of
each; that faith which underlies all sects and over-arches all creeds,
like the sky above and the river bed below the flow of mortal years.
It does not undertake to explain or dogmatically to settle those
questions or solve those dark mysteries which out-top human knowledge.
Beyond the facts of faith it does not go. With the subtleties of
speculation concerning those truths, and the unworldly envies growing
out of them, it has not to do. There divisions begin, and Masonry was
not made to divide men, but to unite them, leaving each man free to
think his own thought and fashion his own system of ultimate truth.
All its emphasis rests upon two extremely simple and profound
principles--love of God and love of man. Therefore, all through the
ages it has been, and is today, a meeting place of differing minds,
and a prophecy of the final union of all reverent and devout souls.

Time was when one man framed a dogma and declared it to be the eternal
truth. Another man did the same thing, with a different dogma; then
the two began to hate each other with an unholy hatred, each seeking
to impose his dogma upon the other--and that is an epitome of some of
the blackest pages of history. Against those old sectarians who
substituted intolerance for charity, persecution for friendship, and
did not love God because they hated their neighbors, Masonry made
eloquent protest, putting their bigotry to shame by its simple
insight, and the dignity of its golden voice. A vast change of heart
is now taking place in the religious world, by reason of an exchange
of thought and courtesy, and a closer personal touch, and the various
sects, so long estranged, are learning to unite upon the things most
worth while and the least open to debate. That is to say, they are
moving toward the Masonic position, and when they arrive Masonry will
witness a scene which she has prophesied for ages.

At last, in the not distant future, the old feuds of the sects will
come to an end, forgotten in the discovery that the just, the brave,
the true-hearted are everywhere of one religion, and that when the
masks of misunderstanding are taken off they know and love one
another. Our little dogmas will have their day and cease to be, lost
in the vision of a truth so great that all men are one in their
littleness; one also in their assurance of the divinity of the soul
and "the kindness of the veiled Father of men." Then men of every name
will ask, when they meet: