In a Masonic Lodge,
the Altar is the foundation stone upon which the superstructure of the
Ritual is constructed. What is the true meaning of this most ancient of
human constructions?
A Masonic Lodge is a symbol of the
world as it was thought to be in the olden times. Our ancient Brethren
had a profound insight when they saw that the world is a Temple,
over-hung by a starry canopy at night, lighted by the journeying sun by
day, wherein man goes forth to his labour on a checker-board of lights
and shadows, joy and sorrows, seeking to reproduce on earth the law and
order of heaven. The visible world was but a picture or reflection of
the invisible and at its centre stood the Altar of sacrifices,
obligation and adoration.
While we hold a view of the world very
unlike that held by our Ancient Brethren - knowing it to round, not flat
and square - yet their insight is still true. The whole idea was that
man, if he is to build either a House of Faith, or an order of society
that is to endure, he must initiate the laws and principles of the world
in which he lives. That is also our dream and design; the love of it
ennobles our lives; it is our labour and worship. To fulfil it we too
need wisdom and help from above; and so at the centre of the Lodge
stands the same Altar - older than all Temples, as old as life itself -
a focus of faith and fellowship, at once a symbol and shrine of that
unseen element of thought and yearning that all men are aware of and
which no one can define.
Upon this earth there is nothing more
impressive than the silence of a company of human beings bowed together
at an Altar. No thoughtful man but at some time has mused over the
meaning of this great adoring habit of our humanity, and the wonder of
it deepens the longer he ponders it. The instinct which thus draws men
together to prayer is the strange power which has drawn together the
stones of Great Cathedrals, where the mystery of God is embodied. So far
as we know, man is the only being on our planet that pauses to pray, and
the wonder of his worship tells us more about him than any other fact.
By some deep necessity of his nature he is a seeker after God, and in
moments of sadness or longing, in hours of tragedy or terror, he lays
aside his tools and looks out over the far horizon.
The history of the Altar in the life
of man is a story more fascinating than any fiction. Whatever else man
may have been - cruel, tyrannous or vindictive - the record of his long
search for God is enough to prove that he is not wholly base, not
altogether an animal. Rites horrible, and often bloody, may have been
part of his early ritual, but if the history of past ages had left us
nothing but the memory of a race at prayer, it would have left us rich.
And so, following the good custom of the men which were of old, we set
up an Altar in the Lodge, lifting up hands in prayer, moved thereto by
the ancient need and aspiration of our humanity. Like the men who walked
in the grey years agone, our need is for the living God to hallow these
our days and years, even to the last ineffable homeward sigh which men
call death.
The earliest Altar was a rough, unhewn
stone set up, like the stone which Jacob set up at Bethel when his dream
of a ladder on which angels were ascending and descending, turned his
lonely bed into a house of God and a gate of Heaven. Later, as faith
became more refined and the idea of sacrifice grew in meaning, the Altar
was built of hewn stone - cubical in form - cut, carved and often
beautifully wrought, on which men lavished jewels and priceless gifts,
deeming nothing too costly to adorn the place of prayer. Later still,
when men erected a Temple dedicated and adorned as the House of God
among men, there were two Altars, one of sacrifice, and one of incense.
The Altar of sacrifice where slain beasts were offered stood in front of
the Temple; the Altar of incense on which burned the fragrance of
worship stood within. Behind all was the far withdrawn Holy Place into
which only the High Priest might enter.
As far back as we can go the Altar was
the centre of human society, and an object of peculiar sanctity by
virtue of that law of association by which places and things are
consecrated. It was a place of refuge for the hunted or the tormented -
criminals or slaves - and to drag them away from it by violence was held
to be an act of sacrilege, since they were under the protection of God.
At the Altar, marriage rites were solemnized, and treaties made or vows
taken in its presence were more Holy and binding than if made elsewhere,
because, there man invoked God as witness. In all the religions of
antiquity, and especially among peoples who worshipped the light, it was
the usage of both Priests and people to pass around the Altar following
the course of the sun - from the East, by way of the South, to the West
- singing hymns of praise as a part of their worship. Their ritual was
thus an allegorical picture of the truth which underlies all religion -
that man must live on earth in harmony with the rhythm and movement of
heaven.
From facts and hints such as these we
begin to see the meaning of the Altar in Masonry, and the reason for its
position in the Lodge. In English Lodges, as in the French and the
Scottish Rites, it stands in front of the Master in the East. In the
York Rite, so called, it is placed in the centre of the Lodge - more
properly a little to the East of the centre - about which all Masonic
activities revolve. It is not simply a necessary piece of furniture, a
kind of table intended to support the Holy Bible, the Square and
Compasses. Alike by its existence and its situation it identifies
Masonry as a religious institution, and yet its uses are not exactly the
same as the offices of an Altar in a Cathedral or a Shrine. Here is a
fact often overlooked, and we ought to get it clearly in our minds.
