Worshipful Master Bart Harvey     -     Secretary & Editor John "Corky" Daut
The January 2011 Issue
It's Happening At Waller Lodge

By Corky

Brothers Calvin Trapp, Richard Ventrca and Doyle Sitton were appointed as a committee to choose at least 3 students for our new annual $500.00 scholarship awards.

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Brother Wes Mersiovsky made a presentation for a new fundraiser by selling bumper stickers with "It Is - In God – I am" and a square and compass on it. These phrases are the answers to the first three questions of the E.A. Degree and meant to attract questions from the public.

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A petition was read for a new Lodge to be created, Freedom Lodge #1460 AF & AM in Houston. It will basically be a Lodge for members of Philippine decent.

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SICKNESS AND DISTRESS
Please say a prayer for,

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Brother Wes Mersiovsky's mother-in-law is currently in an assisted living facility,

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Brother Greg Williams' wife is home again and doing much better.

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A horse stepped on Brother Jimmy Hooper’s foot. The horse is OK, but Jimmy is hurting.

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Brother Fred Loofs said his pride was badly injured when he fell on the stairs at Grand Lodge.



Wearing The Light

Author Unknown


Sometimes there are people who will accost someone wearing a Masonic ring or pin, with accusations about things they perceive as wrong with Freemasonry. They many times will ask questions, demanding a response from the man wearing a ring or pin. One Masonic Brother mentioned to me that he thinks that could be a reason the number of Masons “wearing Light” has diminished over the years.

Being confident in our ability to answer charges against Freemasonry is important. Every Mason can be able to do this by studying the allegories and lessons of Freemasonry. This is made easier if one reads articles and books written by other Masonic students. Those who attack Freemasonry and Freemasons rely on the presumption that Masons don’t know enough about their Fraternity and Craft to effectively answer the charges from the critics and enemies of Freemasonry.

We are admonished not to enter into arguments with those, who being misinformed will ridicule Freemasonry. Masons are not at their best if they enter into an argument and speak unkindly. We can be gentlemanly, and convey factual information about our Fraternity, when we have someone who will listen to us. One book I have that contains tips on Evangelizing suggests that some contemptuous people will not grasp what is being said. That is true, so the Freemason being attacked needs to discern if he is hearing someone with whom he can have a conversation. While it is true that the anti-Masons of the world are intent on accomplishing what they set out to do so long ago, to eliminate Freemasonry, the people you and I come in contact with everyday who may have a negative view of Freemasonry are not anti-Masons. They are generally just misinformed.

Someone once said about democracy, and I think it applies to Freemasonry as well, that if it ceases to exist it will not come from attacks from the outside - it will come from the apathy within. This reminds me of the saying that it is the internal not the external that renders a man worthy to be made a Mason.

When it comes to learning what Masonry has to teach, Masons should not be apathetic. It is true that when a Mason studies, learns, and applies what he learns in Freemasonry he will be a happier man, and a better man to be around.

The Masonic Student will look at the charges some level against us as an open invitation to investigate those charges and study Masonry to see if there is any validity to them. I hope no one reading this will think ill of this suggestion, because Freemasonry can stand up to investigation. It is the charges from our critics and enemies that can’t stand up to investigation.

One of the questions or charges against Freemasonry is that we Masons don’t pray to or acknowledge Jesus in our Lodges. I’ll say just a little something about prayers. The prayers in a Lodge are interfaith prayers, which are not unlike interfaith prayers offered up in the military, [government], or in interfaith religious gatherings of clergy. Anytime there is a gathering of people who are likely to be of varying religions, the prayers offered up for them as a group will be an interfaith prayer they can all be happy with. Anyone in the clergy will be familiar with that kind of prayer.

“Successful leaders don’t start out asking, ‘What do I want to do?’ They ask, ‘What needs to be done?’ Then they ask, ‘Of those things that would make a difference, which are right for me?’ They don’t tackle things they aren’t good at. They make sure other necessities get done, but not by them. Successful leaders make sure that they succeed! They are not afraid of strength in others. Andrew Carnegie wanted to put on his gravestone, ‘Here lies a man who knew how to put into his service more able men than he was himself.” Anonymous.

