THE NEW AGE MAGAZINE A Monthly Publication Devoted to Freemasonry and Its THE NEW AGE MAGAZINE is the official organ of the Supreme Council of the Thirty- The offices of the Supreme Council are located in its "House of the Temple," Sixteenth George F. Moore, 33°, Grand Commander. John H. Cowles, 33°, Secretary General. THE NEW AGE MAGAZINE is published at Washington, D. C., and is under the control of a John F. Mayer, Richmond, Va. John W. Morris, Wheeling, W. Va. ANNUAL SUBSCRIPTION. In the United States and Mexico, one dollar and fifty cents; THE NEW AGE MAGAZINE is sent free of charge to all Scottish Rite Masons of the COPYRIGHT. All the articles and illustrations in this Magazine are protected under Address all correspondence and communications, and make all checks, drafts, etc., payable Entered at the Washington, D. C., Postoffice, as second-class mail matter. Copyright, 1914, by the Supreme Council of the 33d Degree A. and A. Scottish Rite, S. J. U. S. A. NOTES AND COMMENTS THE CASE OF ROMANISM VS. AMERICANISM The brethren are no doubt aware of the fact that Thomas E. Watson, who It seems that Thomas E. Watson's offense consisted in his publication of It will now be observed that these charges and specifications were never denied by the plaintiffs; that they brought no suit for libel or defamation of character, simply brought the defendant up on the charge of sending obscene matter through the mails-which of course is contrary to law, unless there can be shown an excellent reason for so doing. Now why did the hierarchy select the latter instead of the former method? Well, we imagine that two reasons operated to determine the course of the enemies of Americanism in this case: first, that if they could have the defendant found guilty of the charge of libel, it would only dispose of this particular case; whereas, their desire was to suppress his publication altogether, and establish a precedent whereby they could suppress those of other publishers who might have the temerity to expose the questionable doings of the hierarchy; second and by no means the least important reason—perhaps they were afraid that Thomas E. Watson might be able to prove his charges. So, there you are! Now, brethren, let us look at this matter from the standpoint of a true American citizen. Which is the more dangerous practice (dangerous, of course, to public morals)? Committing the obscenity, or calling the attention of the public to the fact that it has been committed? Is it not the duty of any true American, particularly the publishers of newspapers and other periodicals, to call the attention of the people to such offenses to the end that it may be dangerous to commit them, and hold up their perpetrators to the contempt and reprobation of the whole world? We heartily rejoice that there are still to be found in our country a few men who are Americans at heart and have the courage of their convictions. Also, we deplore the fact that practically all of our daily newspapers are afraid to publish such things lest they lose money by so doing. Some of them say, "Oh, I don't believe the half of the charges that are brought against people in these days, so I don't bother my head about them." But if the charges are of such a nature that, if true, the fact is a menace to our liberties, is it not the plain duty of every true American, particularly the publishers of newspapers, to investigate the charges and find out if they are true, and then publish broadcast the result of their findings? Is it not a matter of pure justice to both parties in the case? In this connection we ask you to note the fact that very few if any of the daily newspapers printed the bare fact that Watson had been acquitted; and this, to our mind, indicates a state of indifference and servility on their part that is truly lamentable. The hierarchy threatens to boycott them and they cater to its wishes; but does it never occur to them that if all other American citizens were to boycott them the result for them would be far more disastrous? Their idea seems to be that the Roman Catholics will act together but the other citizens will not. Let them not deceive themselves on this point. The people are becoming tired of this whole business and more and more disgusted with it; and one of these days they are likely to act in a way that will truly surprise all half-hearted Americans. The trouble with all our publishers seems to be that they are making haste to be rich; and we have the word of the wisest of Kings that, "He that maketh haste to be rich shall not be innocent." (Prov. 28:20.) There is another passage of scripture that is peculiarly applicable to cases of this kind; we have previously quoted a part of it for the benefit of certain members of the hierarchy, and we will now quote the whole passage for the benefit of the newspapers as well as their masters. "But the fearful, and unbelieving, and the abominable, and murderers, and whoremongers, and sorcerers, and idolaters, and all liars, shall have their part in the lake which burneth with fire and brimstone." (Revelations, 21:8.) "Ahem!" says some spiritual descendant of the smart lawyer who asked the great teacher the question, "Who is my neighbor," "Ahem, where is all the brimstone to come from that is to burn eternally around all evil-doers ?" Well, the best answer to that question is the reply made by the old colored woman to the NOTES AND COMMENTS 19 same question asked by her smart-alecky young grandson: "Honey," she said, "dey all takes deir brimstone 'long wid 'em." Again, some one asks (he also must be a lawyer, and a sea-lawyer at that), "This fire that is so often mentioned in connection with evil-doers-what is it