THE ARCANE SCHOOLS - Fort Myers Beach Masonic Lodge No. 362

That is all our doctrine, all our science, all our law. We have no
narrow-minded prejudices; we do not debar from our society this
sect or that sect; it is sufficient for us that a man worships
God, no matter under what name or in what manner. Ah! rail against
us bigoted and ignorant men, if you will. Those who listen to the
truths which Masonry inculcates can readily forgive you. It is
impossible to be a good Mason without being a good man._
--WINWOOD READE, _The Veil of Isis_
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CHAPTER IV
_Grand Lodge of England_
While praying in a little chapel one day, Francis of Assisi was
exhorted by an old Byzantine crucifix: "Go now, and rebuild my Church,
which is falling into ruins." In sheer loyalty he had a lamp placed;
then he saw his task in a larger way, and an artist has painted him
carrying stones and mortar. Finally there burst upon him the full
import of the allocution--that he himself was to be the corner-stone
of a renewed and purified Church. Purse and prestige he flung to the
winds, and went along the highways of Umbria calling men back from the
rot of luxury to the ways of purity, pity, and gladness, his life at
once a poem and a power, his faith a vision of the world as love and
comradeship.
That is a perfect parable of the history of Masonry. Of old the
working Masons built the great cathedrals, and we have seen them not
only carrying stones, but drawing triangles, squares, and circles in
such a manner as to show that they assigned to those figures high
mystical meanings. But the real Home of the Soul cannot be built of
brick and stone; it is a house not made with hands. Slowly it rises,
fashioned of the thoughts, hopes, prayers, dreams, and righteous acts
of devout and free men; built of their hunger for truth, their love of
God, and their loyalty to one another. There came a day when the
Masons, laying aside their stones, became workmen of another kind, not
less builders than before, but using truths for tools and dramas for
designs, uplifting such a temple as Watts dreamed of decorating with
his visions of the august allegory of the evolution of man.
I
From every point of view, the organization of the Grand Lodge of
England, in 1717, was a significant and far-reaching event. Not only
did it divide the story of Masonry into before and after, giving a new
date from which to reckon, but it was a way-mark in the intellectual
and spiritual history of mankind. One has only to study that first
Grand Lodge, the influences surrounding it, the men who composed it,
the Constitutions adopted, and its spirit and purpose, to see that it
was the beginning of a movement of profound meaning. When we see it in
the setting of its age--as revealed, for example, in the Journals of