LOVE AND FRIENDSHIP
WB Ryan B. Tirol, PM
Q: What is a very good way of showing our love for ourselves?
A: As admonished by the Enter Apprentice Mason (EAM) Monitor, we must follow such a prudent and well-regulated course of discipline as may best conduce to the preservation of our corporeal and mental faculties in their fullest energy, thereby enabling ourselves to exert the talents wherewith God has blest us as well to His glory as the welfare of our fellow-creatures.
Q: What will happen if all men are imbued with Masonry’s spirit of friendship?
A: If all men are imbued with Masonry’s spirit of friendship, then the wrangling sects will be lost in a great league of those who love in service of those who suffer. No man will then revile the faith in which his neighbor find help today and hope for tomorrow; pity will smite him mute; and love will teach him that God is found in many ways by those who seek Him with humble hearts.
Q: What will take place if the same spirit pervades the realm of trade and industry?
A: If the same spirit pervades the realm of trade and industry, “the law of the jungle” (that is, the survival of the fittest) will cease, and men will strive to build a social order in which all men may have the opportunity “to live, and to live well,” as Aristotle defined the purpose of society.
Unfortunately, there still exist among men much suspicion, uncharitableness, and hate; much warfare, waste, and woe; much faction feud, and folly; much separation due to barriers of race, creed, caste, habit, training, and interest.