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

Gladness and sorrow;
We press still thorow,
Nought that abides in it
Daunting us--onward.
"And solemn before us
Veiled the dark portal,
Goal of all mortal;
Stars silent rest o'er us
Graves under us silent.
"While earnest thou gazest
Come boding of terror,
Comes phantasm and error,
Perplexing the bravest
With doubt and misgiving.
"But heard are the voices,
Heard are the sages,
The worlds and the ages;
'Choose well; your choice is
Brief and yet endless.
"'Here eyes do regard you,
In eternity's stillness;
Here is all fullness,
Ye, brave to reward you;
Work and despair not.'"
* * * * *
And now, in concluding this work, so inadequate to the importance of
the
subjects that have been discussed, one deduction, at least, may be
drawn
from all that has been said.
In tracing the progress of Freemasonry, and in detailing its system of
symbolism, it has been found to be so intimately connected with the
history of philosophy, of religion, and of art, in all ages of the
world,
that the conviction at once forces itself upon the mind, that no mason
can
expect thoroughly to comprehend its nature, or to appreciate its
character
as a science, unless he shall devote himself, with some labor and
assiduity, to this study of its system. That skill which consists in
repeating, with fluency and precision, the ordinary lectures, in
complying
with all the ceremonial requisitions of the ritual, or the giving, with
sufficient accuracy, the appointed modes of recognition, pertains only
to
the very rudiments of the masonic science.
But there is a far nobler series of doctrines with which Freemasonry is
connected, and which it has been my object, in this work, to present in
some imperfect way. It is these which constitute the science and the