his chair, I have never seen a more beautiful opening ceremony or a better rendered degree. It was the third and when the one candidate had finished the degree and listened to the lecture, I thought the work was over. But I was mistaken. The Master finished all the work in the ritual when he added something like this:"
"Jim, you are now a Mason. I fear that it will be many years before you know what that means. There is not a man in this room, Jim, that hasn't watched you grow up from a little shaver in a calico dress to manhood. There is not a man in this room who did not watch you all through school, and although you have thought all through life that you had no father, I want to tell you that you had a hundred."
"Your father belonged to this lodge, Jim, - was Master of it -- and although you can hardly remember him, every man in this room followed him to his grave and every one of us knows that his life was as spotless and square as a man's life can be and, Jim, while we don't know much about heaven, our innermost souls cry out the truthfulness of the life to come, and we know that somewhere in that great beyond your father is looking down on you and me this minute and is glad, and will watch your career as a man and a Mason with renewed confidence and hope. He and we will watch you from now on, Jim."
"He knew when you got into the habit of playing ten-cent limit with the gang down at the hotel and it hurt him and it hurt us."
"All your future life, Jim, try to remember that he is looking down at you, and when there comes up a question of right and wrong to decide, try to think what he would like to have you do, and remember you have the honor of this old lodge to sustain now- the lodge that your father loved and was Master of. Of course you are a man now, Jim, but when you were a boy, a very little boy, your daddy used to take you in his arms and pray God that He would guide you in the path that you have started in tonight and partly for your daddy's sake, partly for God's sake, partly for the sake of the honor of this old lodge, but mostly for your own sake, Jim. I beg you never to take a step that will make us regret what we have done tonight."
"Jim was in tears and I will admit that I was sniffing some myself when the old man got through. Somehow I had forgotten that he did not have on a tuxedo suit, somehow the fact that he had on a slouch hat instead of a plug, slipped out of my mind, and all that I remember and realize was that he was a true Mason.
"And now, my brethren,
What came you here to do?
When you joined our mystic circle,
Had you a purpose in your heart
To be of service to your fellow man,
And perform your allotted part?Or came you out of curiosity
Or motives personal in view?
Tell me, brother of the square,
What came you here to do?
Have you failed to grasp the meaning
Of the symbols of our chart?Have you failed to learned to subdue your passions
And make improvements in your art?
Do you always, always uphold the trusts
On which we firmly stand,
Teaching the Fatherhood of God
And the Brotherhood of Man?Have you willing to aid the brother
When life surges were fierce and wild?
Have you offered cheer and comfort
To the Mason's widow, wife and child?
If you have done so, my brother,
You are a Mason good and true,
And can give a correct answer
What came you here to do? "
Father's Lodge, I well remember, wasn't large, as Lodges go;Top
There was trouble in December getting to it through the snow.
But he seldom missed a meeting; drifts or blossoms in the lane,
Still the Tyler heard his greeting, winter ice or summer rain.Father's Lodge thought nothing of it: 'mid their labors and their cares
Those old Masons learned to love it, that fraternity of theirs.
What's a bit of stormy weather, when a little down the road
Men are gathering together, helping bear each other's load.Father's Lodge had made a village: men of father's sturdy brawn
Turned a wilderness to tillage, seized the flag, and carried on,
Made a village, built a city, shaped a country, formed a state,
Simple men, not wise nor witty -- humble men, and yet how great!Father's Lodge had caught the gleaming of the great Masonic past;
Thinking, toiling, daring, dreaming, they were builders to the last.
Quiet men, not rich or clever, with the tools they found at hand
Building for the great forever, first a village, then a land.Father's lodge no temple builded shaped of steel and carved of stone;
Marble columns, ceilings gilded, Father's Lodge has never known.
But a heritage of glory they have left, the humble ones --
They have left their mighty story in the keeping of their sons.
Fine men have walked this way before,Top
Whatever Lodge your Lodge may be;
Whoever stands before the door,
The sacred arch of Masonry,
Stands where the wise, the great, the good,
In their own time and place have stood.You are not Brother just with these,
Your friends and neighbors; you are kin
With Masons down the centuries;
This room that now you enter in
Has felt the trod of many feet,
For here all Masonry you meet.You walk the path the great have trod,
The great in heart, the great in mind,
Who looked through Masonry to God,
And looked through God to all mankind
Learned more that word or sign or grip,
Learned Man's and God's relationship.To him who sees, who understands,
How mighty Masonry appears!
A Brotherhood of many lands,
A fellowship of many years,
A Brotherhood so great, so vast,
Of all the Craft of all the past.And so I say a sacred trust
Is yours to share, is yours to keep;
I hear the voice of men of dust,
I hear the step of men asleep;
And down the endless future, too,
Your own shall echo after you.
