5º – Perfect Master 14 страница

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for Masonry is Peace, and Brotherly Love, and Concord.

2321.

Masonry is the great Peace Society of the world.

2322.

Wherever it exists, it struggles to prevent international difficulties and disputes;

and to bind Republics, Kingdoms, and Empires together in one great band of peace and amity.

2323.

It would not so often struggle in vain,

if Masons knew their power and valued their oaths.

2324.

Who can sum up the horrors and woes accumulated in a single war?

2325.

Masonry is not dazzled with all its pomp and circumstance, all its glitter and glory.

2326.

War comes with its bloody hand into our very dwellings.

2327.

It takes from ten thousand homes those who lived there in peace and comfort,

held by the tender ties of family and kindred.

2328.

It drags them away, to die untended, of fever or exposure, in infectious climes;

or to be hacked, torn, and mangled in the fierce fight;

2329.

to fall on the gory field, to rise no more,

or to be borne away, in awful agony, to noisome and horrid hospitals.

2330.

The groans of the battle-field are echoed in sighs of bereavement from thousands of desolated hearths.

2331.

There is a skeleton in every house, a vacant chair at every table.

2332.

Returning, the soldier brings worse sorrow to his home,

by the infection which he has caught, of camp-vices.

2333.

The country is demoralized.

2334.

The national mind is brought down,

from the noble interchange of kind offices with another people,

to wrath and revenge, and base pride,

and the habit of measuring brute strength against brute strength, in battle.

2335.

Treasures are expended, that would suffice to build

ten thousand churches, hospitals, and universities,

or rib and tie together a continent with rails of iron.

2336.

If that treasure were sunk in the sea, it would be calamity enough;

yet it is put to worse use;

for it is expended in cutting into the veins and arteries of human life,

until the earth is deluged with a sea of blood.

2337.

Such are the lessons of this Degree.

2338.

You have vowed to make them the rule, the law, and the guide of your life and conduct.

2339.

If you do so, you will be entitled, because you are fitted,

to advance in Masonry.

2340.

If you do not, you have already gone too far.

Morals & Dogma CHAPTER SEVENTY ONE

Divisions 2341-23 75

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