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

Laying aside their swords, these Masons helped to lay wide and deep
the foundations of that liberty under the law which has made this
nation, of a truth, "the last great hope of man." Nor was it an
accident, but a scene in accord with the fitness of things, that
George Washington was sworn into office as the first President of the
Republic by the Grand Master of New York, taking his oath on a Masonic
Bible. It was a parable of the whole period. If the Magna Charta
demanded rights which government can grant, Masonry from the first
asserted those inalienable rights which man derives from God the
Father of men. Never did this truth find sweeter voice than in the
tones of the old Scotch fiddle on which Robert Burns, a Master Mason,
sang, in lyric glee, of the sacredness of the soul, and the native
dignity of humanity as the only basis of society and the state. That
music went marching on, striding over continents and seas, until it
found embodiment in the Constitution and laws of this nation, where
today more than a million Masons are citizens.
How strange, then, that Masonry should have been made the victim of
the most bitter and baseless persecution, for it was nothing else, in
the annals of the Republic. Yet so it came to pass between 1826 and
1845, in connection with the Morgan[158] affair, of which so much has
been written, and so little truth told. Alas, it was an evil hour
when, as Galsworthy would say, "men just feel something big and
religious, and go blind to justice, fact, and reason." Although Lodges
everywhere repudiated and denounced the crime, if crime it was, and
the Governor of New York, himself a Mason, made every effort to detect
and punish those involved, the fanaticism would not be stayed: the
mob-mood ruled. An Anti-Masonic political party[159] was formed, fed
on frenzy, and the land was stirred from end to end. Even such a man
as John Quincy Adams, of great credulity and strong prejudice, was
drawn into the fray, and in a series of letters flayed Masonry as an
enemy of society and a free state--forgetting that Washington,
Franklin, Marshall, and Warren were members of the order!
Meanwhile--and, verily, it was a mean while--Weed, Seward, Thaddeus
Stevens, and others of their ilk, rode into power on the strength of
it, as they had planned to do, defeating Henry Clay for President,
because he was a Mason--and, incidentally, electing Andrew Jackson,
another Mason! Let it be said that, if the Masons found it hard to
keep within the Compass, they at least acted on the Square. Finally
the fury spent itself, leaving the order purged of feeble men who were
Masons only in form, and a revival of Masonry followed, slowly at
first, and then with great rapidity.
No sooner had Masonry recovered from this ordeal than the dark clouds
of Civil War covered the land like a pall--the saddest of all wars,
dividing a nation one in arts and arms and historic memories, and
leaving an entail of blood and fire and tears. Let it be forever
remembered that, while churches were severed and states were seceding,
_the Masonic order remained unbroken_ in that wild and fateful hour.
An effort was made to involve Masonry in the strife, but the wise
counsel of its leaders, North and South, prevented the mixing of
Masonry with politics; and while it could not avert the tragedy, it
did much to mitigate the woe of it--building rainbow bridges of mercy
and goodwill from army to army. Though passion may have strained, it
could not break the tie of Masonic love, which found a ministry on red
fields, among the sick, the wounded, and those in prison; and many a
man in gray planted a Sprig of Acacia on the grave of a man who wore