and what is its nature?" Well, mention is made of this fire in several places in the "Book of the Law," and in one place, at least, it is spoken of as a fire that is not quenched. We frankly admit, however, that we don't know what that fire is; moreover, we have no desire to know what it is; further still, we are endeavoring so to live that we may never know what it is. How about the rest of you? ACCURACY One of the most important of virtues for brethren who edit Masonic publications to possess is accuracy; and yet how frequently is a lack of it apparent. It is too often the case that an intelligent and well-informed Mason will read an item or an article in his favorite Masonic periodical which he knows to be a misstatement; not done purposely, of course, but through inadvertance, inattention, or inaccuracy, all owing to a lack of careful investigation and inquiry for purposes of verification. Only a short time ago a Masonic paper carried an item that VicePresident Marshall was made a 33° Mason at the meeting of the Northern Supreme Council, held in Pittsburgh, Pa., last September. At that session the VicePresident was in attendance, and it was so noted in the papers; but some brother reading the account carelessly said in his own publication that he had been made a 33° Mason at the session, when the fact is that Brother Marshall has been a 33° Mason for a great many years and is an active member of the Northern Supreme Council from the State of Indiana. Again you frequently see a statement that fifty-three of the fifty-six signers of the Declaration of Independence were Masons and that all the principal officers of the line in the Revolutionary Army were Masons, except Benedict Arnold; when the fact is that fifteen or perhaps twenty of the signers of the Declaration of Independence were Masons, and the Masonic connections. of a goodly number of those are not absolutely known. The same might be said of the officers of the Revolutionary Army. Masonry does not need such extravagant statements to place it at the head of the world's great and good institutions, and statements like the above reflect on the editors of the paper who publish them and, at the same time, are no advantage to our great fraternity. RAYS OF LIGHT FROM THE TREE OF DEATH When darkness descended upon Golgotha and covered the Tree of Death in its sable pall, when according to Holy Writ, the veil of the Temple was rent and the earth shook, and the sheeted dead came forth from their rock-cut tombs, anyone gifted with clairvoyant powers, present at that supernal scene, must have beheld two aura-like emanations issuing from the arms of the cross-one a stream of light, beneficent and beautiful, reaching out far into the centuries and enveloping everything in its soft and loving embrace; and the other a somber ray, like unto Hugo's "black radiance of death," blighting and devastating everything in its path. One ray we might call the Spirit of Love; the other the Spirit of Hate and Persecution. If the great Nazarene realized this, and beheld a vision of all the evil things that would follow his Gospel of Love, deeds done in his name and for the advancement of his simple doctrine of love of God and humanity, he would indeed have felt that he had brought a sword into the world, not an olive branch. It is to the great credit of Christianity that for three centuries, after the death of the Master, there were no persecutions for matters of faith or doctrine. The early Christians were too near to the time of Christ to crystallize his teachings into the pagan dogmas that arose after the alliance of the church with the Roman Empire. Even in the time of Constantine the Great there was great tolerance. But later on we see efforts to exterminate heretics. If the Church had never allied itself with the Empire, it is perhaps doubtful if such a thing as heresy would have existed. The infiltration of pagan rites and doctrines into the simple ceremonies of the Christian faith, brought about by the union of Church and State, made Christianity something very different from what it was intended to be by its founder. To defend its often indefensible dogmas, the Church secured the secular arm of the State to crush out all who disbelieved in its teachings. The Master never founded a religion in the dogmatic sense of the word. His faith was established upon a sublime idea of God as the principle of love; upon charity and regard for one's neighbor, as exemplified in the magnificent parable of the Good Samaritan; and above all in the profound belief in the immortality of the human soul. His anger was only aroused on one occasion, when he went up to the Temple to pray and found there the money-changers engaged in their business. Filled with scorn at the desecration of the holy place, he picked up a handful of reeds that strewed the floor and drove the disciples of Mammon away. Today, in holy places, we see these same money-changers. But they are the pillars of the temple. No well-balanced minister of the Gospel would dare drive them forth in anger, for, alas, salaries have to be paid, and the church supported. "My kingdom," said the Nazarene, "is not of this world." But many of his so-called followers have indeed made it of the earth earthy. However, after all has been said, we see in the present century a wonderful recrudescence of the ancient Christian spirit; a return to the simplicity of the early faith; an endeavor to go forth into the world and preach social justice. The church is becoming more democratic-we are speaking of course of the Protestant bodies. We must do justice to the Roman Catholic church, however, and acknowledge that in spite of its absolutism in government it