An atheist, if such there be, is an orphan, a waif wandering
the midnight streets of time, homeless and alone. Nor is the
alternative agnosticism, which in the nature of things can be only a
passing mood of thought, when, indeed, it is not a confession of
intellectual bankruptcy, or a labor-saving device to escape the toil
and fatigue of high thinking. It trembles in perpetual hesitation, like
a donkey equi-distant between two bundles of hay, starving to death but
unable to make up its mind. No; the real alternative is materialism,
which played so large a part in philosophy fifty years ago, and which,
defeated there, has betaken itself to the field of practical affairs.
This is the dread alternative of a denial of the great faith of
humanity, a blight which would apply a sponge to all the high
aspirations and ideals of the race. According to this dogma, the first
and last things in the universe are atoms, their number, dance,
combinations, and growth. All mind, all will, all emotion, all
character, all love is incidental, transitory, vain. The sovereign fact
is mud, the final reality is dirt, and the decree of destiny is "dust
unto dust!"

Against this ultimate horror, it need hardly be said that in every age
Masonry has stood as a witness for the life of the spirit. In the war
of the soul against dust, in the choice between dirt and Deity, it has
allied itself on the side of the great idealisms and optimisms of
humanity. It takes the spiritual view of life and the world as being
most in accord with the facts of experience, the promptings of right
reason, and the voice of conscience. In other words, it dares to read
the meaning of the universe through what is highest in man, not
through what is lower, asserting that the soul is akin to the Eternal
Spirit, and that by a life of righteousness its eternal quality is
revealed.[180] Upon this philosophy Masonry rests, and finds a rock
beneath:

/P
On Him, this corner-stone we build,
On Him, this edifice erect;
And still, until this work's fulfilled,
May He the workman's ways direct.
P/

Now, consider! All our human thinking, whether it be in science,
philosophy, or religion, rests for its validity upon faith in the
kinship of man with God. If that faith be false, the temple of human
thought falls to wreck, and behold! we know not anything and have no
way of learning. But the fact that the universe is intelligible, that
we can follow its forces, trace its l