The plainest lodge-room in the land was over Simpkins' store,Top
Where Friendship Lodge had met each month for fifty years or more.
When o'er the earth the moon full-orbed, had cast her brightest beams,
The Brethren came from miles around on horseback and in teams.
And O! what hearty grasp of hand, what welcome met them there,
As mingling with the waiting groups they slowly mount the stair.
Exchanging fragmentary news or prophecies of crop,
Until they reach the Tyler's room and current topics drop,
To turn their thoughts to nobler themes they cherish and adore,
And which were heard on meeting night up over Simpkins' store.To city eyes, a cheerless room, long usage had defaced,
The tell-tale lines of lath and beam on wall and ceiling traced.
The light from oil-fed lamps was dim and yellow in its hue,
The carpet once could pattern boast, though now 'twas lost to view.
The altar and the pedestals that marked the stations three,
The post-gate pillars topped with balls, the rude-carved Letter G,
Were village joiner's clumsy work, with many things beside,
Where beauty's lines were all effaced and ornament denied.
There could be left no lingering doubt, if doubt there was before,
The plainest lodge-room in the land was over Simpkins' store.While musing thus on outward form the meeting time grew near,
And we had glimpse of inner life through watchful eye and ear.
When Lodge convened at gavel's sound with officers in place,
We looked for strange, conglomerate work, but could no errors trace.
The more we saw, the more we heard, the greater our amaze,
To find those country Brethren there so skilled in Masons' ways.
But greater marvels were to come before the night was through,
Where unity was not mere name, but fell on heart like dew.
Where tenets had the mind imbued, and truths rich fruitage bore,
In plainest lodge-room in the land, up over Simpkins' store.To hear the record of their acts was music to the ear,
We sing of deeds unwritten which on an angel's scroll appear.
A Widow's Case - for Helpless Ones - lodge funds were running low,
A dozen Brethren sprang to feet and offers were not slow.
Food, raiment, things of needful sort, while one gave load of wood,
Another, shoes for little ones, for each gave what he could.
Then spake the last: - "I haven't things like these to give - but then,
Some ready money may help out" - and he laid down a Ten.
Were Brother cast on darkest square upon life's checkered floor,
A beacon light to reach the white - was over Simpkins' store.Like scoffer who remained to pray, impressed by light and sound,
The faded carpet 'neath our feet was now like holy ground.
The walls that had such dingy look were turned celestial blue,
The ceiling changed to canopy where stars were shining through.
Bright tongues of flame from altar leaped, the G was vivid blaze,
All common things seemed glorified by heaven's reflected rays.
O! wondrous transformation wrought through ministry of love -
Behold the Lodge-room Beautiful! - fair type of that above,
The vision fades - the lesson lives! and taught as ne'er before,
In plainest lodge-room in the land - up over Simpkins' store.
There is a saying filled with cheer,Top
Which calls a man to fellowship.
It means as much for him to hear
As lies within the brother-grip.
Nay, more! It opens wide the way
To friendliness sincere and true;
There are no strangers when you say
To me: "I sat in lodge with you."When that is said, then I am known;
There is no questioning or doubt;
I need not walk my path alone
Nor from my fellows be shut out.
These words hold all of brotherhood
And help me face the world anew -
There's something deep and rich and good
In this: "I sat in lodge with you."Though in far lands one needs must roam,
By sea and shore and hill and plain,
Those words bring him a touch of home
And lighten tasks that seem in vain.
Men's faces are no longer strange
But seem as those he always knew
When some one brings the joyous change
With his: "I sat in lodge with you."So you, my brother, now and then
Have often put me in your debt
By showing forth to other men
That you your friends do not forget.
When all the world seems gray and cold
And I am weary, worn and blue,
Then comes this golden thought I hold --
You said: "I sat in lodge with you."When to the last great Lodge you fare
My prayer is that I may be
One of your friends who wait you there,
Intent on your smiling face to see.
We, with the warder at the gate,
Will have a pleasant task to do;
We'll call, though you come soon or late:
"Come in! We sat in lodge with you!"
Across the crowd-thronged city waysTop
When night hangs black and friendless there,
A tide of strangers ebbs and plays
Along each cheerless thoroughfare,
And never a face lights up to see
One's self to pass, and none to care
How lone and weary one may be.'Tis then unto one's Lodge one turns
For there he finds within the door
The fire of hearty welcome burns:
If one's not known its flames the more
Send forth a warmth his breast to fill
Until he finds his joy returns
Within that haven of good will.The Mason's secret lies in this, --
"A stranger here, ye took me in";
Its Royal Art would stray amiss
Amid the world's harsh hue and din
If warmth and welcome were to die;
Its greatest strength in these consists;
Of these in made its Mystic Tie.