Ed R. Halpaus



Going the Way of Masonry

By Martin E. Marty

Summer travels off the interstate highways and onto byways, where vestiges of earlier American civilization linger, often lead to passing visions of neglected, boarded-up, or refashioned Masonic Lodge buildings. Just as numberless Catholic church buildings have been deconsecrated, demolished, and remade into clubs and bars, or, most creatively, into churches for African-American congregations that are at home in inner cities, so these buildings speak of a lost past. And just as great numbers of mainstream Protestant church buildings meet similar fates because their congregants have moved on, to suburbs or to nowhere, so these edifices are abandoned. Masonry, though a secret society, made a public splash in countless communities; it now falls out of public consciousness to an unanticipated degree.

Press coverage of this decline has been sporadic. In some cases it has not been noted because not enough people cared to read about it. In other cases, as typified by Holly Lebowitz Rossi's article in the Dallas Morning News (April 15, reprinted widely since; see References, below) there is good coverage. Rossi celebrates the fact that the Shriners, a Masonic expression, find ways to continue supporting children's hospitals and other charities. The headline, however, shouts "On Wobbly Ground: Masons, Once a Bedrock of U.S. Culture, Face Aging, Declining Membership." Statistics: Membership has fallen from 4 million in 1959 to about 1.5 million today. Some picture death, before long, for such secret societies.

Read all the analysis and you will find that certain explanations stand out:

1. "bowling alone," citizens head for solitary enjoyments and shun communal commitments such as those offered by Masonry;
2. "boys' night out," once an old attraction, now has lost its cultural slot, as men need to or like to be home;
3. "nights out" suffer in general, as work has become portable and men find it harder to get away from cell phone- and laptop-"offices";
4. "not our game": While the open warfare between Catholicism and Masonry is now in a cease-fire, armistice, or who-cares-to-fight-anymore phase, Catholicism, especially in the expanding Hispanic sector, has never shared Masonic culture;
5. "too staid": The quasi-religious (religious critics have called it Masonry's "religious" expression) is too wan in a time of noisier public evidencing of faiths.

Masonry is not alone in being a victim of such cultural changes. General Motors, Sears, Korvette, Marshall Fields, and hundreds of others were tied to one phase of the culture and could not readapt fast enough. While mainline Protestantism, with its cultural diversity, is not quite so closely wed to a waning part of the culture and adapts in many ways, where it does decline, the declines often parallel those in Masonry.

Now an abrupt end-note on the Zeitgeist: Recalling Dean Inge's old warning about how one soon becomes widowed if wed to the spirit of the times, it is time to ask about the future of currently prospering and often boasting leaders of religious movements that are overly tied to the new scene of pop culture, partisan political identification, and market-based choice of religious themes and strategies. Next time you pass a vacated Masonic building, think of the folly of swaggering today and ask: Who and what are next?



Vatican Documents Shed Light On Trial Of Knights Templars

Rome — The Vatican has published secret documents about the trial of the Knights Templar, including a parchment, long ignored because of a vague catalog entry in 1628, showing that Pope Clement V initially absolved the medieval order of heresy.

The 300page volume re­cently came out in a limited edi­tion m 799 copies each priced at; $8,377, said Scrinium publishing house, which prints documents from the Vatican's secret archives.

The order of knights, which ultimately disappeared because of the heresy scandal, recently captivated the imaginations of readers of the bestseller The Da Vinci Code, which linked the Templars to the story of the Holy Grail.

The Vatican work repro­duces the entire documentation of the papal hearings convened after King Philip IV of France arrested and tortured Templar leaders in 1307 on charges of heresy and immorality.

'More than an error'

The military order of the Poor Knights of Christ and of the Temple of Solomon was founded in 1118 in Jerusalem to protect pilgrims in the Holy Land after the First Crusade. As their military might in­creased, the Templars also grew in wealth, acquiring property throughout Europe and running a primitive banking system.

