The Responsibility of the Master and His Lodge Officers

H. R. Wright

One of the most important problems confronting Masonry today is to estimate, study and very carefully and prayerfully take into consideration the possible difficulties that this powerful organization is going to meet in the highly critical and changing era before us.

Will we be equal to the changes that our day and age are demanding of us? Only by a concerted drive in teaching our old and new members the principles of our Craft, hammering steadily with Masonic education for all members, are we going to emerge bigger and better and stronger.

We have lost the interest of many new members by our failure to drive home, after initiation, the full meaning of the degrees they received. We cannot continue to depend entirely upon old methods, old ideas and old procedures. We must realize that we are in an entirely new climate with an entirely new atmosphere and environment.

We are proud of the antiquity of our Fraternity, and of the great men who have lived in the past and who were ardent Masons, but we cannot today, nay, few of us would be willing today, to live as they did, and certainly we cannot and do not carry on our Masonic Lodges in the manner they did in their days. We have progressed far from the candle-lamp age, and few of us would be wiling to attend Lodge in candlelight as a steady diet, or ride miles on a dusty rod by horseback to a meeting.

To meet this future and progress as we should, we must see that our members have a better understanding of the ancient art. We must use modern methods, educating our members steadily, and try at all times to keep our Lodges unified in one great Masonic family, and generally acquainted with one another. The bond of Masonic brotherhood must be nurtured carefully, and strongly knit with broad bands of understanding and fellowship.

Modern science today has produced a feeling of disregard for secrecy and mystery, and has torn aside the veil of the sanctuary and is constantly revealing the hidden secrets of nature itself. Mankind has reached the point where it considers nothing secret and very little sacred. Our children and grandchildren are being reared in a vastly different training form that which we enjoyed, and I have been told that I am old-fashioned. I suspect that a great many of you have been labelled thusly by your modernistic youngsters, too.

The attitude of these youngsters, our new generation, is going to be highly scientific, cold and calculating. They are not going to be carried away by mysticism, mystery or any halo of secrecy. Cold facts will be demanded and as coldly analyzed. Woe be unto us if we are found wanting.

May I repeat, our salvation is to use every modern means at our disposal to educate our members, and remember that as we get older it takes longer to learn and we cannot relax in our appointed task. We must continue to constantly bring to our members a steady diet of educational programs.