Grand Orator's Address: As a Man Thinketh

 

A Look Back - From The Proceedings of The Grand Lodge of Texas  December 1924

Grand Orator's Address

By Right Worshipful Brother Joe B. Hines, Grand Orator

As a Man Thinketh

Most Worshipful Grand Master, Right Worshipful Past Grand Masters, Right Worshipful Deputy Grand Masters, Right Worshipful Senior and Junior Grand Wardens and Brethren:

During hundreds of centuries the human race has existed upon this planet, the sphere upon which we move and act, and we call the period of existence here our life.  In the vision of poets and the teachings of sages and the common experience of mankind is summarized by the symbolic term "A Pilgrimage." In that pilgrimage are encountered many storms, woeful terrors, mighty dangers, and distressing reverses.  Life, therefore, seems full of perplexity and sorrow.  Like the Arabian chief, whose trials are depicted in Holy Writ, humanity ofttimes yields to despair and breaks forth into the dread lamentation "Man is born unto trouble as the sparks fly upward," but the whole fabric of Masonic philosophy and tradition is interwoven with a glowing thread of happiness and with cheer.  The songs of birds, the fragrance of flowers, the grandeur of rocks, old ocean's gray and melancholy waste, and the beauties of the Heavens are but the varied languages in which grand old Nature speaks to us, when with ardent hearts we hold communion.  Striving to make the world brighter and better, grasping in friendship not only the hands of our brothers, but of all humanity, creating sunshine where shadows seem lowering, these are parts of our happy creed.  This is doubtless true because many of us join in the belief that Masonry is of divine origin, and has existed since the creation of man.  Masonry is of divine  origin, because man is of divine origin.  Man is of divine origin because man himself is divine.  Earnestly believing in these doctrines, my message to you shall be "As a Man Thinketh."

"Mind is the Master-power that moulds and makes,

And Man is Mind, and ever more he takes

The tool of Thought, and shaping what he wills,

Brings forth a thousand joys, a thousand ills :

He thinks in secret, and it comes to pass:

Environment is but his looking glass."

Masonry and science are synonymous terms, and science and true religion are alike the offspring of Infinite wisdom and mercy, both revealed to mankind for their happiness.

The Bible is believed by all true Masons to contain the revelation of the will of God and the code of laws which He has devised for the government of men.  It is not a revelation of the arts and sciences; yet it reveals enough to convince us that He, who proclaimed the Ten Commandments from amidst the darkness, the lightnings and thunders of Sinai, also, in different ages, disclosed to us the principles of that science which is necessary for our temporal welfare.

Man is divine, because he is a spark from Divinity itself.  The "Divinity that shapes our ends" is in ourselves; it is our very self.

"As a man thinketh in his heart, so is he." A man is literally what he thinks, his character being the complete sum of all his thoughts.

The mere mouthing of all the ritual in the world cannot make a man a Mason, because Masonry is pure and holy.  Masonry is divine.  No matter what our rank in the Order may be, no matter to what heights we have climbed in the eyes of the Fraternal world, unless in our most secret being, we are Masons, we are worse than "sounding brass and tinkling cymbals," and the fruits of our profession and labors are vain.

"As a man thinketh, so is he." Thought cannot be kept secret; it rapidly crystallizes into habit, and habit solidifies into circumstance; impure thoughts of every kind crystallize into enervating and confusing habits, which solidify into distracting and adverse circumstances.  A particular train of thought persisted in, be it good or bad, cannot fail to produce its results on the character and circumstances.

Masonry has made a profound impression upon the affairs of men in every age of the world.  The patient archaeologist has gone deeper and deeper into the past, revealing civilizations that existed long before the time set for our Year of Light, and everywhere, in every excavation, including those in the Land of the Mayas and later ones, signs and symbols, clearly intelligible to those who would read, establish the fact that Masonry has been practiced in every age since the creation of man. Next to the Church of God, I regard it as the greatest benefactor of mankind.  To learn the extent of the benefits it has conferred upon our race, you must look into the ages which have passed away.  Empires have been overthrown, fertile realms have been turned to barren wastes, and great cities have been transformed into shapeless ruins, by the folly and rage of man; but Masonry has never been engaged in any of the bloody revolutions and guilty wars which have caused this desolation.  Her benevolent task has been to enlighten and to bless, to civilize barbarism, and to build up and preserve what ignorance, ambition, avarice, and revenge have combined to destroy.  Wherever a holy congregation of the redeemed have worshipped, she has erected the building consecrated by the presence of the Lord.  Her skill constructed the noble edifices which have saved all the works of the ancient philosophers, historians, and poets, which have survived the ravages of time.  The monuments of her glory are mouldering on Zion's Hill.  They cover all the memorable mountains, hills and dales of Asia Minor, Italy, and Greece.  The traveler gazes with awe and wonder upon them as they throw their mighty shadows across the cheerless desert and the waves of the Nile.  Her stately pillars are buried in the dust, or rise like sepulchral columns above the ruins of those classic lands whose splendor has departed, and whose renown only lives in the Muses Lay.  The knowledge of the useful arts and sciences, nurtured in her secret lodges, is now diffused throughout the world; and the abundant fruit of her centuries of toil is now seen in all the beautiful and magnificent works which adorn our cities, and in the innumerable comforts and conveniences of civilized life which bless our abodes.  Though venerable with age and crowned with the honors of centuries her end is not yet come.  There is yet work for her to do and she will not expire until that is done.  Her aid will still be given to the cause of Truth, until Truth is enthroned.  Until such time, Masonry must carry on.