The position of the Altar in the Lodge
is not accidental, but is profoundly significant. For, while Masonry is
not a religion, it is religious in its faith and basic principles, no
less than in its spirit and purpose. And yet it is not a Church. Nor
does it attempt to do what the Church is trying to do. If it were a
Church its Altar would be in the East and its Ritual would be altered
accordingly. That is to say, Masonry is not a religion, much less a
sect, but a worship in which all men can unite because it does not
undertake to explain, or dogmatically to settle in detail, those issues
by which men are divided. Beyond the Primary, fundamental facts of faith
it does not go. With the philosophy of those facts, and the differences
and disputes growing out of them, it has not to do. In short, the
position of the Altar in the Lodge is a symbol of what Masonry believes
the Altar should be in actual life, a centre of division, as is now so
often the case. It does not seek fraternity of spirit, leaving each one
free to fashion his own philosophy of ultimate truth. As we nay read in
the Constitutions of 1723:
"A Mason is obliged, by his Tenure, to
obey the moral Law; and if he rightly understands the Art, he will never
be a stupid Atheist, not an irreligious Libertine. But though in ancient
Times Masons were charged in every Country to be of the Religion of the
Country or Nation, whatever it was, yet 'tis now thought more expedient
only to oblige them to that Religion in which all Men agree, leaving
their particular Opinions to themselves; that is, to be good Men and
True, or Men of Honour and Honesty, by whatever denominations or
Persuasions they may be distinguished; whereby Masonry becomes the
Centre of Union, and the Means of conciliating true Friendship among
Persons that must have remained at a perpetual distance."
Surely those are memorable words, a
Magna Charta of friendship and fraternity. Masonry goes hand in hand
with religion until religion enters the field of sectarian feud, and
there it stops; because Masonry seeks to unite men, not to divide them.
Here then, is the meaning of the Masonic Altar and its position in the
Lodge. It is first of all, an Altar of Faith - deep, eternal Faith which
underlies all creeds and over-arches all sects; Faith in God, in the
Moral Law, and in the Life Everlasting. Faith in God is the Cornerstone
and the Keystone of Freemasonry. It is the first truth and the last, the
truth that makes all other truths true, without which life is a riddle
and fraternity a futility. For, apart from God the Father, our dream of
the Brotherhood of Man is as vain as all the vain things proclaimed of
Solomon - a Fiction having no basis or hope in fact.
At the same time, the Altar of
Freemasonry is an Altar of Freedom - not freedom "From" faith, but
Freedom Of" faith. Beyond the fact of the reality of God it does not go,
allowing every man to think of God according to his experience of life
and his vision of truth. It does not define God, much less dogmatically
determine how and what men shall think or believe about God. There
dispute and division begin. As a matter of fact, Masonry is not
speculative at all, but operative, or rather, co-operative. While all
its teaching implies the Fatherhood of God, yet its ritual does not
actually affirm that truth, still less does it make a test of
fellowship. Behind this silence lies a deep and wise reason. Only by the
practice of Brotherhood do men realize the Divine Fatherhood. As a
true-hearted poet has written:
Here one fact more, and the meaning of
the Masonic Altar will be plain. Often one enters a great Church, like
Westminster Abbey, and finds it empty, or only a few people in the pews
here and there, praying or in deep thought. They are sitting quietly,
each without reference to others, seeking an opportunity for the soul to
be alone, to communicate with mysteries greater than itself, and find
healing for the bruising of life. But no one ever goes to a Masonic
Altar alone. No one bows before it at all except when the Lodge is open
and in the presence of his Brethren. It is an Alter of Fellowship, as it
is to teach us that no man can learn the truth for another, and no man
can learn it alone. Masonry brings men together in mutual respect,
sympathy and good will, that we may learn in love the truth that is
hidden by apathy and lost by hate.
For the rest, let us never forget -
what has been so often and so sadly forgotten - that the most sacred
Altar on earth is the soul of man - your soul and mine; and that the
Temple and its ritual are not ends in themselves, but a beautiful means
to the end that every human heart may be a sanctuary of faith, a shrine
of love, and Altar of purity, pity, and unconquerable hope.
This lecture was first used
in the SRA76 Masonic Magazine for March 2013
This Article was extracted
and transcribed in this format by Bro. J. Stewart Donaldson.
This article was sourced from
The Short Talk Bulletin – Feb. 1924.