has been democratic in its contact with the world. In the Middle Ages when the lowly were crushed to the earth, men who entered the church, no matter how humble their origin, had a chance of rising to eminence; to become popes, if their talents nabled them to secure so high an office. We see peasants exalted to the Papacy, who in other walks of life could never have advanced beyond the stage of trench diggers and tillers of the soilthe wretched, despised vassals of feudal lords. But this democracy did not exist outside of the Church. . Popular education was never very popular in papal circles. With the decay of the power of the Church and the rise of secular schools the blessings of education have been spread broadcast. And with secular instruction has come tolerance. Religious hate has almost died out. The Protestant churches are becoming less exclusive and less aristocratic. More and more is the Christ spirit pervading them, and forcing them into the world to bring about the reign of social justice. The great working class has been almost completely alienated from the Protestant bodies. We must confess this with sorrow. The Roman Catholic Church has fared better in this regard; its rich and poor members have worshipped together in true democratic spirit. There has been no exclusiveness here The Protestant communion, split as it is, into numerous factions, can still come together in service to humanity, and reclaim its lost sheep. Liberty of thought marks the Protestant faith and that always makes for individualism. We would not have it otherwise. The common meeting ground of Protestantism, as we have declared, is social service. Too long have the churches been accused of NOTES AND COMMENTS 21 being allied with Mammon and the Powers that Be. We must not forget, however, that there is such a thing as Christian socialism-a socialism embued with the spirit of the Master, and not the product of the crass materialism of the Marxian school of economics. SOCIALIZING EDUCATION Imagine a young eaglet, perched upon the edge of the parental aerie, about to fly for the first time, and then realizing that its wings had been thoroughly and effectively clipped. This is the position of many of our young people todayeaglets of Fate, if you will-who essay a flight into the world of realities, only to discover that their wings are clipped and their feet shod with leaden soles. Education has done little or nothing for them, except initiate them into the mysteries of the three R's, and then let them flounder about at will, in the effort to adjust themselves to the work-a-day world. They are supposed to have received a cultural education, which probably means a confused smattering of a number of textbook subjects. Our cultural studies are, in the main, derived from the aristocratic or privileged class among the ancient Greeks, and have but little bearing on practical life. The Greek aristocrats were composed of the philosophers, the warriors, and the politicians. They regarded the agriculturist, the trader, the merchant and the craftsman as inferiors in the social fabric, a servile class, many of whom were actually held as slaves and despised accordingly. The favorite studies of the Greek aristocrat were philosophy, logic, abstract mathematics, grammar, rhetoric, art and music. Our schools are dominated today by this culture (magnificent so far as it goes), but something more is required to fit the young citizen for his place in the social structure. Prof. Dallas D. Johnson, of the University of Wisconsin, in an able paper read before the Washington Chapter, Phi Delta Kappa, not long ago, has emphasized this viewpoint as follows: "Approximately 90 per cent of our population consists of manufacturers, agriculturists, merchants and home-makers those whom we might say work with their hands. It can readily be seen that our conventional curriculum-may we say, traditional curriculum-comprises a group of studies which, while once truly cultural for the Greek aristocracy, are worse than cultureless for the vast majority of our young people. Worse than cultureless, because these studies would not only fail to prepare our youth for efficient self-supporting citizenship if every boy and girl completed these courses, but, moreover, recent investigations into the causes of elimination show that the insistence upon these conventional studies furnishes one very potent factor in eliminating boys and girls from school. They see nothing in much of the work offered and especially in the way in which it is presented, which, to use their own expression, is 'any good.' "If we could define culture in terms of the effects of culture rather than in terms of those studies which theoretically furnish the culture, we should then be justified in saying that to produce a truly cultivated individual is the aim of education. The culture of one age would then be a vastly different thing from the culture of an earlier age in a world where social progress is the rule. We could then justify on cultural grounds, if need be, the giving of vocational education to our boys and girls. Specific preparation in school for a life of productive service, supplemented by courses of construction having for their purpose the arousing of a community conscience, and the developing of a deeper insight and appreciation concerning our common problems would provide true culture. It is only through such an education that our boys and girls will be rendered able. to participate efficiently in the social group of which they are a part." The education of the past still dominates us though it has outlived its usefulness. Were it not so the introduction of pre-vocational schools, continuation. |