From the Office of the Right Worshipful Grand Lecturer
Bearers of the Torch (A Master's Wages)
In the three degrees of Blue Lodge Masonry a man takes certain obligations; he agrees with his brethren, all of whom have gone that way before him, that there are certain things a Mason must do, and certain things no Mason can do. It has been said that any man who lives entirely by both the spirit and the letter of his Masonic obligations is as near perfection as it is possible for a human being to become. Yet there is a vast amount in Masonry not specifically covered in the obligation; if a Mason be so minded, he may do many acts upon which his fellows would frown, and yet defy them to name a prohibition against them in his Masonic obligation. He may, if he will, make the obligations the boundaries of Masonic knowledge, and so injure himself and by that much, the fraternity. But there is an inner spirit to the obligation of brotherhood above and beyond the obligation taken at the Altar. Just why these should be equally binding, and equally sacred to the Master Mason, is more easily felt that understood; more often sensed that put into words.
First: because in the Grand Lodge Above waits the vast majority of Masons from whose hands the living fire has passed to yours and mine. Be sure, my brother, that in some still hour we will have to render our report to them. They will ask us what did you with your Masonry? What did you with your Lodge? What did you with your brethren? Great men of all ages have revered Masonry. It matters little whether King Solomon was really the first Grand Master or whether the tale is but a Masonic myth, used to teach the uninstructed of the antiquity of Masonic truth by the objectiveness of a quasi-historical story. King Solomon was a wise and just man and on his Altar burned the holy fire, whether it was within the doors of a tiled lodge or but the mystic fire of the truth and righteousness he taught. From Solomon's day to this, wise and just men of many lands and many ages have taken their parts in Masonic work, squared their stones in the quarry and passed on to receive their Master's wages. You and I add to the Temple they built; you and I build upon the foundation they laid. For the sake of the historic dead, the torch must not flicker in your hands and mine; for the honor of the founders of the Republic who bless the flag with Masonic brotherhood, you and I must carry Masonry's banner held high. That is the first reason.
And the second is similar; because in the great womb of time are untold millions of souls waiting to be born, many of them to be Master Masons. The kind of Masonry they embrace will be what you and I leave for them; good, if we make it good; poor, if we do our work ill. True, you and I as Individuals may be forsworn Masons, reprobates, criminals, evil to the core, and Masonry will go serenely on unchanging and unchanged. But if there are enough of you and me, and we hold the torch not high, it will flicker and burn low, perhaps to be extinguished in the end.
These, my brethren, are the reasons why we are as solemnly obligated to carry on the unspoken vows of Masonic brotherhood, as to keep inviolate those binding obligations to which we have all pledged our honor and our faith; for the sake of the honor of the fathers, and that we may meet them face to face once more and boast proudly, I kept the holy fire for the sake of the little unborn children, who will yet be men as we are, to whom we owe the same love and aid that our fathers in so large measure gave to us. For each of us can carry but his own torch; I may not help you, save with the cherry word of brotherhood; you may not help lift and of my burden, save with the handclasp and the smile of a good comrade. Side by side, and shoulder to shoulder, you and I and millions of our brethren, bear each our torch of Masonry; let us hold them high aloft, no matter how hard the way or rough the path, for the honor of those from whom we took the holy fire, and for the sake of those to whom, one day, we must hand it on.