After they left the Middle East with the collapse of the Crusader kingdoms, their power and secretive ways aroused the fear of European rulers arid sparked accusations of corruption and blasphemy.

Historians believe Philip owed debts to the Templars and used the accusations to arrest their leaders and extract, under torture, confessions of heresy as a way to seize the order's riches.

The Vatican archives re­searcher who found the parch­ment said Friday that it probably had been ignored because the 1628 catalog entry on the 40inchwide parchment was "too Spartan, too vague."

"Unfortunately, there was an archiving error, an error in how the document was described," the researcher, Barbara Frale, said in a telephone interview from her home in Viterbo, north of Italy.

"More than an error, it was a little sketchy," she said.

An important inquest

The parchment, in remark­ably good condition considering its 700 years, apparently had last been consulted at the start of the 20th century, Frale said, surmising its significance must have not have been realized.

Frale said she was intrigued by the 1628 entry because, while it apparently referred to some minor matter, it noted that three top cardinals, includ­ing the right hand man of Clem­ent, Berenger Fredol, had made a long journey to interrogate someone.

"Going on with my research, it turned out that in reality it was an inquest of very great im­portance" on behalf of the pope, Frale said. Fredol "had gone to question the Great Master and other heads of the Templars who had been segregated, prac­tically kidnapped, by the king of France and shut up in secret in his castle in Chinon on the Loire."

According to the Vatican ar­chives Web site, the parchment shows that Clement initially ab­solved the Templar leaders of heresy, though he did find them guilty of immorality, and that he planned to reform the order.

However, pressured by Philip, Clement later reversed his decision and suppressed the order in 1312. .



Masonic Anniversaries
Brother Years
Bob Scarborough50
Chester H. Beaty40
Robert F. Willie32
Wes Mersiovsky21
Eric Flanagan14
Danny Williamson10
Matt Stokes02
Happy Birthday To
BrotherAge
John W. Reese, Jr.81
Doyle Sitton76
Ed Locklear75
Chester H. Beaty69
John W. Loofs64
John Leatherman62
John N. Daut, Sr.58
Delane Corley32



Membership Dues, Our Sometime Neglected Duty

Chapter 18 – Title II (Grand Lodge Of Texas Law Book) “Art. 319. (354)
Lodge dues are due and payable one year in advance on January 1st of each year (unless otherwise exempt) and if not paid on or before that date a member shall be in arrears for his dues;”

As of this date, 12 members have still not paid their 2011 dues. That means those 12 members do not have a valid dues card, are not currently members in good standing and legally can not be allowed to attend any Lodge meetings.

It appears that since members are not suspended for non-payment of dues until June 14, some members mistakenly think that is the due date.



The Acacia

The acacia, which, in Scripture, is always called Shittah, was esteemed a sacred wood among the Hebrews. Of it Moses was ordered to make the tabernacle, the Ark of the Covenant, and table for the shewbread, and the rest of the sacred furniture.

The acacia, then, has always been consecrated from among the other trees of the forest by the sacred purposes to which it was devoted. The Jew has constructed the tree from whose wood the sanctuary of the tabernacle and the Holy Ark. The early Masons very naturally appropriated this hollow plant to the equally sacred purpose of a symbol, which was to teach an important divine truth in all ages to come.

The acacia, in the mythic system of Freemasonry, is preeminently the symbol of the Immortality of the Soul - that important doctrine which is the great design of the Institution to teach. As the evanescent nature of the flower, which "cometh forth and is cut down" reminds us of the transitory nature of human life, so the perpetual renovation of the evergreen plant, which interruptedly presents the appearance of youth and vigor, is aptly compared to the spiritual life in which the soul, freed from the corruptible companionship of the body, shall enjoy an eternal spring and an immortal youth.

Hence we see the propriety if placing the sprig of acacia as an emblem of immortality, among the symbols of that degree, all of whose ceremonies are intended to teach us the great truth that "the life of man, regulated by morality, faith and justice, will be rewarded at its closing hour by the prospect of Eternal Bliss. "

The sprig of acacia, then, in its most ordinary significance, presents itself to the Master Mason as a symbol of the immortality of the soul, being intended to remind him, by its evergreen and unchanging nature, of that better and spiritual part within us, which, as an emanation from the Grand Architect of the Universe, can never die.



