Once upon a time, many, many years ago, two boys left the parental roof in the early hours of the day to pursue their usual vocations. One was a tiller of the soil; the other a herder of sheep. There was nothing unusual about this circumstance, and it would have passed unnoticed had not one of the boys returned home at the close of day without his companion. When questioned as to the whereabouts of his brother, he coolly asked, "Am I my brother's keeper?"

Cain lived in the old days when the world was crude, when men and women ran wild and naked through the swamps and forests, when they fought each other just as savagely as they did the other beasts about them. They lived in cold stone caves or in rough nests among the trees. What secrets of nature they possessed were clawed out with long scrawny fingers. In that barbaric age, there was but one law - an eye for an eye, and a tooth for a tooth. Might was the only rule of right; self preservation the only moral instinct; the fittest alone survived. There was no such thing as love. Human sympathy was unborn and fraternity, the future motive power of mankind, dreamed. Even now there appears the vision of Cain's grandfather standing in the midst of a stagnant pool in northern Europe. The trees are strange; life is strange; everything is strange. On the hank of the pool is an angry mammoth with long hair and sharp tusks. This huge beast is a monster of power with small vicious eyes, and as he raises his curled trunk, he threatens with an exhibition of unlimited force. In the middle of the pool is another queer creature. He has ion,- reel hair, thick lips, and as he opens them he discloses the canine incisors abnormally developed. He is a shaggy, savage looking brute with restless, blood-shot eye, and yet he is a human being. That red-eyed human animal in the middle of the pool was sent by God to reclaim the earth, to conquer the forms of animal life about him, to rise above his environment. It was the grandson of this man of the pool who returned home at the close of day and voiced the spirit of his age with the cool question, "Am I my brother's keeper?" For had not the stronger survived the weaker.

The mammoth is gone; the rhinoceros with his woolly hide is no more; the cave bear has disappeared; but the little animal man, that ugly, red-eyed, shaggy haired, man of the pool and the cave and the tree was the grandfather of the human race, and his sons and grandsons walk the earth today, masters of all they survey.

But the man of the cave and the tree and the pool was not destined to tread the earth as a wild beast. Within his breast was a dormant soul whose first crude instinct was a longing for companionship. This led the cave-man to roam about in quest of a comrade, and when he observed a female who pleased his fancy, he picked her up and carried her to his rough abode. This marked the commencement of the family, and the fruition of the social instinct, the result of which has been the home, the community, the town, the city, the nation, and in the final analysis Freemasonry.

In the age of Cain, the family was the nation. Whatever kinship existed was regarded as accidental, for the social instinct had not yet so far developed as to even suggest the idea of mutual dependence or brotherhood. Every man outside of his own family circle was looked upon as an enemy to be slain, the same as the giant beasts which menaced the existence of the savage human beings. As time passed on, the family unit gave way to the tribe because it promised more power to prey upon less fortunate neighbors. The tribes in due time united into larger organizations known as communities, gave tip their nomadic habits and settled down to fixed habitations. Heretofore blood relationship had been the basis of the crude society of the period, but now land became the standard of power and men grew into petty lords and masters in proportion to their worldly possessions and physical prowess.

The early community recognized no right other than its own will. It had no common interest with any other community and treated all men outside of its narrow limits as enemies and legititerminated. The fundamental idea of each community was to wage successful warfare upon neighboring communities and as far as possible destroy them. The social instinct which prompted this was merely that of the survival of the fittest, and human brotherhood was but a cold emotion which exempted the members of a community from the wrath of its own constituents, but which gave unlimited license to murder, ravage, and plunder the remainder of human kind.

But in the evolution of man, the feeble spark of social instinct was being gradually fanned into a live flame. Slowly the crude minds of men commenced to grasp the idea that the boundaries of their various communities were standards of their own establishment, and that after all they had something in common with their neighbors. As a result, various communities commenced to unite for mutual defense and advancement. Just as the small communities were drawn into a closer union and a more intimate fellowship, so the larger ones were fused into the nation. Primitive Rome owes its origin to the union of many small communities. Seven kingdoms were formed out of countless principalities to make Great Britain, and the seven kingdoms were finally united by Egbert, the Saxon into a great nation. The Republic of France is a blending of Roman, Iberian, Teuton, and Celt races which once fought each other with savage intensity.

Germany originally consisted of over three hundred principalities, each one warring upon the other. In America, many states once declaring an independent sovereignity have united to form the greatest nation of all history, and today offer to the world an example of the social instinct crystalized into an incomparable brotherhood. With the evolution of the social instinct, the passions of the savage man were tamed, and lust, murder, plunder, and fury gave place to a growing sense of mutual dependence. Today the brute in man is subdued in the interest of public welfare, and men relate themselves to one another for universal happiness and protection.

