Saturday, February 12, 2011

When is a man a Mason?

When he can look out over the rivers, the hills and the far horizon with a sense of his own littleness in the vast scheme of things, and yet have faith, hope and courage... which is the root of every virtue.

When he knows that down in his heart every man is as noble, as vile, as divine, as diabolic and as lonely as himself, and seeks to know, to forgive and to love his fellow man.  When he knows how to sympathize with men in their sorrow, yea, even in their sins, knowing that each man fights a hard fight against many odds.  When he has learned how to make friends, and to keep then, and above all, to keep friends with himself.

When he can be happy and high minded amid the meaner drudgeries of life.

When no voice of distress reaches his ears in vain, and no hand seeks his aid without response.

When he knows how to pray, how to love, how to hope.

When he has kept faith with himself, with his fellow man, with his God.  In his hand a sword for evil, in his heart a bit of a song ... glad to live, but not afraid to die.  Such a man has found the only real secret of Freemasonry, and the one which it is trying to give all the world.  - Joseph Fort Newton

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Joseph Fort Newton


July 21, 1880 - January 24, 1950
Baptist minister and masonic author, Joseph Fort Newton is remembered for several masonic books, The Builders in 1914 and The Men’s House in 1923 being two of the most widely reprinted.

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