The Small Town Texas Masons E-Magazine

Don’t miss reading the monthly Small Town Texas Masons E-Magazine at, http://www.mastermason.com/STTM-Emag/

This Month features the Texas City Lodge, #1118 A.F.& A.M. and Texas Masonic History - Twenty Minutes Beside The San Jacinto River


This Month's Humor

Ain't it the Truth!!!

A woman goes to the doctor for her yearly physical.

The nurse starts with certain basic items.

"How much do you weigh?" she asks.

"115," she says.

The nurse puts her on the scale.

It turns out her weight is 140.

The nurse asks, "Your height?"

"5 foot 8," she says.

The nurse checks and sees that she only measures 5' 5".

She then takes her blood pressure

And tells the woman it is very high.

"Of course it's high!" she screams,

"When I came in here I was tall and slender!

Now I'm short and fat!"

The Waller Lodge Electronic Newsletter Subscriber's Extra Features


Brother Earl Stanley Morner - Alias Dennis Morgan

A Did U Know?
By W. Bro. Dwight D. Seals

Earl Stanley Morner, who was born in Prentice, Wisconsin in Dec. 1910 of Swedish and Pennsylvania Dutch ancestry, always believed he would have a career as a singer. In a sense he was correct. As a child and young man he sang Irish tenor in his Presbyterian Church choir as well as in the glee club at Carroll College in Waukesha, Wisconsin where he graduated in 1930. Soon he got a job at radio station WTMJ in Milwaukee and began acting and playing the trombone in stock companies. Moving to Chicago he sang at the Palmer House with Vernon Buck's Orchestra and tried some opera roles in Faust and Carmen. On Sept. 5, 1933 he married Lillian Vedder his childhood sweetheart. They were married for 61 years and had three children.

The next year he had a screen test at MGM and in 1936 his first film was released "I Conquer the Sea" about whaling. The same year he was in "The Great Ziegfeld" doing "A Pretty Girl Is Like a Melody". Oddly the song was dubbed by Allan Jones! He remained at MGM for a year doing bit parts. In 1937 he signed a contract with Warner Brothers who changed his name to Richard Stanley and gave him more supporting roles with an occasional song to sing. He finally got a starring role in "Waterfront" 1940 and was first billed under the name by which he is known: DENNIS MORGAN. That same year he got his big break co-starring with Ginger Rogers who won an Oscar for "Kitty Foyle".In 1942 he supported James Cagney in "Captains of the Clouds" filmed in Technicolor in Canada. In 1943 he sang "One Alone" by Bro. Sigmund Romberg (Mason) in "The Desert Song". He and Ann Sheridan portrayed the song and dance team of Jack Norworth and Nora Bayes in "Shine On Harvest Moon" 1944. Next he portrayed Bro. Robert Scott (Mason) in "God Is My Co-Pilot". A second 1945 film has become almost as popular as "It's a Wonderful Life". "Christmas In Connecticut" teamed him with Barbara Stanwyck. He gets to sing many of Bro. Chauncey Olcott's (Mason) famous Irish songs in the biographical picture "My Wild Irish Rose." 1947. "One Sunday Afternoon" co-stars Bro. Don Defore (Mason) and "Two Guys From Texas" co-stars Bro. Jack Carson (Mason). Morgan's contract with Warner Brothers ended in 1952. He had made 44 films in 15 years. Like many actors he moved into guest appearances in television from "GE Theater" to "Love Boat". Arguably the best of the 13 appearances was "Bull In a China Shop" from "Alfred Hitchcock Presents" 1958. He also starred in the series "21 Beacon Street" a summer replacement for NBC in 1959. Morgan also recorded a number of semi-classical and Irish songs for Columbia Records. He also appeared on radio with Bro. Al Jolson (Mason) in "Swanee River". He made a 10" LP with Rise Stevens of "The Merry Widow". At a handsome 6' 2" Dennis Morgan could have become a super star. As it was at Warner Brothers. he was less dashing than the older Errol Flynn and less romantic than the younger Gordon MacRae. The versatile yet underrated actor was the highest paid Warner Brothers star of the 1940's. He quietly retired with an occasional spot on TV after 1955. He died Sept. 7, 1994 in Fresno, California where he was in the wine business.

