Lost Word_, by Henry Van Dyke; and, of course, the poetry of Burns.

Masonic phrases and allusions--often almost too revealing--are found
all through the poems and stories of Kipling. Besides the poem _The
Mother Lodge_, so much admired, there is _The Widow of Windsor_, such
stories as _With the Main Guard_, _The Winged Hats_, _Hal o' the
Draft_, _The City Walls_, _On the Great Wall_, many examples in _Kim_,
also in _Traffics and Discoveries_, _Puck of Pook's Hill_, and, by no
means least, _The Man Who Would be King_, one of the great short
stories of the world.

Part III--Interpretation

WHAT IS MASONRY

/#
_I am afraid you may not consider it an altogether substantial
concern. It has to be seen in a certain way, under certain
conditions. Some people never see it at all. You must understand,
this is no dead pile of stones and unmeaning timber. It is a_
LIVING _thing._

_When you enter it you hear a sound--a sound as of some mighty
poem chanted. Listen long enough, and you will learn that it is
made up of the beating of human hearts, of the nameless music of
men's souls--that is, if you have ears to hear. If you have eyes,
you will presently see the church itself--a looming mystery of
many shapes and shadows, leaping sheer from floor to dome. The
work of no ordinary builder!_

_The pillars of it go up like the brawny trunks of heroes; the
sweet flesh of men and women is molded about its bulwarks, strong,
impregnable; the faces of little children laugh out from every
corner stone; the terrible spans and arches of it are the joined
hands of comrades; and up in the heights and spaces are inscribed
the numberless musings of all the dreamers of the world. It is yet
building--building and built upon._

_Sometimes the work goes on in deep darkness; sometimes in
blinding light; now under the burden of unutterable anguish; now
to the tune of great laughter and heroic shoutings like the cry of
thunder. Sometimes, in the silence of the night-time, one may hear
the tiny hammerings of the comrades at work up in the dome--the
comrades that have climbed ahead._

--C.R. KENNEDY, _The Servant in the House_
#/

CHAPTER I

_What is Masonry_

I

What, then, is Masonry, and what is it trying to do in the world?
According to one of the _Old Charges_, Masonry is declared to be an
"ancient and honorable institution: ancient no doubt it is, as hav