"By their works, ye shall know them.'' Masonry is loving and unselfish thought, gentle and forgiving thought, and these must perforce crystallize and solidify into circumstances of sure and abiding prosperity and true riches, into protective and preservative circumstances.  This is strikingly illustrated in the works of this Grand Lodge, now nearing the century mark.  All honor to the God fearing, God loving men, who have led the Craft thus far.  No country is greater than its highest ideals of citizenship and the influence of these true Craftsmen has and is doing much to shape the destiny of this great commonwealth.  They have realized that while the big things of life are not measured in dollars alone, still they have wisely and judiciously employed them, and dreams of transcendent beauty have become realities; youth's ambitious feet eagerly climb to heights of glorious accomplishment, and contentment warms the heart of old age that but for this Grand Lodge and the thought that inspired it must have been hopeless and bleak. As a man thinketh!  Today at Austin, due to the splendid and far reaching thought of one of our great leaders, palatial dormitories house the youth of Texas, and their hospitable walls beckon to possibilities of higher and nobler things.  At Arlington, amid peaceful gardens of flowers and songs and love, are gathered the patriarchs and mothers of Masonry, and though their eyes are dim with the shadowy years, their hearts are attuned to the glory of God and His handiwork as expressed in the practical thought and resultant workings of our Craft.  On the heights overlooking the city of Fort Worth are our treasures, the children of our brothers, from whose nerveless hands have fallen forever the working tools of life, and if the past hundred years have done nothing but perfect the accomplishment of this beautiful, unselfish, loving, masterful thought of faithfulness to our trust, the posterity of our Nation, speaking from the lips of these babes, shall call us blessed.

"As a man thinketh, so is he"; as he continues to think so he remains.  Masonry with all of its beauty and strength cannot help one who will not help himself, and so into the Masonic world have come drones, idlers, wearers of pins, and often do we hear the glorious institution of Freemasonry made the recipient of wholesale, unmeasured abuse, for the reason that some of its votaries prove recreant to their holy trusts. To my mind it seems we find a parallel in the case of Judas Iscariot.  Perhaps this is what the Saviour meant.

So, my brethren, I bring to you that Masonry is beautiful thought, brave thought, loving thought; beautiful because it is holy and in that sense reverent of all the works of Nature, because Nature is God; brave because it is just , without the hope of fee or reward, or fear of the slanderer's tongue; loving because it takes the whole world into its great Fraternal heart and tenderly nurtures it.

Masonry proclaims an abiding faith in the immortality of the soul.  As one of our great leaders has said: "In Cairo I secured a few grains of wheat, that had slumbered for more than three thousand years in an Egyptian tomb.  As I looked upon them, this thought came into my mind- if one of these grains of wheat had been planted on the banks of the Nile and the year after planted and replanted, its progeny would have been sufficiently numerous to feed the teeming millions of the world.  If there is in a grain of wheat an invisible something that has the power from air and earth to fashion a body so much like itself that you cannot tell one grain of wheat from another, I doubt not but that my soul has the power to clothe itself with a form suitable for its intended sphere, when this earthly form shall have crumbled into dust."

Since the creation of man, our Fraternity has grown in honor and glory, and from prospects, it will be full of life and youthful vigor when the youngest of its now living members shall have passed away.  Our power for good and the number of our initiates is greater than in any former decade, and our Fraternal ascendency extends throughout the whole world, and yet no man can see signs that the term of our triumphal dominion is approaching; and I, for one, sincerely believe that our Order will flourish in undiminished vigor when distant centuries shall actually see the universal brotherhood of man and the federation of the world.

I have seen the sky at sunset, when the brilliant tints have paled and the stars have lighted their silver lamps, shade again to amber and opal and faint ashes of the rose.  In the whole day, there is no more exquisite hour than this of tenderest twilight radiance.  It is as though some little soft child stole out through the gates ajar and with dimpled hand shifted the scenery of the skies.  By and by the bloom fades; the stars come out one by one; night and silence reign.  As Browning has said:

"God is in His Heaven:

All is right with the world."