In 1958 Morgan spearheaded the drive for a new park in La Crescenta, California. He dedicated Two Strike Park on July 4, 1959. The park was named for Morgan's declaration that "a kid with no place to play already has two strikes against him." Morgan has a star on the Hollywood Blvd. Walk of Fame.

Brother Dennis Morgan was a member of La Canada Lodge No. 739, La Crescenta, California

May We Meet Upon The _|_ Act By The ! And Part Upon The |_



Surviving The Big Ones

By John "Corky" Daut

The big ones for me were that 16 year period between the Great Depression and the end of World War II. Being born in 1928, I grew up during the hard times between the stock market crash of 1929 and the end of World War II in 1945.

Water often provided enjoyment for the boys in Montgomery. The small stock tank on some of Mr. T. J. Peel's land by the cotton gin was a young boy's fishing dream when Tootsie and I first started fishing in it. It hadn't been fished in for years. The Peels were one of the more commanding families in Montgomery and I think most of the boys were to scared of T. J. to climb the fence. My grandfather had built T. J's new home up by the school and when grandpa did repair jobs for Miss Betty Peel up at the big house, she always gave me something to drink or a sweet. I didn't know enough to be scared, so I just walked up to T.J. on the street and said, “Mr. T.J., Tootsie Saunders and I want to fish in your stock tank.”

He grinned and said “OK, go ahead.”

Tootsie and I would dig worms until we were tired, then grab the poles and walk down past the depot and gins (there were 2 gins, across the road from each other) to the stock tank. It's not a fish story to say the bluegills would actually fight for the worm as soon as they touched the water for the first couple of weeks. We soon learned that we could do just as good by catching a grasshopper and sticking it on the hook instead of digging. Once, I was to lazy to catch grasshoppers and peeled a wild grape to use as bait. It didn't work as good, but it worked.

Swimming in Town Creek was strictly a boy thing. Come to think of it, I don't remember us ever inviting the girls along. I guess we just assumed they would have frowned at swimming with us in the nude. Some of us boys, Leon Hill, Red Akins, Charley Harrison and Phil Ottis Berkley and I would walk down to Town Creek and back into the woods a ways to the swimming hole. We would start stripping before we got there and be stark naked when we arrived at the water's edge.

Of course grandma was scared to death of water, so even though I learned to swim at Stonewall Jackson Junior High in Houston, I had to fib slightly about where I were going. Then I had to wait for my hair to dry before I could go back to the house. Grandma was a whole lot smarter then me though, and she got Mrs. Berkley to keep one eye on the road in front of her house and call grandma when she saw us go by toward the creek. That ended the swimming in the creek. Later I discovered it was Mr. Berkley who owned the pasture and had caught us swimming through a whirlpool in the swimming hole one day after a big rain and he tattled big time.

Now dad was an avid fisherman and went fishing at every opportunity. When he was a boy growing up in Montgomery, he fished in Town Creek and Little Lake Creek. He saved his money for months and bought a Dijac Minnow fishing lure with 6 hooks to catch some of the big bass in the creeks. The disadvantage of such a lure however, was that every time it got hung up, he would have to strip off his clothes and swim down to where it was hung and unhook it. He couldn't afford to replace it if it ever broke off. During the 1930's after getting married and moving to Houston, he loved to go to Eagle Point at San Leon on Galveston Bay. He and the other anglers who loved fishing enough, would gather at the Eagle Point Bait Camp just before daylight and each one would rent one of the old water soaked wooden row boats. When it got light enough, the bait camp operator would tie the boats together, end to end like a train with his shrimp boat at the front as the engine.