To understand the beginnings of Masonry, we must study the moral and social development of man. In so doing, the student is forced to the conclusion that Freemasonry is the direct outgrowth and tendency of men to assemble in social units. Man is by nature a social being. It is an old saying that, "birds of a feather flock together," although it is very difficult to understand how they can flock. otherwise than together. A man cannot very well flock by himself.

No man is independent. From the days of Cain, the world has been slowly finding out that the human race is not many units but one unit, and that no one member can suffer without harm to all. As a result, a new term has crept into use, that of social or civic conscience. In other words, society has become so unified and bound together that it thinks and feels and acts as one person with a single emotion. The man who lives in this day and age cannot have an individual preserve set apart wholly for himself, neither can he do as he pleases. For the good of the community, he must give up many of the socalled inalienable rights which he has inherited from his grandfather of the age of Cain. No man is worth anything in modern society unless he is able to get on with people and to relate himself to something outside of himself and to observe a proper respect for the rights of others.

It has already been proven that we are a society of related creatures. It is only in human association that we can live out our true. mission. Were each man to live in a world of his own creation, and to declare his independence of his neighbors, there would be no such thing as civilization, and Freemasonry would be impossible. Diogenes of old did not like the society of his times so he went off by himself and lived in a tub. From that moment he lost his influence with his fellowmen and when he went clown the streets of Athens in broad day-light swinging his lantern and advising the populace that he was seeking a man, he had but little effect and is remembered today as a silly old recluse.

Dependence is the common lot of man, and happiness and culture are only derived from a right relationship with those about us. No heroic character was ever developed without self-sacrifice. Society makes us dependent, and whether we will or will not, we are bound to think of others.

In nature, no clement or force exists unrelated. It is united with other elements for a common labor and an interchange of service for a common end. The whole law of nature is interdependence. The animal world breathes out gases vital to the vegetable kingdom; the vegetable world in turn absorbs elements which are necessary to animal strength and vigor; the equator greets the north pole with the warm gulf stream; and the pole returns its gratitude with a colder stream and a fleet of icebergs to temper the fierce heat of the tropics. Self-existence is condemned by nature. The only examples of isolation are those of the monk who lives a life of solitude to satisfy an avenging conscience, or the hermit whose diseased mind causes him to seek seclusion as an affront to society for some imagined wrong. Only as men advance sufficiently in their evolution as to place implicit trust in one another, can there be an abiding state of society, and Freemasonry become possible.

Man must have that sympathy which flows from association. Joy is ever increased in sharing it with others. Grief is lessened when other human souls enter into it. Companionship pusltes man to improvement, to cultivate science and art, and to bring his powers into operation for the good of those about him, thereby contributing to the solution of the problems of humanity.

It is only in the society of his fellows that man's attributes find full play. In solitude he dwarfs into insignificance. The gratification of the social instinct has been responsible for his advancement from a cave dweller to his present status and the high cost of living, and this same social instinct has made possible the evolution of Freemasonry because it is the basis of all moral and intellectual culture.

Companionship gives scope to man's special virtues, and out of the yearning for this state have come varied orders and institutions with their magnificent character and ministry for good. Among these we have Freemasonry, a social institution to develop friendship, quicken sympathy, enlarge the emotions, and give to the world the magnificent benefices of human brotherhood.

Universal brotherhood grows out of social relationship. Fraternity is a world in which the faces of men are turned toward each other. It means the science of humanity based upon the fact that we have a common origin, and a common destiny, and that God is the Creator and Father of us all, and that from this relationship evolves the civilization of the human race. In the evolution of man, we have passed from the individual to the family, to the community, to the state, and interstate alliance, and in due time will pass to a united group of nations; the dream of Freemasonry; the fulfillment of God's plan; in the parliament of man; the federation of the world.

The first associations of men then were for mutual protection, but through a long process of evolution, moral, social, and ethical relations have been gradually developed until we have the present advanced state of civilization. There can he no justice until men in large masses are rightly related to each other. There can be no happiness unless confidence is established between the different strata of society. There can be no Freemasonry until each man realizes that he lives not for himself alone, but that his true mission on earth is one of service. The Poet of the Lakes said, "We have all one human heart," and Freemasonry is the common heart of all humanity. So away back in the beginning of the human race, God planted in the breast of man a desire for the companionship of his fellowmen, and this passion has grown, and developed until the present age when we find it manifest in its most perfected form and call it Freemasonry.

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