Restrictions with regard to the admission of candidates both for initiation and affiliation.

 






Restrictions with regard to the admission of candidates both for initiation and affiliation.


This is regarded generally as a wise step, for there is grave danger in the counting of heads. When undertaken, the counting should be of souls. In other words, it should be the spiritual and not the material progress that ought to be appraised; and the same, or even greater, regard should be paid to the capability of candidates to assimilate and disseminate the tenets of Freemasonry by practical exemplification in their lives as is paid in some jurisdictions to their material position in life. It is just as necessary to know whether they will live the Masonic life as it is to know whether their circumstances will enable them to pay the dues required for their initiation and the continuance of their membership.
Did you ever sit down and examine your thoughts and actions, and ask then yourself for a straightforward, honest answer to the question: "What have I done for Freemasonry?" Can you find anything in your life that you wold have done differently if you had not been a mason? In other words: has Freemasonry in any way influenced your course of life? How many times have you recognized the fact that some poor , miserable, unfortunate wretch was your brother? How often has your heart gone out in charity for the faults, needs, and woes of others? How often have you used your influence to reclaim he erring brother? Have the tenets of Freemasonry been exemplified in you, or have you been living a lie?

Freemasonry is a great university, where men come together on the common ground of mutual esteem, respect, and fraternity. There the minor differences of creed and opinion are forgotten: hand clasps hand, eye greets eye, and earts thrill and throb in unison. All recognize and acknowledge the inherent right of each member to his own individual belief, so long as that belief is founded on the great tenets we seek to inculcate---Faith, Hope, Charity, and Toleration; such charity and toleration as will impel us, before passing judgement upon another's acts, to endeavor to learn and understand the motive, for only as we understand correctly the environment and motives of another can we rightly determine whether his act, be it good or ill, is one upon which we can honestly and impartially pass judgement.