He would then tow all the rented boats out to the Redfish Reef area after daylight and drop them off. Each man then rowed his boat to his choice of spots in the area to fish for the day. The operator would came back in the afternoon with the shrimp boat and tow them back to the Eagle Point Bait Camp.

If anyone wanted to quit fishing and come in earlier, he had to row the mile or so back to the camp, on his own. Toward the end of the nineteen thirties dad was able to buy a second hand 1 1/2 horsepower Water Witch outboard motor. After that he was a free soul who could rent a boat and fish anywhere he wanted and anytime he wanted. At least he could if if he wasn't in a hurry to get there. Oh yes, you never heard of the Water Witch outboard? It was sold by Sears and Roebuck.

I think one of the major events in dad's life occurred in either late 1945 or early 1946. He had made friends with the fishing department manager at Oshmans Sporting Goods store downtown and was able to buy the first five horsepower Johnson outboard that was sold in Houston after the end of World War II. Then he could buzz all over Galveston Bay.

By the way, I still have that 65 year old Johnson outboard and it still runs well.



"Building Solomon's Temple" at London's
Library and Museum of Freemasonry

In the 17th century, Rabbi Jacob Jehudah Leon, also known as Leon Templo, created a model of Solomon's Temple, extrapolated from the Book of Kings and the Book of Samuel, with some additional references in the Book of Chronicles, the final book of the Hebrew Katuvim. In 1675, he took the model to London, where it was became a popular attraction. King Charles II and Sir Christopher Wren both viewed it, and at 13 feet high and 80 feet in circumference, it must have been impressive. Leon's "Temple and the Tabernacle" became the basis for a widely circulated etching. Leon's artwork was subsequently incorporated in the coat of arms of the Grand Lodge of the Antients, and eventually of the merged United Grand Lodge of England in 1813. It is entirely probable that Leon's Temple model had a strong influence on the creators of what became speculative Masonic ritual.

The Library and Museum of Freemasonry at London's Freemasons Hall will present a new exhibit January 17th through May 27th, 2011. Building Solomon's Temple will tell the tale of how Freemasonry took the biblical account of Jerusalem's Temple of Solomon and made it real within its lodge halls. It will also explore how archeological expeditions to the Holy Land in the 1800s inspired Masons like Rob Morris and Robert Freke Gould. Morris chronicled his own trip in his book, Freemasonry In The Holy Land, or Handmarks of Hiram's Builders in 1872.

“A View of the Inside of the Court of the Priests in Solomons Temple with the manner of the Preparing & Offering the Sacrifices according to the Vision of the Prophet Ezekiel, printed for Robt. Sayer at the Golden Buck opposite Fetter Lane Fleet-street, London" c.1760.




A Little Military Humor?

The Photo Booth.



Masonic Temple Is One Of Only 32 Historic Buildings In The County

By the Masonic Traveler
From Rural Lodge Newsletter

Masonic Lodge No. 55 The lodge is one of only 32 buildings in Solano County designated as a historic place.

After the 1888 blaze, all that remained of Hiram Rush's 1856 mercantile building – which housed the first home of Lodge No 55 – were the bricks. These bricks were used to rebuild the structure you find today at 623 Main Street. The building still serves as a Masonic Lodge Hall to this day.

Driving down Main Street, the historic building certainly stands out, as it was designed for both durability and aesthetics. While its oversized stained-glass panes typify a Gothic style, its rooftop is defined by a gabled parapet. The first floor's windows are reinforced by cast-iron piers, and in the center of its brick facade, a plaque remains naming the building "Mason Lodge No. 55."

According to An Architectural Guidebook to San Francisco and the Bay Area, the first tenant of the newly built two-storey brick building was the Moses Dinkelspiel & Co. dry goods store. The Heritage Collection, a book of historical paces in Suisun City, notes that the commercial space has been occupied by a variety of businesses over the years, from a pool hall to an auto parts store. Today, a hair salon operates from there.

