ure, work for the welfare of mankind,
striving morally to ennoble themselves and others, and
thereby to bring about a universal league of mankind, which
they aspire to exhibit even now on a small scale._
#/

Civilization could hardly begin until man had learned to fashion for
himself a settled habitation, and thus the earliest of all human arts
and crafts, and perhaps also the noblest, is that of the builder.
Religion took outward shape when men first reared an altar for their
offerings, and surrounded it with a sanctuary of faith and awe, of
pity and consolation, and piled a cairn to mark the graves where their
dead lay asleep. History is no older than architecture. How fitting,
then, that the idea and art of building should be made the basis of a
great order of men which has no other aim than the upbuilding of
humanity in Faith, Freedom, and Friendship. Seeking to ennoble and
beautify life, it finds in the common task and constant labor of man
its sense of human unity, its vision of life as a temple "building and
built upon," and its emblems of those truths which make for purity of
character and the stability of society. Thus Masonry labors, linked
with the constructive genius of mankind, and so long as it remains
true to its Ideal no weapon formed against it can prosper.

One of the most impressive and touching things in human history is
that certain ideal interests have been set apart as especially
venerated among all peoples. Guilds have arisen to cultivate the
interests embodied in art, science, philosophy, fraternity, and
religion; to conserve the precious, hard-won inheritances of humanity;
to train men in their service; to bring their power to bear upon the
common life of mortals, and send through that common life the light
and glory of the Ideal--as the sun shoots its transfiguring rays
through a great dull cloud, evoking beauty from the brown earth. Such
is Masonry, which unites all these high interests and brings to their
service a vast, world-wide fraternity of free and devout men, built
upon a foundation of spiritual faith and moral idealism, whose
mission it is to make men friends, to refine and exalt their lives, to
deepen their faith and purify their dream, to turn them from the
semblance of life to homage for truth, beauty, righteousness, and
character. More than an institution, more than a tradition, more than
a society, Masonry is one of the forms of the Divine Life upon earth.
No one