Locally, the building is also known as Stanley Y Beverley Lodge. When Fairfield-Suisun Lodge No. 55 moved to the Masonic Temple in Fairfield, Stanley Beverly Lodge No. 108 took over residence of the top floor.



Here are some of the "funnies" our grandparents enjoyed.




The Old Tiler Talks

In Men's Hearts
From the Old Tiler's Talk - by Carl H. Claudy, The Temple Publishers


"Where is the most beautiful Masonic temple in the world?" asked the New Brother of the Old Tiler.

"Wouldn't the answer depend on one's conception of beauty? retorted the Old Tiler. "I might think, and you another, while an architect or an artist might choose still another."

"Well, which one do you choose?" persisted the New Brother.

"I don't!" answered the Old Tiler. "The House of the Temple in Washington is impressive; Detroit has a wonderful temple; Philadelphia's temple is massive and beautiful, the Albert Pike memorial in Little Rock is considered fine. I cannot choose."

"You think it is one of these?"

"No, I am simply trying to oblige," laughed the Old Tiler. "I know three temples which impressed me more than any of these."

"I asked because I am taking a winter vacation. I'd like to see the wonderful temples Masonry has erected. Tell me where your three are located!"

"One temple that to me is great in beauty is in a town of about 2,000 people in the Middle West. The lodge room is over a country store. The floor is bare of carpet. The chairs are plain wood. The heating plant is one large stove; it is the Junior Deacons' business to feed it during the meetings. The walls are stained, the lamps are kerosene, there is no organ or piano and the ribbons in the lodge jewels are frayed. Not very up-to-date, the members of this lodge.

"But this lodge made a boy of twenty-two a Master Mason just before he went to France in the first world war. After Soissons he lay all night on the field with a shattered leg and an arm so badly mangled that later they cut it off. While he lay there he heard familiar words from the familiar burial service of a Mason; 'this evergreen, which once marked the temporary resting place of the illustrious dead is an emblem of our faith in the immortality of the soul.'

"The wounded boy called for help. Came crawling to him was a man slightly wounded, who had said the service over the remains of a comrade. At the risk of his life he hauled the wounded boy to safety. That wounded boy came back to this little country lodge to tell his brethren of what Masonry means in men's hearts when they carry it into the battlefield. As I listened the plain board walls fell away, the deal floor became tessellated marble, the low stained ceiling became a vaulted archway and the Great Architect Himself entered the East Gate.

"Another beautiful temple I only heard of. Civil engineers were building a railroad in the Andes. One of their laborers, a Mason, had fever and had to be sent home. This party of five sat out under the trees and the stars and talked on the square. Each of them gave a month's salary to the sick laborer. He had a wife and two babies in Denver, the wife trying to live in spite of the dread disease Denver's high altitude cures. Our ancient brethren met under the stars, where their 'covering was no less than the clouded canopy or starry-decked heaven.' But none of these ever held a more beautiful lodge than those five young men, filled with Masonic charity, giving each more than he could afford for a day laborer in hard luck, because he was a Mason.

"My third most beautiful temple was made of many little tents. There were children in them; children large and small, and there was no distinction between them of race, creed, color. All a child had to be was poor to have two weeks in the open. Nor was this a lodge charity; it was the work of a Masonic club, and run by individual contributions. As I looked I heard the organ peal as I have never heard it in many temples of stone.

"As a teacher said, 'for where two or three are gathered together in my name, there am I in the midst of them.' Where three, five, seven or more Master Masons gather in the name of Masonry, there is the temple. It is right and wise that we build great temples of stone and carving; which give testimony to all the world that here men gather in brotherhood. Masonic structures play a great part and we could spare them ill. But the greatest Masonic temples are builded in men's hearts.

"If you would visit beautiful temples in your travels. seek less for mighty building and more for a house not made with hands. 'Masonry builds her temples in the hearts of men' and in men's hearts shall you seek for, and find, those most beautiful."

The Old Tiler ceased and looked off into space as if he saw a vision. The New Brother looked at the Old Tiler. "I do not need to travel far to see one of the most beautiful temples," he said.


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